Week+Four+5365


 * Creating Interactivity to Enable Effective Communication**

We do not currently use podcasting as a communication platform, but I have had plans to do so for some time now. Many of our students use ipods and Mp3 players and are familiar with using multimedia files. By posting podcasts on our program website we could offer training in study skills, or professional and career development. We could record Academic Enhancement workshops and make them available to students who are unable to attend the workshops that are held on campus. We could make podcasts of students who were successful in our program to provide testimonials to the benefits of our services. Students could have the opportunity to subscribe to the podcast and it could be updated to provide the most current information. Using podcasts would allow us another means to communicate with and reach students with our program information. We could also teach students how to use podcasts to keep notes, reflect on their learning, or produce group or individual projects. Students with learning disabilities or auditory learning may even find that listening to podcasts of their instructors or reading their textbooks aloud and then listening to the content helps improve their study skills.

We’ve tried using a blog in our program in order to promote open dialogue and build community among our program participants. We have not had good response thus far. Emily, you provided some great ideas here that I find helpful in moving us closer to achieving our goals. I agree that using the blog as a problem / solution forum sounds like a great idea and may be a method that we need to explore. Basically, we have used our blog to inform students which could probably be better delivered through a web page. We need to come up with some thought-provoking questions that would promote the exchange of ideas, opinions, and attitudes. We deal with a diverse population of college students, and yet they have so much in common, trying to overcome barriers to reach their academic goals. Blogging would provide them an opportunity to improve their writing skills, to learn from each other, and to become more confident in sharing what they know.

I recently agreed to serve on a committee at Lamar and after I signed up I received an email stating that there will be 13 one-hour committee meetings between June and the end of September. Now there are about 15 other committee members and within the committee there are several sub-committees. When you add up all the hours that will be spent by staff members to serve on this committee, plus the sub-committees, to produce a one day event, it equals a lot of hours. I feel that if staff were trained in using wikis in the first committee meeting, that a lot more collaboration could be accomplished and possibly even more volunteers could be involved. Some would not be willing to serve on the committee because of the time commitment involved, but if the planning and information were available online through a wiki format then they could participate at times when they are available. Meetings of committee members could be held less frequently and possibly more work accomplished in a shorter period of time.

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 * Week 4 Assignment - Creating Interactivity**