{"id":74670,"date":"2023-09-29T08:08:23","date_gmt":"2023-09-29T13:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=74670"},"modified":"2023-09-29T08:08:25","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T13:08:25","slug":"fhsu-hosts-first-online-homecoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=74670","title":{"rendered":"FHSU hosts first online homecoming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By RAEGAN NEUFELD<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The homecoming fun of this week is not just limited to on-campus students this year with FHSU All In: Online Homecoming.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A combination of synchronous and asynchronous events started Monday. Students had the opportunity to share where they\u2019re from, share a picture of themselves in Fort Hays apparel, participate in a design contest and participate in a digital escape room. Zoom sessions with several alumni award winners were also available to students. All of the activities are being done through InScribe, a platform used by the online university for Tiger-2-Tiger, a virtual space for student connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kelly Meyer, an admissions advisor for FHSU Online, and Cyndi Landis, an instruction and outreach librarian at Forsyth Library, were two of the people involved in planning the online homecoming. Both are part of the on-campus homecoming committee and wanted a way for online students to get involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn past years, we\u2019ve wanted to include online students in homecoming,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cIt was just a matter of thinking of creative ways to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The planning process started in June. That included brainstorming activity ideas and consulting with Teaching Innovations and Learning Technologies (TILT) about what platform to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt took several major meetings of brain dumping and really feeling things out with TILT and the folks at InScribe,\u201d Meyer said.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While the activities and events of online homecoming are for students not in Hays, they have been made available to on-campus students and others as well.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe ended up duplicating all the activities that are in the Tiger-2-Tiger platform on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fhsu.edu\/homecoming\/schedule\/schedule-of-events\">homecoming website<\/a> too, thinking that anyone can do the activities,\u201d Landis said. \u201cCommunity members and alumni who can\u2019t travel back to Hays still have the opportunity to participate if they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The feedback from students has encouraged Meyer and Landis for future years and what they might hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe qualitative comments that we\u2019ve gotten so far by watching the different engagement shows that there is a need to do things like this and to advocate for our online students,\u201d Landis said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With most of the groundwork done this year, the possibility of improvements and changes for next year opens up. For example, the asynchronous activities might be open for longer than a week, and efforts can be focused on promoting the online homecoming to students more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, the main goal for Meyer and Landis is to provide online students with the connections and opportunities of on-campus students in a less formal setting than what they normally have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe, of course, want online students to feel like they\u2019re just as much a part of Fort Hays as our on-campus students, and taking advantage of these opportunities isn\u2019t only fun and good for the college experience, but also builds connections with other students or faculty and staff that can really benefit everyone in the long run,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAs an online student, the experience can feel a little siloed while taking three or four classes and maybe recognizing a few names between courses in a program,\u201d Landis said. \u201cTo have more of a recreational entertainment outlet to feel connected to the university can go a long way. A little bit can go a long way in feeling connected and feeling that pride of being an eventual Fort Hays graduate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By RAEGAN NEUFELD Tiger Media Network The homecoming fun of this week is not just limited to on-campus students this year with FHSU All In:&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74671,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Online-homecoming.png?fit=338%2C163","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=74670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74672,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74670\/revisions\/74672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/74671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=74670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=74670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=74670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}