The E-Learning department at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College hosted its tenth successful Welcome Back Week in January 2020. The department’s e-learning support awareness program was started in the fall of 2016 to educate students about the support options for Blackboard and online learning while on campus.
During the first week of classes each semester, E-Learning sets up a table in the café area on campus to serve as a one-stop shop for login assistance and Blackboard support.
In addition to offering on-demand support at a convenient location for students, E-Learning chooses a campaign theme for each Welcome Back Week. Campaign themes highlight a specific technology tool or service. The campaign topic for spring 2020 was Office 365. Campaign themes are a great way to highlight the features of a particular technology tool. Office 365 was the campaign theme for 2020 and was wildly successful. Many students successfully logged in to and downloaded free Microsoft products directly to his or her laptop before the end of the first week of classes.
In addition to providing a fun and engaging theme, The Help Desk distributes informational handouts, offers free earbuds for use in the computer lab and conducts a drawing each semester for a technology giveaway. The E-Learning Help Desk has donated eight laptops and two e-readers as a part of the Welcome Back Week student outreach campaign.
Blue Ridge CTC’s E-Learning Department is proud of the technology support awareness that has developed on campus over the last five years and hopes to continue to reach more students with improved programs and support services in the future.