I went on the podcasts section for Spanish material recently and found some really good resources done by other teachers, especially high school ones. During my teaching I don't have time for verb drills or to help students work on memory, they must do that on their own time and so I plan on telling them about the high school podcasts that do help with that.

Over the weekend (05/30/09 - 05/31/09), I ran four individual online tutoring sessions for my ELI classes. In each case, the student contacted me via email and then on Google Chat. Instead of Centra, I used Elluminate's free vRoom. It only accommodates the moderator and two other participants, and does not support recording. However, it runs much more efficiently than does Centra, at least in these recent trials. Even in application sharing, there was little or no transmission time lag, an increasing problem that I have experienced in Centra's eMEETINGs. I launched each session in about a minute, and then pasted the link to the session in Google Chat, so that I could help the student if there were any log in difficulties. Three of the students did not have microphones, but the text chat feature worked fine, and the text chat window is conveniently docked at the side, unlike the Centra text chat window, which always seems to block something else. One student had a microphone, but we could not get it to work.

I want to figure out a way to incorporate SCIENCE podcasts into a Bio101 curriculum, as a way of introducing relevant, real-world Science literacy information into students' lives. Has anyone done that? I am big on getting my students to be scientifically literate (i.e. introduce skepticism and how to approach scientific information in the news, role of bias etc)

I also want to figure how to better have electronic office hours with students. I tried using Blackboard's on-line chat services for the past two semesters. But students rarely (if ever) joined me on-line. They really could have used the extra time for questions!

Would google chat or FACEBOOK chat be easier for students?
How else can I get students to log on to chat with their professor? What are barriers you have had?

I just took the TAC class on Google Opps that dealt with Google Chat. It's quite easy. You have to make your contact list, invite to chat, open the screen up fully and you can view the chat dialogue box in the lower right hand corner. The trainer seemed to prefer, based on her experience, Google docs over Blackboard. However, if your students won't use it, then being easy to use won't matter.

I agree that Google Aps is easy to use. It does have the advantage of being available to every student through My Nova. It may also be that the students need to see a demo or have practice to be comfortable with the virtual office hours. I will also mention that in the library, more questions come in by email than through our chat service

Our Blackboard organizational site is now available for you use as well. Check it out at http://vccs.learn.edu. Our faciliators will be adding information for resources. The discussion boards are open for your introduction and your comments. Nan

Please consider submitting a proposal for the Power Up Your Pedagogy conference to be held January 6 & 7 at the Annandale Campus. PUP is combined with our faculty Cross Campus activities. If you'd like to volunteer for PUP, please do so.

For more information, check the CETL website, http://www.nvcc.edu/CETL.