Turning Point

I volunteered to pilot Turning Point, which is a software that will allow students to use clickers in the classroom and "engage" them in the learning process. I like that little buzz word. Symantics and connotation are important in using language. When marketing, words like "engage" capture the reader's eye and imagination. Sorry about the momentary tangent. I'll be trained on the Turning Point software tomorrow.

Ingeniux IV

Well, the new site goes live next month. I've been working hard in it. Unfortunately, it is truly a content management system. I can only control content. Whenever I try to change design elements with CSS or a little java script, Ingeniux alters my code so it's indecypherable. Another down side is when I try to copy and paste, and then try to make changes, the code is crazy. It's actually easier to just retype everything instead of copying, pasting, and deleting code. Overall, I think it looks nice. I wish I could do a little more, especially with the Belle Gladelocation page, but it's decent. Check out www.pbcc.edu in May.

Ingeniux III

The deadline for the construction of all home pages is today. I'm in charge of our campus location page, the PTLC page for our campus, the SLC page for our campus, and the English tutor site. Luckily, I've done a lot of planning and practicing on the demo site, so all I have to do is go set it up. The new college site will go live in May.

Online Tutoring 2

I spoke with a couple of learning specialists from other campuses, and they seemed intrigued and interested with online tutoring. I wish I had more to show them. I have not had the overwhelming student response I would have liked. I think if this is offered on all the campuses, then the interest on my campus would also increase. I set up a pseudo tutoring session with one learning specialist, and gave some extra information to another one. I hope that they continue to show an interest in this.

Online Tutoring

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.

PBCC Pod Casting

Check out PBCC's venture into PodCasting. Palm Beach Post article

PDF Online

This site has been so helpful. I've been able to convert lab handouts and worksheets to pdf files so I can upload them onto the English tutor website. PDF Online is free, and will convert most documents into a pdf file in a matter of seconds. It also has its own blog. See PDF online blog. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

AskOnline IV

I visited the off-campus sites last night, so next week I'm hoping to have a lot of hits on the site. I presented the online tutoring program to the Provost's Management Team on Friday and organized an intense marketing campaign for the campus. I received positive feedback from both our campus and the main campus. Now it's time for the real test - student response.

PTLC co-chair 2

Well, I finally rounded up enough people to be on this committee. Now I just need to find a time when we can all meet. Some members are adjuncts who work in the evening and have long commutes, others are full-time instructors who work during the day. I want to have everyone. The more disciplines involved on the committe, the better the Center will be. As much as I would love to have an "English Teachers Only!" sign posted on the door, I know the instructors at our campus need to have as many resources available to them as possible. We are so far from the main campus, that it's extremely inconvenient to take advantage of the resources there. My mission in this is to make it unnecessary to use those resources.

PTLC co-chair

I've just been made the co-chair of our campus's Professional Teaching and Learning Center. The PTLC provides our faculty with a place to share teaching and learning-related information; to provide access to current research in effective teaching practices, the science of learning, instructional design, and instructional technology; to provide support and added value for faculty and staff professional development initiatives; and to provide ongoing assessment of effectiveness. (Taken straight from the PTLC objectives.) It seems like it will be a great asset to our campus. Most of our faculty consists of adjuncts who don't have much connection with each other. I think this will be a great place to discuss new techniques and to learn from each other, as well as a place to relax.

PantherTrail II

I recently had to compile a report of our lab's activity. That was an interesting exercise in futility for various reasons. As I have previously mentioned, we have switched from Accutrack, which seemed to crash daily, to PantherTrail as a more accurate means of record keeping. Most of our Accutrack data was lost, so I had to do a lot of estimating of this past summer's data. PantherTrail is so new, the report aspect of the system has not been ironed out. I have these records in PantherTrail that change everytime I look at the report. Needless to say, I don't think this report will be extremely accurate. I know I can't use it to request any sort of funding. The irony of all this is that I'm working in a computer lab, but requiring my tutors to keep paper records because the computer is unreliable.

Lesson Builder

Yesterday, I went to a class on Lesson Builder software put out by soft chalk. It looks fun and very easy. I might try to do something like that for my classes next semester. I also want to incorporate a WebCT component. Both of my classes are night classes, and those students don't usually have a lot of time to come to the lab. They still need the extra practice and the instruction that the lab provides, so I'm trying to see if there is a way to handle that. The Lesson Builder software is supposedly located on a couple of computers here. I'll have to see if I can have it put on my computer. Check out the demos on the web site. They're pretty nice.

Ingenuix II

The session was great, and Ingenuix gives us a lot of options. I'm so excited about using it, but I don't have any time! I took on three prep English courses as an adjunct and added 9-12 hours to my work week. Next semester, I'm signed up for 2 classes and 1 might not make, so I hope I'll have more time. The site is up for loading information, but it probably won't go live until spring. We were also given an Ingenuix playground to learn the new system and try out new things. I haven't done much in it, though.

PantherTrail

Our new student tracking system changed from PantherTrac to PantherTrail since some college publication had the same name. As always, when you start something new, there are a few difficulties to overcome. Since whoever operates PantherTrail will have access to student information such as picture, student ID, and current schedule, all the tutors and learning specialists had to receive security clearance. Everyone had to retake the FERPA training (some of us had to take it several times for some reason) and get cleared by several people. That took several weeks. We had a few initial obstacles with the card scanners, as well. The system now works fine, and students are used to signing in with their PantherCards. The reports are the current obstacle. We print reports for various reasons: to show students their lab hours, to see our peak times, to note participation in various events, to track student progress, etc. The reports are currently done in excel, and are very confusing. The old Accutrack gave a lot of hassle at the front end, but the reports were nice and easy. I definitely can't say the same for these. Hopefully, a better system will emerge. It took me half the day to print reports for one math class. I'm not prepared to invest that much time in printing reports for every prep class scheduled.

Ask Online III

The online tutoring component for our lab has really flopped. I still believe this has a lot of potential, though. I attribute the failure of this program mainly to the "marketing" I haven't done. I tried to target classes given out at the high schools for students who don't actually come to the lab at all. While that idea worked in theory, it was hard to implement. I relied on an instructor to relay the information to the students. Since the instructor doesn't know much about the online tutoring, he was not able to promote it very well. Only a couple of students signed up, and I just couldn't see having a tutor wait online for a couple hours each week for three students who may never use the program anyway. Last summer I had 20 some signed up, and none of them used it either. I will continue to think of new ways to promote the online tutoring.

Igeniux

New web content management system for the college. I'm going tomorrow for training. So far my web space looks pretty basic. I was told that this new system will allow us to personalize the pages and make a lot more modifications than our current system does. We'll see.

Web Space

The webmaster showed me how to upload pdf files to the website today. This will be very useful for posting handouts. Oddly, the only thing that I'm putting off is taking pictures for the site. I don't know what type of pictures to take. All I can think of is a student in front of a computer for everything. Honestly, that's what will probably take me the longest. I'll obviously have to do it sometime this summer, though. I plan to have the site up and running before fall. I have 9 interested Comp I students for AskOnline. This evening I'll find out about Comp II students.

Learn to Write

The web-based software Learn to Write has a lot to offer. Combine Comment with Exercise Central and you have a general idea of what it's like. It seems just slightly easier to maneuver than those other two softwares, though. I'm thinking about it. If I went with this, it would be silly to use AskOnline as well. The thing about AskOnline is that it is so userfriendly and can be used for all subjects. I start the pilot program with AskOnline tomorrow. Once again, the more features added to the program, the more complicated it becomes for the student. Occasionally I feel bogged down by all the technological wonders available to me. Am I letting my obsessions with gadgetry get in the way of the real purpose - to assist students in their subject matter? I wonder if sometimes all this extra stuff just gets in the way. The thing is we live in a technological age, and students pursuing an education should receive a full education that familiarizes them with technology. But how much is necessary, convenient, or beneficial?  

New Stuff

A couple of reps have contacted me. I already wrote about Grammar Sense. Another rep contacted me about some reading software that I should be receiving soon: Learning 100 and Access 21st Century. Another Learning Specialist is promoting Learning to Write. I requested an access code to try out the demo.

My Skills Lab/Reading Road Trip

I have some unpredicted obstacles with this program:

1. Apparently I need to have a lot of faculty support for the reps to bother molding this program to my needs. I know some faculty members are not very fond of the program because of the hassle it has given us in the past. I'm going to have to convince them that this will help us conquer those past problems.
2. The reading instructor I have the most contact with has decided she does not like this program at all. She wants to go in an entirely new direction which means I'm going to have to redo lab assignments for her. She wants each student to have an individualized program to address his/her specific needs. While that would be ideal, I don't know if that is feasible. I'll do my best, but, ironically, I think my solution will be to modify Reading Road Trip.

Catch 22.