Summer is an opportune time for educators, like me, to learn about and experiment with new teaching tools. Since the end of the Spring term, I have done research on classroom response systems (specifically i>clicker) and networked classroom control systems (such as SchoolVue). I found that most vendors of these systems offer the convenience of Webinars to familiarize potential customers with their products. Web conferencing is a real-time medium for company representatives to connect with customers, providing a way for customers to experience and ask questions about the products.

I have also been experimenting with Macromedia Captivate to create training video clips, demonstrating how to do a variety of tasks in the Learning Management System at KWC. These clips are a few minutes in length and can be downloaded at the user's convenience. I plan to develop a library of "QuickTip Clips" to use in the place of or in addition to printed step-by-step instructions.

After briefly sharing what I learned about creating mini-movies with Captivate, one of the faculty members began using it in his online class to show his statistics students how to do Microsoft Excel laboratory exercises. With the course being mostly asynchronous, the students have commented that the video clips proved very helpful in understanding the procedures and being able to complete the assignments. He plans to provide the clips for future face-to-face classes, as a resource for struggling or absent students.