CCCmobile: A Free App for Students on the Move

City Colleges of Chicago Releases First-Ever Mobile Application for iPhone and Android Phones, Incorporating GradesFirst to Improve Student Outcomes

September 20, 2012 – Thanks to the City Colleges of Chicago’s first-ever mobile app, students can now stay connected to campus and classes while on the move. CCCmobile, a free application for iPhones and Android phones, can be downloaded at Apple’s iTunes store or Google Play.

CCCmobile’s features are practical and specially designed for CCC students: The application gives students direct access to Blackboard Mobile Learn, CCC’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube), and GradesFirst. It also provides students with emergency numbers for each campus and satellite location, a Google Maps search feature to help students navigate CCC’s seven colleges and seven satellite sites, and the City Colleges’ news feed.

Blackboard is a learning management system that hosts course materials, discussions and announcements, and publishes course grades.

GradesFirst is a web-based student support tool aimed at improving student success. Newly available to students, faculty, tutors and advisors in the Fall 2012 semester, the software offers a variety of functionalities, including: academic early alerts, so that faculty members can notify students and advisors when students are struggling; appointment-making features for advising and tutoring; and calendars that reflect class schedules and sync with private calendars. To learn more about GradesFirst, which supports CCC’s Reinvention goals of improving the success rates of adult education and college-credit students, visit ccc.edu/GradesFirst.

“Every year, more and more of our students are using smartphones,” said Vice Chancellor Arshele Stevens, City Colleges’ Chief Information Officer. “We’re pleased that CCCmobile will enable them to be more closely connected to City Colleges, both academically and otherwise, whether on or off campus.”

CCCmobile, available in seven different languages, can be downloaded at the iTunes store here and the Google Play story here. The app for Apple products was originally released in June 2012, while the Android app was released in August. Both were upgraded with GradesFirst on September 19.

About City Colleges of Chicago
The City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) is the largest community college system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation, with 5,800 faculty and staff serving 120,000 students annually at seven campuses and six satellite sites city-wide. The City Colleges of Chicago is in the midst of a Reinvention, a collaborative effort to review and revise CCC programs and practices to ensure students leave CCC college-ready, career-ready and prepared to pursue their life’s goals.

The City Colleges of Chicago includes seven colleges: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College, Olive-Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College. The system also oversees the Washburne Culinary Institute, the French Pastry School, two restaurants, five Child Development Centers, the Center for Distance Learning, the Workforce Institute, the public broadcast station WYCC-TV Channel 20 and radio station WKKC-FM 89.3. For more information about City Colleges of Chicago, call: (773) COLLEGE or visit www.ccc.edu.

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