Linda's Learning Adventure

I started off the week shadowing Sharon and Victoria. Sharon was creating a site meeting and was making a doodle. She took this opportunity to show me how to create a doodle as well as quiz me and take suggestions from me on what content  to put into a site meeting. Luckily, the color printer needed a change of black toner. I’ve never changed the toner for a color printer before so this was a great learning opportunity. I noticed the body of the toner is much smaller that what I was used to, but otherwise it was as easy as changing a regular toner. For the remainder of the shadowing period, I was allowed to work on my Google Site. This week I was due to present!

When I shadowed Glen later that day, we discussed scheduling. He asked me if anyone has gone over scheduling with me, in which I responded with yes (Sharon allowed me to schedule as an exercise). Glen also asked me for my critique on the current system of scheduling. I personally think there are flaws. There are times during live sign up where I was scrambling for my last hour to fill my requirement. I think it would be more fair to cap the hours at the minimum. Then everyone will have enough to fill their quota. After 24 hours, it can be opened up for people that want to work more.

On Friday, Adrienne allowed me to come in an hour earlier because I had to practice the final presentation with Jin Wei. During the shadow period, she allowed me to work on the Google Site as I awaited emails, velaro messages, and phone calls. She gave me tips and tricks to presenting and assured me that I would do fine.

During class time, three groups presented. The first group was Nick Cheung and John Tom, who presented on the media lab in TLL. Unfortunately, the internet crashed during their presentation so they had to present without their Google Site. In my opinion, they did great with the set back! Next was me and Jin Wei. After all the practice we had presenting, I think we did great. Truthfully, I was terrified. I was stammering and shaking but I did the best I could and I think that’s good enough! Lastly, we had Kyeong, Jarrell, and Carol present on the faculty center. Their website was chock full of information and their group interaction wasn’t too bad either.

I started the week off by shadowing Victoria and Sharon once again. This time, a user had trouble scanning and printing out a tax form. The document persisted that the user has to click the print button on the document itself to print. However, upon printing it, the pages were blank. I asked if he could try printing from a Mac and print the form from a print set up pop up window instead. It seemed to work until he swiped his card at a release station. He released blank pages yet again! As an inexperienced intern, I asked Victoria for assistance. She found that when you opened the document on adobe acrobat rather than a document on preview, the document would print. Though I was disappointed that I could not help this individual, at least I’ve gained insight on what to do in the future. Victoria also tested me from the test pool on Blackboard.

At two o’clock the same day, I had an interview with Jennifer Adams. Jin Wei and I walked into the faculty center, where Jennifer was preparing seats for us. She was a nice, patient, and informative individual. She would explain concepts to me that I would not entirely understand. For example, I had trouble distinguishing instructional technology and academic technology. She used a great analogy about how academic technology is an umbrella and how instructional technology is under it. We asked other questions such as advertisement, her definition of instructional technology, and her experience with TEDXSBU. Before we left, we took a picture with her as well as thanked her for her time.

Now that we had the presentation done, Glen allowed me to use the mentoring time to create and get used to Google Sites. Jin Wei made and outline when he was shadowing Glen beforehand, but I had to change some pages around to make it look more neat and relevant to the guidelines we were given. It was hard at first. Neither me nor Glen knew how to work the navigation bar but through trial and error, we found how to manipulate the page layout. From there, it was easy to fill in the pages since the outline was written. So, we worked on the page up until Thursday, the day of our mock presentation to Richard and Tara.

Jin Wei and I stepped into the meeting room in TLL at three o’clock to present. We first introduced ourselves and began going point by point on our presentation. We were able to hit whatever we had written, but we lacked interaction and personal experience, as we later learned from the feedback. Richard and Tara were great with suggestions. For example, they recommend adding a screenshot of various services and have the audience guess which service is part of instructional technology. Another thing that would emphasize us as the presenters rather than the words on the screen would be our experience with clickers, for example. We were also able to ask them about any questions we may have such as going over time and the aesthetics of our website.

The next day, I came into TLL expecting to shadow Adrienne, but I found Jeff, my old mentor, substituting for her. Jeff allowed me to answer the phone regarding a teacher’s workshop. I informed her that she had to register with a $25 fee and that is why the link is not working for her. She thanked me for my services. For the remainder of the time, Jeff tested me from page 7 of the Blackboard test pool.

For class this week, we met up in the Humanities SINC Site, one of my favorite remote sites. We sat there for a while as we listened to classroom policies and our obligations as consultants. To give another example, Rose lead our class to the SBS SINC Site classroom where we learned about sparky and html coding. Steven was teaching this lesson, with he help of Kevin and Frank. Turns out, Steven was in the same web design class as I was last year, so this class was a great refresher for simple coding.

After the class, I substituted for Jessica for the One Button Studio workshop. Of course, we ran this by Richard and Tara before I got instructor permissions. Before the consultants came, I printed out the documentation needed and got the key from Richard. When people started coming in, I asked them to sign in at the account terminal as well as initial next to their name. When Jeff came, we all headed to the Chemistry building, room 338A. Jeff taught most of the workshop, teaching the consultants how to clean and operate the technology. Because Jin Wei was shadowing this workshop, Jeff allowed us to demonstrate how to film a video for our Google Site. In fact, he allowed everyone to film a short tutorial. Afterwards, we all went back to Main Library, took the survey, and signed out.

I decided to shadow another workshop after teaching the One Button Studio one. I chose to shadow David and Yun Shi as they did their Mac OSX and Windows basic workshop. Looking back, this week had a lot of TLT work embedded into it!

On Monday, Sharon and Victoria allowed me to work on my final project since I am behind with Jin Wei. I researched about Jennifer Adams, our interviewee. I found her e-portfolio, which was full of useful information and links to the DoIT web page. I found information about Echo360, podcasts, streams, clickers, and even a bit about her personal life. I felt as if her e-portfolio was as good a great supplement to the research I have been doing on instructional technology through DoIT. Later, I shadowed Glen. Glen showed me ITSM and DoIt web page and let me navigate through it. Glen also allowed to the do research on instructional technology and Jennifer Adams. I created a Google Doc and shared it with Jin Wei. Its contents included questions for the interview, which Jin Wei should be adding before Monday. On Friday, Adrienne allowed me to sit on the consultant chair and answer or respond to any questions. However, it is quiet most of the time so she went through emails with me. She asked me various questions, especially about NetID (since new students tend to ask about that a lot). As we were reviewing, the phone rang. A student was inquiring how to log into Blackboard, in which I asked her if she was a student and if she was using her NetID and NetID password. The problem appeared to be the latter and she thanked me for my services.

This week’s class opened my eyes to some new facilities that are appearing on campus. We first visited the Testing Center in Frey Hall. As of now, it is not open to the public and is used for certain classes and students for testing, hence its name. Those who are taking placement tests will be placed here. However, if this location is not successful, it may become a SINC Site. We then made our way upstairs to the third floor, where we were greeted by Diana. We sat in a conference room where some people have satellite classes. I really liked the room because of its new modern design and technology. The class really liked the power outlets. When Diana sat us down, she said she needs out input for the future of TLT. She showed us the new designs for NRR on the two TV’s. I really like the designs, it was very modern and had splashes of color. I like how they are utilizing the natural sunlight that people overlook on the second floor. However, I would like to see bigger tables for studying in the future. Check it out here: http://library.stonybrook.edu/about-us/library-renovation/renovation-updates/

On Monday, I began my shadowing session with Sharon and Victoria once again. This time, they introduced me to google apps. Instead of showing me all the features, however, they focused on Gmail, specifically creating tags and folders. Victoria first showed me how the site manager and TLT support line email accounts look like. She pointed out the colorful squares to the left of the screen as well as the folders under them. She taught me how to filter, create labels, and categorize emails that contain a keyword. As practice, Sharon monitored me as I organized my personal Stony Brook University email. After sorting my mail, my inbox never looked tidier!

Later that day, I shadowed Glen. Glen was preparing to teach me about TLT when the phone rang. I answered the phone with my well practiced greeting and found that a new student had trouble logging into Blackboard. I directed her to Solar, where I asked her to sign in and click on NetID maintenance. I told her she can check if her password has been entered in correctly. If all else fails, she may reset and create a new password. She thanked me and hung up. Within ten minutes, she called back stating that it didn’t work, so I politely asked her to try again and call back if she could not activate her password in ten minutes. She called back and this time Glen answered. She was able to reset her password and log onto Blackboard, but her class did not show up. Her case was different in that it was a satellite class. At the end, we wrote and ITSM ticket.

On Friday, Adrienne subbed out of her shift, so I mentored Nujbat. There were no phone calls so she taught me by showing me example emails from the TLT support line archive. She focused on Virtual SINC Site more because she said that it can be the toughest problems. She allowed me to read through emails, suggest solutions, write sample emails, and write sample ITSM tickets.

For class this week, we met at the Earth Space and Science SINC Site for a walking tour. Unfortunately there was a class in there so we didn’t get to see much of it. However, I had a glimpse of the dual screen computers and I thought that was pretty neat. Then, we headed to Harriman to visit the innovation lab. There we met Ed, a student that works there. He gave us a little tour and an orientation on the space. I was impressed that they had 3D printers, sewing machines, paper cutters, and other devices that are available to students for free! At the end of the tour, he allowed us to sign up so we can utilize the equipment offered in the lab. After that we headed to the SINC Site where we were greeted by Jennifer Jaiswal. For the remainder of the class time, she showed us how to navigate Blackboard by creating a course in the application that we could edit. She showed us how to make tests, pools, file links, etc. I felt like creating this course was a great idea and would benefit me by letting me practice the duties of a senior consultant.