11/13/2007
A panel of Century College English faculty members has been selected to present on Century's Online Writing Center at a national conference in April. The panel, which consists of Century faculty Brian Lewis, Laurie Lykken, Kim Gaffney, Gordon Pueschner, and Chris Weyandt, will be presenting at the College Conference on Composition and Communication in New Orleans April 2 to 5.
Only one out of four applicants is selected to present at this national conference.
The theme for the New Orleans conference is "Writing Realities, Changing Realities." The panelists will discuss how Century College's Online Writing Center fits into this theme.
"In the Online Writing Center, we discovered that students are most interested in writing the 'reality' of the world around them to share with each other," reports Brian Lewis, coordinator of Century's Online Writing Center. "As community college faculty, we also recognize the importance of meeting the needs of our diverse student population, particularly the need to build community. In the Online Writing Center, this has translated into facilitating student interactions to fit their 'changing realities.' As a result, our Online Writing Center has become student centered rather than instructor centered."
Each panelist plans to report on a different aspect of the Online Writing Center's development. The first speaker, Kim Gaffney, will discuss the ways in which the Online Writing Center was set up to provide faculty tutors to act as Online Writing Center facilitators to meet a variety of student needs. Secondly, Brian Lewis will discuss the "changing reality" of student writing in student interactions with each other on the discussion boards in the Online Writing Center. The third speaker, Laurie Lykken, will focus on the building of video and quiz content for the Online Writing Center to appeal to student desire to interact with visual literacies. And the final speaker, Gordon Pueschner, will make specific recommendations to two-year colleges regarding online writing center development on the basis of what we have learned through our work. Throughout the panel's presentation, Chris Weyandt will serve as chair for the panel.
The panelists would like to invite the Century community to explore the Online Writing Center further prior to the panel's presentation in New Orleans. Recently, grammar quizzes and video blogs have been added for students. Students may still peer review each other's work or discuss Century's common book, Persepolis, in the Discussion Boards. Or they may wish to schedule an appointment with an Online Writing Center faculty tutor to review a paper. To find out more about what the Online Writing Center has to offer Century College, feel free to e-mail the Coordinator of the Online Writing Center, Brian Lewis, English faculty, at brian.lewis@century.edu.