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Interview with Marsha Leeman-Conley Director, Instructional Technology Center Marsha Leeman-Conley, Instructor's Page ARC Instructional Technology
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Interview taking place in Information Technology Center, a brand new building. Marsha was hired in January, 2000. A new position at ARC and the first in the District. First assignment was to figure out how the department was going to work and how they were going to relate to the CTW etc.
A lot of people sharing responsibility for technology-related things were brought together in the building. This made it easier for staff members to know where to go for assistance.
Marsha’s duties are extremely varied. She teaches the vast majority of the technology training workshops for faculty and staff. 85 workshops taught each semester. Focus on how to teach using technology.
Have had online classes for 4 years at ARC. Most of them were put together by faculty on their own (e.g. faculty websites). Some staff supported them. But then 18 months ago ARC decided to go with a course management system (Blackboard), giving them a whole package of tools and providing a consistent interface for students. Used for fully online courses and web-enhanced classes. Web-enhanced can be anything from someone who uses the Internet to present half of their classes to instructors who just put PowerPoint slides on the server.
At ARC there are currently 30 online classes. They generally meet only once for an orientation and possibly a final. Also 14 classes still remain on the original server. Plus 175 web-enhanced classes. Web-enhanced provides a stepping stone for online classes. Good for those students at a distance or not able to come on campus.
Marsha’s role is officially a full-time faculty member. She teaches online faculty courses. More than just teaching technology; how to teach with technology. A bit of an instructional design role working with individual faculty and giving them ideas.
The ITC put together a student help desk for online courses. They may expand this to a help desk for all student technology related needs. It’s staffed by CIS students who are supposed to learn about providing help desk support. Marsha trained the students and set up system.
Being a Level-2 Blackboard site allows ARC the use of Blackboard for student organizations and other non-academic uses (e.g. student literary magazine).
Resources at ARC are ahead of many other places in terms of what’s being provided for students. This summer will be starting online registration, application, and payment for classes. This benefits everyone who no longer has to come to campus to transact business. Give them every piece of paper they might need on the web.
No other Los Rios campus has a facility like Information Technology Center. Five other colleges have come to see the building and what they’re doing.