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This is the first in a series of interviews with Palomar College Technology Leaders.

Blaine Morrow - Director, CCC Confer

 

AT: You are the director of CCC Confer (www.cccconfer.org), whose grant is administered by Palomar College. Can you give us some information about your background and how you ended up with your current job?

BM:  Sure. I came here from Michigan State University, where I was on the faculty at the College of Education and served as director of several state-wide educational technology projects, including an after-school computer clubhouse program, a tele-mentoring program, a technology training program for faculty, and a Web-based literacy environment. I’ve also been on the faculty of Wayne State University’s Information Science department and have been a technology director at three districts. Having promised my wife many years ago that we would move to California when the time was right, I saw the CCC Confer job as a great opportunity to fulfill that promise.

AT: Can you explain the relationship between CCC Confer and Palomar College?

BM: Palomar College is the fiscal agent for the CCC Confer project, which serves the entire California Community College system.

AT: How many staff work at CCC Confer, and are they Palomar employees?

BM: Currently we have twelve full-time employees, all of whom are Palomar College employees. We also have three Palomar student workers.

AT: Can you give us an idea of what CCC Confer is and how it might be of benefit to our faculty, staff and students?

BM: CCC Confer provides free telephone and Web conferencing for anyone in the California Community College system. This allows for planned and impromptu meetings of two or more people, either by telephone (Call Confer) or by using both the phone and the World Wide Web to share content (Meet & Confer). With Web conferencing, you can share content (PowerPoint slides, documents, etc.), co-browse the Web, share applications, poll your audience, or use the whiteboard for taking notes. It also includes public and private chat features and the ability to archive the entire session. Some faculty use this for teaching classes, and others for holding Office Hours with students. We also see a lot of organizational meetings, professional development, and tutorial applications.

AT: How much business does CCC Confer do? That is, how many meetings and conferences does your organization facilitate each day?

BM: Every day is different, but (as an example) in April we had 218 meetings with 1938 participants, or about 70 meetings a day.

AT: Can you run us through a brief scenario of what happens in a Meet & Confer session?

BM: Sure. The presenter (whoever’s running the meeting) logs onto the Web and dials a toll-free number. On the phone, s/he hears the participants as they dial in and can greet them or use a code to get a roster. On the Web, the presenter can push PowerPoint slides to make a presentation, or may decide to co-browse the Web (that is, lead everyone to various Web pages), share a software application (like an Excel spreadsheet or a Word document), post questions – whatever anyone with a computer and projector might want to do in a face-to-face meeting. The participants see whatever the presenter wants to show them, and the presenter can even view the participants’ screens if that’s useful. All the while, they’re talking and listening to one another over the phone and maybe even sending chat messages using the chat board. There’s a polling feature that lets people raise their hands or vote on an issue, and, if requested, closed captioning can be turned on to serve the hearing impaired.

AT: What if during the course of a Meet & Confer session the participants need to communicate in writing? Let’s say, they are discussing a math problem. Is there a way for the presenter, for example, to represent math notation so that the audience can all see it? I’m thinking of a math teacher demonstrating how to solve a problem.

BM: Math teachers are so creative: I’ve seen them do a lot of different things with this. For one, they can use the whiteboard features, which include annotation and drawing tools. Others use special software for mathematical annotation, like MathType. And the one I like best right now is the tablet PC, which they can use for drawing or writing and directly share that with the audience.

AT: Can you describe in more detail what some faculty members from around the state are doing with Meet & Confer? For example, are they delivering lectures, teaching entire courses, and so on?

BM: All of the above and more! James Gonzalez at the College of Marin teaches the entire Macromedia suite – several courses – using Meet & Confer. Michaela Monahan at Southwestern College is running on online Book Club with Meet & Confer. Others I know are teaching architecture, art appreciation, business, chemistry, child development, computer science, ESL, English literature, forensics, math, multimedia development, and philosophy(!). Two months ago, we held an online conference with the California Virtual Campus that had more than 1,500 attendees and 50 presentations – and no one had to leave home or office to attend!

AT: What about Call Confer, where just a phone bridge is being used to conduct a meeting rather than a phone/Internet conference? Is it being used for academic purposes?

BM: Some folks use it for student consultation, but this is really just a collaborative tool: you can use it the same way you do the telephone for normal collaboration. The major difference is the number of people you can invite or include and the fact that the call is toll-free.

AT: Are faculty, especially online faculty, taking advantage of your Office Hours service? How much potential do you see for this service?

BM: The Office Hours service has really become popular this past semester and even this summer. It’s great to be able to help students from anywhere (I once had a session from my hotel room in San Francisco) and to accommodate their schedules. I think as we make it easier and as the word spreads, this will become one of our most popular services.

AT: "Webinars" are something new for you.  What are they?

AT: Are your services completely free to faculty and staff?

BM: Absolutely: no strings attached.

AT: Do users need any special equipment?

BM: Just a telephone and an Internet-connected computer.

AT: CCC Confer services sound very exciting, how do you get training in how to use them and—be honest now—how easy are they really to set up and use?

BM: You can get training online at www.cccconfer.org or by calling our Client Services (extensions 1537, 1554, or 1542). To be honest with you, if you’ve got a normal Web browser (like Internet Explorer) and know how to disable popup blockers, you won’t have any trouble setting up. If you don’t know about the popups, we might have to give you some simple support.

But learning to use the software to teach effectively or to run a good meeting is another story. Like everything else, practice makes perfect, and we’re all learning where that’s concerned.

AT: Should we contact someone in your office if we want to know more, or should we just go to the web page or what?

BM: Call me at ext. 1529, or call Michelle Taramasco at 1542. We’ll be happy to get you going. If you’re a self-starter, the Web page may be all you really need to experiment: there’s a demo room for practicing and a variety of training materials.

AT: I have participated in quite a few CCC Confer sessions now, but I’m not sure the service is being used much at Palomar for internal purposes. Should it be? If so, how can we get more people to participate?

BM: Vice President Cuaron is a big user, as are Sherry Goldsmith and Aaron Holmes, but you’re right: we don’t have as large a user base here as we do in many other colleges. I think people are naturally reluctant to try new things or invest time in learning a new technique, but once they recognize the value they’re likely to become sold on it. Maybe this article will help, or one of your readers will have a suggestion for expanding our Palomar base. I’m eager to hear from them!