wconline again?

[ivy]

dear robert:

 

i don't know what we were paying WCOnline in the past but it sounds like they are NOW willing to make a deal we cannot refuse.

 

for $715 a year we can have them back...and they have a function for online SYNCHRONOUS Chat so we can compete with AskOnline (which seems to be siphoning off many of our students...)

 

anyway, for your consideration, you can go to their website below:

 

http://www.mywconline.com/

 

sincerely,

ivy kaminsky

 

[Ronald Foster]

So why would 'we' need to 'compete' with Ask Online? Aren't we all part of the same school? And isn't Ask Online doing its job quite well? I also do not think 'siphoning' is the case. I think that the reason we do not get more students at the Writing Center is because many professors are not happy with some of the tutoring their students have been getting there. Just my opinion.

Ron Foster C. 281-748-1994

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Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2012 08:02:35 -0800
From: ivyka...@yahoo.com
To: hccs_se_wri...@googlegroups.com
Subject: wconline again?

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[Robert Lunday]

Hello,

That was close to the annual amount we paid, which we could not afford any longer. The home-made system (since it seems the A&M system will not work out) will improve, I think. As for synchronous, Askonline doesn't do synchronous tutoring; it's possible we could go that direction, but most likely not unless we have a significant increase to our budget. Askonline is ok for asynchronous online tutoring, and as Ron says, it's HCC -- so, it's still "us." As for any problems with our tutors -- well, I haven't received complaints, and would hope my colleagues would address any issues with me or Selena.

[Ron Foster]

We actually tried synchronous tutoring, and about 80% failed to show up for appointments, so of course we had to cancel.

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Ron Foster
Solar Panels of America LLC
281-748-1994 Fax: 832-203-1455
www.solarpanelsofamerica.com

[ivy]

Excerpts from the essay, “Explorations: the Multimodal Writing Center, Preserving the Rhetorical Nature of Tutoring When Going Online,” by Lisa Eastmond Bell, from the St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors, 4^th Edition, 2011:

Mary Wislocki explains, ‘Like many writing center directors, I had found that developing my OWL was a complicated business, especially since it seemed to challenge rather than reinforce well-worn writing center practices and values’ (71). Bell elaborates, “This is possibly because ‘the paper doesn’t communicate by itself – the person communicates’ (Coogan qtd. in Capossela 245), and without the writer present in some form, the learning process, the dialectical engagement – exchange, clarification, justification, meaning making – does not seem entirely intact. My questions to all but two of the writers went unanswered. Eye contact was impossible. I began to feel as if I was not running a writing center online but a much used and abused ‘fix-it’ center” (328).

Bell goes on to say, “What I have found after working both as an instructor and short-lived asynchronous tutor is that basic parts of face-to-face tutorials are altered significantly in asynchronous OWLing” (329).

“Some writing center directors see the posting or email submission of papers as equal to the student who comes into the center, unfamiliar with the tutoring process and asks to drop off a paper and pick it up again in a few hours after it has been ‘corrected.’ Clearly, these students do not recognize their role in the process of revising their own papers” (330).

“Because online tutoring is so slow and communication is potentially so difficult, tutors often ‘cut to the chase’ leaving out discussion, which should be the heart and soul of the tutorial” (331).

Now my opinion:

Personally, I have a problem with the concept of asynchronous tutoring. I believe the reason many HCC students use AskOnline instead of the Writing Center is because it is convenient, easy and saves time. I have seen synchronous tutoring in action and it seems like a reasonable compromise.  As Bell writes, “In the synchronous whiteboard format [the one offered by WCOnline], both the writer and text are presenting [sic] in the tutorial. This format takes, on average, more time than emails tutorials, but remains closer to the rhetorical nature of our face-to-face tutoring with a discussion-based, dialectical approach” (332).