SMART Boards concerns continue at Academic Senate meeting

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Frustration over technology not working in the Center for Sciences continued to be discussed at the Academic Senate in the Great Hall on Monday, March 7.

Physics Professor Ryan

Eagle said SMART Boards have not been working for almost a year now. Eagle explained the SMART Boards were installed over the white boards and are not good for anything else, so now they’re literally just blocking the board he would have been using otherwise. “We’ve just been waiting for them to get fixed and the frustrating thing is that we already have a lot of the components, but even if we, as the instructors, know how to fix them, we’re not allowed to since we don’t work for IT,” Eagle said. “It’s led to several alternative and creative teaching methods.”

IT Manager Mark Henderson addressed the issue and stated that a main reason for the delay is that the IT is understaffed and underfunded. They have a lot to do and not enough people to do it. Additionally, due to grants and contracts that need to be approved by various groups such as the budget committee, the process takes even longer.

“I continually fall behind with personnel, equipment, and different things like that,” Henderson said. “As we move forward, we should be getting some of our stuff through the shared governing process as everyone now has realized website looks, and if a website looks well designed we kind of trust that it is somewhat a credible source. It not about what the website looks it's about the information quality on the site. It's something that can be easily overlooked,” Mario said.

Pierce College student Jessica Ardon 28, undecided, said learning how to search a topic on the internet effectively can save you time.

“I’m taking a class in Child Development and this class can really benefit students young or old on how to search the web the right way,” Ardon said. Pierce College student, Shyan Maurad 19, Business major, attended the TMI workshop.

“It’s a great workshop. I really learned a lot on how to properly cite a website and how to find what I’m looking for,” Maurad said. Students will learn skills such as how to properly cite a website when writing an essay or paper. This allows others who read or see your work, check the resources you’ve used and check for accuracy by following your citation to the exact website you reference.

“These workshops never fill past 30 students," Macias said. "Most of the students who sign up are signing up because their professor offers extra credit. The most we've ever had in one workshop is about 20 students.”

The next workshop is on Thursday March 17th, 12 p.m. in room 5212 under the library and can seat about 45 students. So get your web searching skills ready, because employers want candidates who know the difference between web search and research.

HIV Testing

Free HIV testing will be available Monday March 21 through Thursday 24 at the

Sock Drive

Peer 2 Peer is collecting socks for homeless mens, womens and childrens at the ASO under the library, now through Thursday, March 31st.

Internet workshop

How to find and use web sources workshop on Thursday March 17, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. under the library room 5212

Mysteries of the Collection

Art Exibition will display "Mysteries of the Collection" on March 17, 2016 that we are at a deficit of resources and funding.”

Henderson offered to take advantage of the opportunity and entertain some questions. Eagle didn’t have a question but did publicly comment that, in case a scheduling problem comes up, he would be more than willing to vacate the classroom and teach elsewhere for a day. He made it clear that he was ready to meet the IT staff halfway to allow them the time and space they need to fix the problem.