Post-Katrina, e-Learning Product More Valuable than Ever

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Post-Katrina, e-Learning Product More Valuable than Ever

8/28/2006

By Linda L. Briggs

It’s been a year since Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding devastated New Orleans, and a new hurricane season is underway. At Delgado Community College, last year’s havoc hit hard. But the tragedy has resulted in some positive changes.

The Louisiana public community college has campuses throughout New Orleans, including the East and West Banks of the city. One tool that has gained a heavy following on at least one campus since the hurricane is Tegrity’s class recording system, which wasn’t in great use before the storm, but proved incredibly useful when students had to abandon campus and finish classes online. Integrated with backend course management systems, Tegrity gives schools the ability to record, store, and index courses online. This allowed Delgado faculty to continue delivering instruction online.

Before Katrina hit, Melissa LaCour, Director of Health Information Technology for the entire Delgado Community College system, was one of the primary users of Tegrity at Delgado. LaCour works from Delgado’s main City Park campus in the Orleans parish, and has been using Tegrity since 2003, primarily for enhancing her face-to-face classes in health information technology.

At Delgado, Tegrity is tied into the college’s Blackboard Course Management System, which the school uses to post class information such as syllabi, additional materials, quizzes, tests, and assignments for online as well as face-to-face classes.

The initial days after Katrina struck in late August 2005 were filled with uncertainty, LaCour says. In the first days after the storm, it seemed as if little had happened. “Initially we felt unscathed from the storm,” she says. “Everything seemed fine, only to find out later…that it wasn’t.” During the week after the storm, of course, the infamous levees were breached, and some 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded. The city is still struggling to recover from this devastation.

As the flooding worsened and covered much of the city, Delgado students, faculty, and staff waited in various locations outside the city to find out when they could return to the campus.

When LaCour was finally able to reunite with some faculty members and administrators a week after the storm, colleges throughout the state were offering to help take Delgado students. However, LaCour says she suddenly realized that with Tegrity’s ability to deliver material to any student with an Internet connection, she could lecture from anywhere. “I realized…I wanted to help my students; this is my job and I can do this. I have the material, and I have the ability with Tegrity. There’s no reason that they should have to go anyplace else,” LaCour recalls.