MyMHCC takes off for fall classes

By James McEchron

The MHCC web portal, launched last spring, is starting to come together, according to Steve Smith, Title III grant instructor and web portal guru.

“Last spring was spring training,” said Smith. “Now we’re telling the faculty to play ball.”

The web portal is MHCCs attempt to bring their web technology into the new millennium. Faculty can leave detailed messages for students, alerting them to canceled classes, posting syllabi, or assignments. “There’s a wide range of uses,” said Smith, “and we’re just getting started.”

What’s new with the web portal this term? “More usage,” said Smith. “The faculty members are getting more engaged with the portal. We rolled it out to the faculty last spring. The integrated media faculty really jumped into it, because they’re tech wizards. The computer CIS people, like Paul Morris, really got into it as well. They took the lead and went with it. We have all the new faculty members who came back this term. During the in-service we gave some training. More and more faculty are getting engaged. It’s great, this is where we want to be. It’s a communications tool.”

There’s also more on the way. The software, developed by Jenzabar and licensed by the school, is receiving an upgrade. “Soon,” said Smith. “The upgrade is coming very soon. It will increase functionality and iron out some bugs. Some bugs, we take care of here, but Jenzabar handles them, too. Like any software, it changes and gets more developed as time goes on.”

Last spring, each department was training faculty on how to use it. That has come to an end. “They’re not going to do it anymore. People in those departments still offer support, but they’re not teaching each other anymore,” said Smith. “As colleagues, they’re talking to each other all the time. If they’ve got a problem they call me, and I work one on one. I’ve found that’s the most efficient way. Plus there’s the Teaching Learning Cooperative. It’s basically all really starting now officially, integrating this technology into our college and faculty, and at the student level. We’re just beginning.”

Smith said they had a pleasant surprise recently. “The web portal actually got faster. Loading speeds picked up. The support our faculty gets from the Computer Sciences people is great. They are kind of behind the curtain, helping with things.”

Smith said things have been going fairly smoothly. “Nothing catastrophic that we didn’t already know. People in Integrated Media are the ones who really got into it and debugged it.”

The upgrades are expected some time in 2007.

“The major goal is to get as many faculty involved as possible,” said Smith. “We don’t have a certain percentage or anything of people involved, but the goal is to get as many as we can up and running. Our other goal is to make sure we offer the support needed to do that. The other faculty members who participated in the spring, they’re helping the other faculty members as well. I’m basically the one they’re coming to now. There’s a lot of people getting involved.”