CEA Conference 2009

I will be presenting at this conference in March along with 3 others from PBCC. My part of the panel discussion will focus on AskOnline.

OWL 2

Online tutoring has been postponed until the spring. I have recruited two very capable tutors to assist me in this project, and we will be working closely with one instructor and her hybrid class. I am currently working on some method of marketing to entice her students since she is not requiring her students to use the program but only making it available to them. The Math Lab has had some success with various marketing strategies, so I will work with the Math learning specialist on this. I've had one tutor training and plan to have one more tomorrow.

OWL

I was asked to resume my work with online tutoring for the English Writing Lab. If you've read earlier blogs, you know this topic is fairly controversial. The math lab has been very successful, but math is a completely different animal. The fact that our subject not only relies on typed text to convey the message but that the typed text is the message makes the project a little daunting in this abbreviated txting, l33t world. I pulled out my old research and did some additional research to prepare a presentation, and, for better or worse, we've agreed to begin using AskOnline with a limited group of students in the fall. Lake Worth is the main campus of PBCC, so implementing this program here will be much different than implementing it in Belle Glade. I've been asked to recruit a couple of tutors to volunteer for this pilot, which will be tricky. I need to find tutors who are tech savvy, don't mind a little extra work, and would support the initiative. I've asked one who's a little reluctant because of the extra work. I haven't yet decided on who else to ask. I may find three to help me out.

"Quotation Marks"

I'm creating a handout for quotation marks to go in the student resources section of our website, and I came across this site: http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/. After listening to the BBC radio show of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, I'm always on the lookout for comical punctuation. Who would have thought quotation marks, commas, and apostrophes could be so hilarious?

Back at PBCC

Well, I am back at PBCC as an English learning specialist.  I am extremely happy to no longer be teaching high school.  Not only did I have no time to spare for this site, but I also had no time to spare for anything else!  The most techie project I dealt with (besides RenWeb) was the few weeks I taught on informational and visual media.  The students were required to do a multimedia presentation.  I felt like we could have gone so much further with these, but with everything else the students had to learn throughout the year, there was no time.  I enjoyed the focus on literature, which I had missed working at PBCC previously, and I enjoyed the majority of the students, but that was about it.  I won't miss the mounds of grading, paper work, lesson plans, record keeping, phone calls, supervisors, etc.  It's nice to be back in my niche.  

mac

I've finally purchased the incredibly hyped mac to pursue my educational tech interests. Compatibility problems will be an eternal problem. Most educational facilitie rely heavily on PC/Microsoft; therefore, I purchased the mac version of the Microsoft Office Suite. I felt very wasteful since Pages and KeyNote seem quite sufficient for what I need.

RenWeb and Future Possiblities for English Techie

I have been teaching 10th grade English for the past several months and have not had much opportunity for English Techie. 

RenWeb is our school management system. On the plus side, everything is web based, so I can access grades, lesson plans, etc. from home. The best feature is the homework calendar, which shows a specific student's homework for every class on each day. On the down side, I often have copy + paste errors where a day's worth of lesson plans or attendance may be deleted. Navigating this system is unnecessarily complicated for me as a teacher and as a parent, and there are no template options to spice up the web page option. I have experimented with web documents, but there are some flaws in this, as well. I hope to spend some more time working on RenWeb to conquer some of my issues; however, my schedule has been insanely full since I started my new job.

I am still interested in pursuing podcasting and attended a convention recently that offered two technology seminars. One was on podcasting and the other was on connecting your classroom to the world via the Internet. There were several possibilities in the second class concerning web field trips and classroom swaps. I'm going to purchase a mic for my ipod and try to create a podcast before spring. I'm optimistic about it because so many of the students have ipods. The school also has a fairly advanced learning strategies program that pursues technological assistance for students with special learning needs. Another possibility that may arise is that of an instructional technology committee. I've emailed the headmaster to know I'd be interested in participating, but I've not heard any more about the possibility of it.

iTunes U

The college has been creating podcasts for a couple of semesters now, but media services has been distributing them through their website. Today a small committee met for the first time to begin the process of establishing PBCC on iTunes U. Even though I will be leaving my full time position at the college, I plan to remain as an adjunct, so I will still be able to participate in this project.

Many prominent universities and colleges have already begun using iTunes U and freely distribute lectures, speeches, tours, videos, and other items to the public. Some colleges have decided to only give partial access to the public. For instance, some items like class lectures are only available to students, but a tour of the campus is available to the public. I got very excited about some of these podcasts and downloaded an entire World Literature course from NJIT. To see an article in Forbes magazine about Stanford providing free access to education via podcasts, click here.

My First Web CT Class

I took Contemporary Literature last semester for two reasons: I wanted a refresher in studying literature before I began grad school and I was curious about taking an online course. It was very enjoyable. I especially enjoyed the long discussion threads. The class was not taught in a traditional lecture method. The instructor really used the medium to his advantage by promoting student discussions as the predominant method of instruction. He offered occasional insights, but most learning and teaching was done by the students. It was very Socratic.

The only problem I had was with the group project. It was hard to collaborate with people of varying computer knowledge. There was also quite a lot of miscommunication that would not probably have occurred had we been meeting face to face. It was a learning experience for me on several levels.

Turning Point II

I've used the Turning Point software in several situations now, and I do not feel like it enhanced the learning process enough to deal with the added work of creating these presentations. Turning Point works in conjunction with Power Point, so I create a presentatation in Power Point and then open it with Turning Point to create my questions. The students would be able to interact with the program by using the Student Response Systems ( or clickers). From their responses, I could tell who was participating and could monitor their progress. Unfortunately, every time I used this program, I encountered some sort of technical problem. The system seems great in theory, but the practice left much to be desired. Invariably half the clickers would not work, or I would open the presentation in Power Point rather than Turning Point, or the classroom computer wouldn't register the clickers. These little things could be ironed out with time, but taking into consideration how long it took me to make each of these presentations, I don't think it's worth the effort.

Ingeniux V

I am responsible for managing the content of the following PBCC web pages:

• Student Learning Center Staff Resources
• Student Learning Center Student Resources (English and Reading sections)
• Belle Glade Student Learning Center page and child pages
• Belle Glade location page and child pages
• Belle Glade Professional Teaching and Learning Center
• Belle Glade Student Activities page and child page

While it's been fun working on some of these pages, I do have a tendency to get a little "tech- happy."  My maze of pages is getting a little out of control. Since I'm leaving PBCC in August, I'm working on distributing the responsibility of these pages, as well as reigning them in a little so they're a little easier to manage.

I'm chairing a subcommittee for the Student Learning Center to make our pages more student friendly, and I hope to finish with that major project before I leave. Ingeniux is set up a lot like an outline. There are major pages with detail pages underneath them. We've met to discuss our main SLC page and the second tier of pages which includes our four location pages along with student resources and staff resources. In the midst of these changes, Ingeniux has received some major updates. Overall, the updates make the CMS easier to use and a little more visually appealing, but it's still something new to learn. To see what the pages look like now, go to www.pbcc.edu/slc.xml. Of course, when you check this site out in July, it will look much different.

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.