Web Conferencing Tools for Teaching, Advising and Recruiting

There are a large number of web conferencing tools that can be used to simulate a live, virtual classroom to engage students as if they were meeting face-to-face. Many faculty consider live, personal interaction to be the most valuable element of quality teaching and learning experiences. West Virginia University utilizes Wimba Classroom which is a real-time virtual classroom environment that supports audio, video, application sharing, content display, and MP4 capabilities. West Virginia University utilizes Wimba Classroom for teaching/learning, advising and recruiting. Faculty makes use of this classroom environment to incorporate content experts from around the world, student presentations and to hold office hours. Faculty and advisors utilize Wimba Classroom for advising sessions to meet with students that are at a distance. WVU Extended Learning has engaged departments and colleges across campus to hold recruiting sessions via Wimba Classroom. The recruiting sessions are called Virtual Tuesdays. These sessions allow prospective students the opportunity to learn about WVU Online and Off-Campus degree options. Program faculty lead the information session and engage students in discussion. Extended Learning staff are available during the virtual session to answer questions regarding registrations, payments, and much more. Faculty and extended learning personnel will be interviewed to determine effective best practices in the ways in which they teach, advise and recruit using Wimba Classroom. The goal of the session is to share the best practice results with attendees in order to provide ideas of how they might utilize web conferencing tools for the purposes of teaching, advising and recruitment.