Creating community during the coronavirus crisis: 日韩中文字幕福利片 students and
faculty are staying connected virtually
March 27, 2020
VINCENNES, Ind. - Humans are social creatures. Relationships and being surrounded by familiar faces are key to our well-being. 日韩中文字幕福利片 is unique because of our small classroom sizes, hands-on learning, and the special connection our team has with students. In the era of social distancing, VU students, faculty, and staff are coming together and creating a community virtually, and they鈥檙e having fun with it.
VU鈥檚 Information Technology Department is using Slack, which is essentially a chat
room, to keep students and faculty connected, and they鈥檙e not only discussing coursework.
Earlier this week, assistant professors Greg Hirsch and Lorrie Ann Thompson asked
students how their pets felt about stay-at-home orders. 日韩中文字幕福利片 responded by sharing
their pet photos and thoughts. Assistant professor Kris Locklin engaged students by
sharing a coronavirus toilet paper calculator with the group. When students do attendance
check-ins, they鈥檙e sharing information like what shows they鈥檙e watching and what they鈥檙e
doing in their free time.
Connections and interactions like these are erasing the barriers caused by physical distance due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has led VU and other institutions to finish the semester via remote learning.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a nice community that makes you feel close together even though we are our separate ways right now,鈥� said VU IT student Drew Davis. 鈥淚 like in-person classes because I like getting to know my classmates, getting to joke around with them before class, and talking to them about what they have going on, and to be able to do that on Slack and have that option to bring us all together into an online world is very nice. The thing I really enjoy is that social interaction and even though we鈥檙e apart, we鈥檙e still able to get it.鈥�
Drew Davis
Davis, who lives in Washington, Ind. and is pursuing a bachelor鈥檚 degree in Information
Technology, is one of many students who are also staying connected with friends and
classmates using group text messaging.
Creating a community online was a priority for IT Department Chair and Associate Professor Jaci Lederman and the rest of the IT department.
鈥淲e knew we would be fine as far as technology goes and getting our students to use technology, but we wanted to make sure we put something in place that would allow our students on campus to really get that sense of community that they were going to be missing,鈥� Lederman said.
Jaci Lederman
It has been a smooth transition to remote teaching for VU鈥檚 Information Technology
faculty. Since many teach both in-person and online courses, the department鈥檚 lecture
videos, resources and course content were already online.
鈥淭hat allowed us to focus in on what are we going to do about the sense of community,鈥� Lederman said. 鈥淥n campus that鈥檚 why students go to college on campus is for that community. For our IT students, we call it birds of feather flocking together.
鈥淚 am so proud of my faculty for jumping in and making this all work.鈥�
Around 125 IT students are using Slack to communicate and faculty monitors the channel Mondays through Saturdays. There鈥檚 a main channel plus channels for each course.
鈥淭he Slack channel is a great way for the VUIT program's students to interact and share information as well as have a good time,鈥� VU student Evan Wagoner said. 鈥淪lack makes it easy for students to ask the professors as well as other students in the class questions. It also allows us to maintain that feeling of actually being in class with the class group chats. Slack keeps the students and faculty more connected.鈥�
VU faculty and staff are using multiple platforms to stay connected with students like Wagoner, who lives in Shoals, Ind. and is working toward an associate degree in Information Technology. They鈥檙e communicating via virtual office hours using Blackboard Collaborate. Social media is also helping them stay in touch.
Evan Wagoner
Wagoner has worked on assignments with Lederman using Slack by sharing images with
her. She鈥檚 also provided him access to Blackboard Collaborate, which allows her to
see his screen and better answer his questions.
鈥淚t is very important to me to be connected to other students and the VU faculty,鈥� Wagoner said. 鈥淚t is important from the learning standpoint because I can ask my professors questions as well as being able to have group discussions with other students about difficult assignments.鈥�
Maintaining social interaction is hard when people are under stay-at-home orders, must remain six feet apart in gatherings of 10 or fewer people, and with basically everything closed. However, VU students, staff, and faculty are proving it can be done and done with fun.
鈥淚 had a couple of online courses before, but in those online classes, I didn鈥檛 really feel connected to the rest of the class,鈥� Davis said. 鈥淵ou may see names in the class that you know, but there wasn鈥檛 really a group communication. The way Professor Lederman and the IT staff is doing it, it makes it feel like we鈥檙e closer to being in an actual classroom than your typical online class.鈥�
We at 日韩中文字幕福利片 encourage learning environments that allow for distancing while still being social.
Together, VU is pulling through this!
VINCENNES UNIVERSITY - Indiana鈥檚 First College
VU is state-supported with campuses in Vincennes and Jasper, the Aviation Technology Center and American Sign Language program in Indianapolis, Early College Career and Technical Education Centers, and additional sites such as the Gene Haas Training and Education Center in Lebanon, the Logistics Training and Education Center in Plainfield, and the Gibson County Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics in Fort Branch. VU offers online degrees and classes to students who need access to college courses and flexibility through its Distance Education.
A leader in dual credit and career and technical education statewide, VU also offers instruction at military sites throughout the nation.
In addition to offering a wide range of associate degree and certificate programs, VU also offers bachelor鈥檚 degree programs in technology, homeland security, nursing, secondary education programs in mathematics and science, and special education/elementary education.
VU enrolls students from throughout Indiana, 36 other states, and 21 other countries. Tuition and fees are the lowest among Indiana campuses with residence halls. VU is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Founded in 1801, VU is Indiana鈥檚 first college and is the only college in the nation founded by an individual who would later become President of the United States. William Henry Harrison, the ninth U.S. President, founded VU while serving as governor of the Indiana Territory. More information is available at www.vinu.edu.
###
MARCIA MARTINEZ, University Life Reporter & Sports Information Director
812-888-4164 office, 314-599-1519 cell, VUNews@vinu.edu, mmartinez@vinu.edu
VINCENNES UNIVERSITY, Department of University Relations, www.vinu.edu/newsroom