By Sergio Berrueta
The Counseling Department has added tutorials on YouTube to help new and continuing students with online services from the Los Angeles Community College District Student Information System.
On YouTube, ELAC Counseling videos give detail descriptions on how to handle certain tasks such as how to add and drop classes, to access to the LACCD student e-mail and to view upcoming counselor appointments.
Counselor Chris Garcia and the Orientation Committee created the new YouTube channel to extend services beyond the office. Garcia was the one who started the YouTube idea.
“The YouTube channel came about because we wanted to have something up for students to tap into,” Garcia said. “It was developed as more of an extension from the student orientation. If they have a question a week or two after the orientation, then they have something there to answer it.”
Garcia said that the video tutorials are a major step for the department expanding into the world of multimedia. As for plans expanding into social media, there are no current plans to enter other social media at this time.
“For now, we are just working with YouTube. It depends with the different medias that come out,” Garcia said. “If we can incorporate other media and use it effectively, we are open to it.”
“We found innovative ways on how students can access their information and the channel was a really good idea,” Counselor Alicia Perez said. “We hope this is the first step in finding ways on how we are able to communicate with students and make things much more accessible for them.”
ELAC student Daniel Jaramillo said the new service is useful, yet it’s not a replacement for human contact.
“The fact that the department came up with the idea to deliver helps benefit us to figure it out, yet it may not be as great as actually talking person to person,” said Jaramillo. “What would be nice to see is a Facebook page so we can post questions and have the counselors answer through comments.”
In a few months, there will be a survey to provide feedback on the service and suggestions for future video tutorials.
The YouTube channel has five videos uploaded that provide steps to using the LACCD SIS. The channel can be access by searching ELACCounseling or at youtube.com/user/ELACCounseling.