Tomorrow I have a meeting with others in my department, and I will have to justify the need for online tutoring. Since the entire day is centered around "Technology and Student Success," this task doesn't seem to difficult. Unfortunately, I'm certain I will face some resistance. Our job is to assist students academically in any way we can. If we're not doing everything possible and ignoring the direction that the educational world is going, then we are not doing our jobs.
Some will say that we are jeopardizing face to face tutoring. If we offer online services, then why would a student ever have to come into the lab? Others may think that this medium is unsuitable for tutoring.
The truth is, if you apply the same principles to online tutoring that you do to f2f tutoring, this medium actually opens up more doors. For one thing, it almost forces the student to make a follow up visit to respond to the tutor's inquiries. The student will also ask the tutor more direct questions to get a benificial response. The student can't just email his or her paper to us with no question attached and expect us to edit it. Another benefit is after the tutoring session is over, the student is able to print the information to refer to at a later time. The tutor can also include hyperlinks to useful manuals or handouts. I see the lab's business increasing because of online services, not decreasing. This is just one more way to make ourselves available to the students.
Students have so many options available to them, and they are looking for the most convenient, most effective, and most affordable options. If they don't find what they're looking for, they'll go elsewhere or they'll give up. If a student who works all day, takes evening class, and goes home to her family needs additional help on an assignment, that student will have to make some serious life alterations to get to the lab. Some students don't see the benefit of disrupting their already busy lives to get extra help. They will go without help and continue to struggle, only doing what is required. Imagine, however, that there was a way for this student to access the help she needs without disrupting her life or even leaving her home. Of course she would take advantage of it. What about students who procrastinate. If a paper is due the next day, and it's 7 pm and I have a question, the student has no time to get to the lab to ask it. Imagine if online help is available at that late hour. This is real life. We pack so much into our day, that we don't have time for extra anything.
If the tutoring is effective, that is if our tutors are trained well or if we outsource to trained tutors, students will come back. These students may also begin to make the time to come to the physical lab. It's like we're reaching out to a whole new audience. Yes, some students who come to the lab now may decide that they'd rather stay home, but if they're already coming to the lab, they'll probably come back. And so what if their not physically in the lab. If we can show they are using our services, then that is all we need to do.
Our college is offering and expecting more and more technological knowledge. Courses are offered through Web CT, students use software in the lab, one of our general educational requirements is computer literacy, we're currently piloting PodCasting and watching a solar eclipse in Turkey. Given our department, we cannot allow the rest of the college to pass us by with their technological offerings.