Online Office Hours aka Virtual Office Hours
One suggestion I have for holding office hours is to register for an AOL IM name. It is free and students can access you anytime they choose. I find this very helpful, especially if you teach for multiple colleges. You can have one "office" for all your students.
Kathryn
That is a good one. That would be especially helpful when you have those students who are having problems and need a response right now. That IM could be the last result for a student who is on the verge of quitting. It is also great for those students who have last minute question on an assignment that is due at midnight. It is helpful to the instructor because it helps them project there authority.
Is anyone currently using this? How effective is it? I use several computers so having IM set up on each one would be nice to always be found by my students no matter where I was.
Amy:
I have never used AM; so I defer your inquiry to other students in this class.
Satrohan
Hi Kathryn
I did not know one could have an AOL IM and handle wo being an AOL member. This is a great idea and one we should all look into. Hope all is well with you.
Jim Hutton
This may sound silly, but what about a facebook profile set up for the purpose of the class? Could I communicate through facebook, which allows IM-ing as well as inbox messages? I know that many people have facebook accounts now....just a thought.
I recently attended training where the facilitator was sharing with us her practice of doing just this (setting up a Facebook account for class). She maintains the policy of NOT confirming students as friends on her personal account, but instead refers them to her classroom account in order to maintain some balance and boundaries.
Yes, you can set up a facebook account specifically for communicating with your students about your class. I have also heard of other teachers using twitter as another means of communicating with students. Using the technology tools that our students are using is a great way to reach them!
I agree with that practice Rebecca. Thanks for sharing it with the rest of us!
Kathryn:
Skype also has a free service that you can use to either chat and/or place free calls over the Internet.
www.Skype.com
You can also sign up for a Calliflower account and can check if your students either have free long distance and/or unlimited cell minutes and can hold virtual hours via a free conference line. You can pay for a subscription and get a toll free number but find that most students have either free long distance and/or unlimited minutes so chose to just sign up for the free service. The advantage of this is that you can record the call which I think is useful. The disadvantage is that you have to find out e-mails of all students as they have to have the phone number and the pin in order to access the call but can also be sent out at the last minute for those students that decided to join at the last minute so have found that this works quite well.
https://apps.calliflower.com/login/login_page
Kim
Great tips Kim. Thanks!
Michele
Kathryn
I know a few instructors who establish virtual office hours through yahoo messenger, Skype and the like. It is true that you can "be there" for many different classes or schools in the same sitting. I remember sitting in a classroom for hours during the week when I was on campus and the surprisingly few people who actually came in for help. But for those who did the time was worth being there.
John
The school I work for recommends Wimba Pronto which works well with BlackBoard and is an instant messaging system. Regardless of the technology that is being used, it is important to have reguarly scheduled "office hours" when the students know they can reach you. Thanks John.
The majority of my universities asked that we hold online office hours. Online office hours provide students an opportunity to check in by using instant messaging or e-mail system. As the instructor, we are to respond to instant messages. In my experience, very used to actually attempt to contact the instructor directly during office hours. I am not sure why this is the case. Any suggestions for encouraging student-instructor contact beyond the traditional e-mail/discussion thread contact?
I try to reach out to each student personally at the beginning of the class. I find that this breaks down some of the barriers and students are then willing to contact me (during office hours or not). Typically I will call each student to welcome them to the class and answer any questions they might have about the class.
I believe instructors having virtual office hours is fine, but on the other hand, I feel as long as the instructor gets back with a student within 24 hours, they are responding in a timely manner.
Replying quickly is important, I agree. It builds relationships with students and they appreciate you are responding timely. One thing I have noticed is that students will often email or call me when they are in a urgent situation (i.e. their speech is due tomorrow and they haven't come up with a topic yet). I work very hard to assist them, but have to keep in mind that they put themselves in this dire situation. If possible, I will always make myself available to help a student with a balance that if it is not possible because it is last minute and poor-planning on their part then we use it as a lesson learned and something they can do different with more preparation next time around.
Sometimes it is nice to get together with my students face-to-face out of class as we have the best discussions, they get more personal, and open up about their situations, ideas, and concerns. However with our students going virtual, we need to show that we can keep up that pace as well with text, facebook, school portals, twitter, etc.
Thank you for the intriguing topic, thoughts, and new ideas.
That can be tricky--you want to do your best to help students succeed but the students need to realize you have a life too! It is an important lesson for students to learn that they can't procrastinate and expect the teacher to always be there to assist.
