Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Faculty as Tech Support?

“When you have tech problems, who ya gonna call?”

When students have distance learning technical problems they call their instructors first. After all, the instructor may be their only personal contact with the college. But instructors are often unable to help students immediately, other than to tell them to contact tech support. Yes, there is UH student tech support available, click here.

If students ask basic questions about distance learning, be sure to point them to the UH (University of Hawaii) distance learning information site What is Distance Learning. (Other institutions have similar sites to assist their students and faculty.) Once there, students can take a Self-Assessment Quiz to see if they are ready for online or hybrid distance education courses.

The online site for a student orientation and overview of WebCT classes is located at here. This information site also provides links featuring "how-to" brochures on ITV (interactive television) and cable courses.

To assist instructors on technology-related course issues, we have listed here some helpful download sites for free plug-in programs and applications you can give to your students. These applications allow students to competently access your course materials (documents, online textbook extras, multimedia, etc.) Although your students may be expert "gamers" they may not know about some of these sites.

If you have questions about these links, e-mail one of us from the Who are we? section to the right of your screen.

2 comments:

Kaj Kandler said...

And for those who need professional support for OpenOffice.org, consider Plan-B. It's a new generation of help with screencasts (short videos) and smart search.

K<o>

Unknown said...

This is a really helpful list. It is great to have it all in one place. Thanks Mary!