Student Support

Universities and colleges have provided many different support services for students over the years. Most services have been for traditional aged students. Distance education presents renewed challenges for instructors and administrators. Students attending online may need some of the same support as traditional students, however they present new challenges in the areas of engagement and community building. Ludwig-Hardman and Dunlap (2003) argued that building relationships with students is vital for retention and student success. The authors said building relationships with online students should start in recruitment and continue through the education process according to Smith, etc. There are many tools to use for relationship building. In our class we have been using some of these tools like blogs and twitter. I like using twitter I think the idea of it is so simple and yet, brilliant. There are many ways instructors can use it  for communication and sharing between the students and between the student and instructor. Students can also use it to communicate with experts and students from other programs with similar interests. We haven't talked much about using Facebook in education, but I can see that as a valuable tool. I would like to see interfaces like Facebook and twitter embedded in the class management system. Students should be able to communicate and share with each other and the instructor within the classroom. If these tools were embedded in the classroom they would also be private. I've never used twitter in an academic setting and i must admit I really liked it. Although I've been using twitter for about 4-5 years I've never used it in the classroom and I really enjoyed posting and reading the posts of others. Twitter helped me understand better how my students would experience it. Overall, I think the education field has only skimmed the surface of the tools available to use for student engagement. The years ahead will bring a rich and interactive online learning environment far removed from the traditional lecture hall.