Dave Lungren and Randall Smith met with Bismarck students today to discuss students' perceptions of online learning. When asked what features they'd like to see added to their online courses, someone mentioned IM as a way to get instant answers to questions. The suggestion was met with enthusiasm from other students.
Even though they were talking about IM as a way to improve communication with instructors, I was encouraged that students would use and appreciate an instant chat service. Once again, our library team is on the cutting edge when it comes to improved customer service.
GOA9: Progress Report
2 days ago
3 comments:
I would love to know what the students think is an 'instant answer'. I've had students at my desk, wanting an answer, rushing off to class, and I find the answer two minutes after they left (without leaving their names, emails, etc). Five minutes can be 'forever' for some patrons.
RE: the IM AOL virus of yesterday. Could we possibly have this problem in Meebo? (can't remember if it let you send files or not--would rather send by email if they were larger).
Chandra,
That is good news. I'm really excited to see whether or not students embrace Meebo. I would think the immediacy would be very attractive to them.
Sara,
There are a few ways you could possibly get a virus using Meebo.
1) File Transfers: If a student IM's us from their Meebo account or their GoogleTalk/AIM/Yahoo...etc. account, then they can send can files. We should be able to decide whether or not to accept or deny them, however. The good news is that people who contact us via the widgets don't have the capability to send us files even though we still have the ability to send files to them. So if they want to send us a file, they'll have to e-mail it to us and make their identity known.
2) Links: If a student offers a link and we click on it, we run the risk that the site we're going to could have a virus.
Basically, we should use the same Internet savvy we use when working with e-mail.
Krista
Dear Krista,
Thank you for the info--I wasn't sure if they could send files to us or not through the IM.
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