Breaking New Ground:WriteAway Online Collaborative Tutoring Service

Today’s Plan:A brief description of WriteAway

What is it? Who’s involved? How does it work?

Interactive Demo Try out the platform as a “student”

Next Steps for Online Tutoring in BC

Questions

What is WriteAway?A first step in British Columbia towards

collaborative, online tutoring for the post-secondary community

Platform: eTutoring Developed by Connecticut Distance Learning

Consortium Hosted + supported in BC by BCcampus

Currently asynchronous; future synchronous

Who is involved? BCcampus

Provides financial support Hosting + Technical support (FAQs, helpdesk)

BC Electronic Library Network Project coordination (as WriteAway Administrative Centre)

Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC Financial support, Concept Committee + UBC early adopter

Pilot institutions (joining in stages)

College of the Rockies

Camosun College

Douglas College

Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Simon Fraser University

University of British Columbia

How does it work?Governance provided by Concept Committee

Institutions pool staffing + expertise to develop materials, training etc

Communication + Documentation developed (for tutors, institutional coordinators)

Support available (BC ELN, BCcampus)

Evaluate service collaboratively

Asynchronous Tutoring Process

How does it work?Try out the platform!

First, create a student account – instructions provided Use the email provided to you to create an account (these

accounts will be deactivated after the session) Once your account has been created, try answering:

Which two tutors are available tomorrow (Friday June 7th)? What are the open/close dates for WriteAway this summer? What is the current turnaround time for responses? Is it possible to change your email address in the platform?

(hint: find your profile page)

How does it work? Continued…

Imagine you are a College of the Rockies student; where could you get information about other learning support services available to you? (hint: check out the resources area)

If you need technical help - where should you go? How many drafts of a writing assignment can you submit? (hint:

go to the eWriting Lab) Try submitting a paper via eWriting Lab (save a blank word

document to your desktop with the title "TEST”). What kind of information does a student need to provide?

Try posting an eQuestion (please put the word "test" in the Question Topic line)

See also writeaway.ca for “how it works…”

Tutor’s View…

The “Queue”

Next Steps for Online Tutoring in BCOversight provided by the BC eTutoring

Concept Committee + WriteAway Advisory Committee

WriteAway pilot continues in stages

Exploration of additional subjects + expanding to more institutions

ContactsLauri Aesoph – BCcampus

lauri.aesoph@bccampus.ca 250-405-4012

Leah Hopton – BC ELN/WriteAway Administrative Centre

leahh@eln.bc.ca

778.782.9573

Questions?

Photo by: Sean Dreilinger (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) http://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/2326448445/