2 The Clackamas Print
Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2011
newsed@clackamas.edu
News
Classroom clickers keeps students engaged
By Joshua D illen
The Clackamas Print.
T he power o f education is grow
ing and thriving at Clackamas
C om m unity College.
T hanks to the C o n tin u o u s
Learning Collaborative (CLC), stu-
, dents and faculty can be assured
| that the quality o f education will
, always improve at C C C . The CLC
was established in the fall o f 2010.
T he driving force behind it is the
combined efforts o f Steve Beining,
distance learning departm ent chair
and Kate Cray, English instructor,
co-coordinators o f CLC.
“O ur [CLC] mission is to optimize
the art and science o f teaching to cre
ate the best possible learning experi
ences for C C C students,” said Gray.
“W hat we’re about is looking at best
practices w ithin the classroom and
online, to see hqw we can optimize
what students are doing and now we
can better serve them .”
Faculty members at C C C can access
a wealth o f new teaching techniques,
the latest in educational technologies
and optimize their students learning
experience by attending the many ses
sions available through CLC. Faculty
familiar w ith Moodle and N O T E ,
C C C ’s Netw ork for O nline Teaching
Txcdlbfiiier'titri lin k to CLC’s cur-
kerif schedule on the N O T E website:
h tt p ://n o te . o n lin e, clac k am as.ed u .
CLC and N O T E work together to
develop and enhance any teaching
style w ith the tools they provide.
N O T E focuses on Moodle and pro
vides convenientlyj scheduled train
in g sessions for teachers. ‘1
’1,1 **
A
recen t
p resen tatio n
on
“Clickers” by Kurt Lewandowski,
C C C m ath instructor and senior
member o f the departm ent for 21
years, had several faculty members
in attendance amazed and intrigued
by the capabilities these devices
have.
“I love teaching. I’m a teacher
first,” said Lewandowski. “I enjoy
helping people overcome their
obstacles to achieve their goals.”
It was very obvious th at the use o f
clicker technology helps him accom
plish this in his classroom. CLC and
Lewandowski w ant the entire faculty
at ,CCC to continuously develop
and grow their teaching m ethods by
sharing this and other new advances’
in educational technologies.
Clickers work he explained they
are an “audience response system”
that allows users to participate in
whatever is being discussed. T here
are several brands; clickers are just a
generic term . This technology'helps
instructors to track individual as benefits o f using clickers in the classroom.
well as overall understanding o f the
current lesson. “It keeps students feedback from the participants. This
engaged. It’s easy to kind o f glaze allows im mediate adjustm ent o f a
over and start day dream ing out the lesson. Students can be polled and
quizzed w ith im m ediate access to
window,” he said.
By design, this system doesn’t understanding and comprehension.
T he faculty attendees quickly
allow that lack o f understanding that
insttuctors can miss: It causes more experienced the advantage an instruct
learning because the students are tor has when using clickers. This
almost involuntarily com m itted and technology enabled them to answer
questions and see the results directly
involved in the lesson.
The simplicity and convenience on the screen; the hands-on dem
was obvious after a very informative onstration was expertly guided by
and interactive PowerPoint presenta Lewandowski and included several
tion. Interactive is the operative word. lesson style examples o f their versa
T h e clickers w ork w ith Pow erPoint tility and convenience.. A ttendant^
/drid’,'l6C iTiib Instructor see’Teal ' tíme o f the presentation were engaged
and had a positive impression o f the
clickers.
"I’m sure it’s going to be very
helpful,” said Rodica G otur, part
tim e m ath instructor at C C C . “I
always encourage them [students] to
participate.”
G otur plans /to start using the
clickers gradually through this term
and will be im plem enting this tool in
all o f her classes next term.
O ther CLC sessions include team
building exercises and group project
developm ent for students. All mem-
bers o f the C C C com m unity - will
benefit from the CLC.
WEBSITE: C C C site gets a face-lift
Continued from Page 1
Although according to some students,
such as Joel Stalcup, the current Clackamas
website has “Nothing really too bad about
it,” the new site is a vast improvement, with
a much higher level of organization and ease
o f access.
According to Kim Carey, Chief
Information Officer, to create the new web
site, the college contacted Datatel, a com
pany that the college has been working with
for approximately 10 years for their campus
wide integrated database, which contains
student information, financial data and the
college’s human resources system. In a state
ment made by Carey, the college reportedly
paid “$32,500 in services for them to do the
redesign.”
Although Datatel was the web developer of
the upcoming website, there have been many
members o f the college staff that worked
on different aspects of the site, including
Dean of College Advancement Shelly Parini;
Janet Paulson, marketing project coordina
tor; Steve Beining, department chair o f the
distance learning program; Kim Carey, dean
—Staff—
The Clackamas Print aims to
report the news in an honest,
unbiased and professional
manner. Content published in
The Print is not screened or
subject to censorship.
Editors
Editor-in-Chief: Brian Baldwin
Copy Editor: Katherine Suydam
News Editor: Patty Salazar
Arts&Culture Editor: Mandie Gavitt
Sports Editor: John William Howard
Photo Editor: Hillary Cole
Web Editor: Anna Axelson
19600 Molalla Ave.
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Design Editor: James Duncan
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Writers
&
Photographers
Dachabre Dixon
Robby Morrison
Matt Senn
Isaac Soper
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Adviser: Melissa Jones
503-594-6266
of chief information office; Dean Walch,
website coordinator; Shawn Swanner, from
the IT department; Tamara Barry, of Public
affairs; student Sara Anderson and Dean of
curriculum planning and research, Steffen
Moller.
“One o f the biggest issues we have with
the current site is navigation. In working
with Datatel, we were able to harness best
practice design standards in helping the user
find the information they are needing more
quickly and without the frustration we have
heard in the past,” stated Walch.
Not only has the site been revamped to
make information retrieval easier but the
search engine has been upgraded as well, so
that “Results will be better tuned to what the
user is looking for,” Walch stated.
According to Paulson, there is still quite
a bit o f work to be finished before the end
o f this year, including developing policies
for the site, training staff to become familiar
with the site, identifying departments which
need web redesign and integrating a form of
online communication.
“The public launch of the site is sched
uled for January,” stated Paulson.
Production
Assistants
Dan Bailey
Mollie Berry
Joshua Dillen
Tyler Eheler
Járonte Goldsby
Telicia Juliano
Hicham Kerkour
Ellen Niles
Fred Ramsey
Emily Rask
Mireille Soper
Contact
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