News Archives: Keith Rowe: Making Face-To-Face Connections
Monday, February 12th, 2018
Thanks to a series of face-to-face meetings with a library technician, Keith Rowe not only conquered his struggles with researching oil field terminology, but also aced his class.
The best part? To get the help he needed, Rowe didn’t even have to leave his home, which is located 180 kilometres away from Grande Prairie. Thanks to a tool available through GPRC’s learning management system, faculty and staff can log on remotely and share their screens with students in real time, whether for research sessions, virtual tutoring or workshop presentations.
The Skype-like tool is one of the video-conference options the College has for faculty and students to connect. It allows instructors and staff to send a link to participants, who simply click on it to get into a closed chat room online.
“It’s like getting help from an IT person who can log in and take over your screen,” said Chris Murphy, the distance education liaison for the GPRC library who “met” with Rowe several times. “Once they log in, they can see my computer screen and I can see theirs, but it also has video conferencing ability like Skype or Zoom.
“With this tool, I can show the student visually how to navigate a library database, to find research articles. They can also show me what they are looking at. It’s much easier to share knowledge and do troubleshooting this way, and it is a very common tool in business circles, libraries and schools.
“In fact, we use it all the time for staff meetings with our campus in Fairview. It’s great because they don’t have to drive in from an hour way, and we don’t need to book meeting rooms that are frequently in use.”
Rowe, a single father who returned to school to take a one-year certificate course in oil field office administration, says he wouldn’t have been able to finish his report for the class if it wasn’t for the help of Murphy, and the use of video-conferencing.
“I didn’t know how to use citations or the library databases, and Chris helped me through all of that,” said Rowe, who got an 87 per cent in the class. “This was a great experience, quick and convenient to set up, and we didn’t have to wait for anything to download.”
Many students like Rowe are going back to school after an interval of 10, 20 years or longer, says Murphy. For the distance learners in particular, video-conferencing has been invaluable.
“In the past few decades the need to be adept with computer technology has gone up exponentially; back then, students didn’t even have to type their papers,” he said.
“I find these online tools are the most visual and expedient way to connect and get your point across. Students can see exactly how things work, and that also helps with memory retention.”