Dear ME Undergraduate Students:

Please see the e-mail below for your information and make note of the following opportunity. Up to 100 undergraduate students across campus are currently being recruited to serve as Instructional Technology Advocates for the spring semester 2021. Responsibilities and position details of Technology Advocates include:
• Help to improve Brightspace courses
• Communicate technical details to faculty and students.
• Deliver instructional technology guidance to faculty and students.
• Expected to be a point of contact for faculty, students, and liaison to ITaP.
• A minimum commitment of 10 hours a week.
• Will be compensated at $9 an hour.
• Remote work option is available.
Student who want to apply to be Technology Advocates should start the process by completing an application form at the following website:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf2nRixKWEL-JltbOg8Y-49q2mX-CvSQDJ94azQ4gCOzqPQiw/viewform

Feedback from instructors and students about fall 2020 identified course technology as an area where more support was needed for spring 2021. Based on this input, the university has approved funding for a Teaching & Learning initiative that we hope will both improve student learning and reduce burdens on faculty. We will be hiring up to one hundred Technology Advocates – undergraduate students who will provide instructional support to faculty and students during spring 2021. Technology advocates can assist faculty with their Brightspace courses and assist with streaming and lecture capture tools (e.g., BoilerCast).When faculty and students have questions about instructional technology related to their courses, Technology Advocates will serve as a point of contact who is connected to Purdue’s technology support infrastructure.

In addition to hiring student workers, we are recruiting full-time staff to serve as supervisors on an overload basis. Supervisors will oversee and coordinate teams of Technology Advocates, and will establish the initial relationship with interested faculty so they can determine how best to meet each instructor’s needs. Supervisors will be liaisons to TLT and ITaP when additional support is needed.

This initiative is a collaboration between Teaching & Learning, college IT staff, TLT, and ITaP. We are hoping to build on existing relationships within colleges when possible, and our educational technology experts in TLT are helping to develop the training plan for students and their supervisors. Victory Soe, Senior Instructional Technologist in the Computer Science department, will be leading the team overall.

Faculty who want to request a Technology Advocate for a spring 2021 course should fill out this request form. If we receive more requests than we can staff, priority will be given to larger courses and those that are primarily taken by first- and second-year students. We will communicate about this initiative more broadly next week, but please share this information with your faculty as you see fit.

Students who want to apply to be Technology Advocates should start the process by completing this application form. Full-time staff with experience teaching courses with Brightspace should email Victory Soe (vsoe@purdue.edu).