Spotlight on Willie Kelty, Technical Support to the Rescue

"Like a doctor on call," Willie Kelty is always available to Education Technology Services' (ETS) computer users. Kelty, a senior microcomputer consultant and member of the ETS support team, helps ETS programmers, instructional designers, and multimedia specialists become more efficient at performing their jobs.

Kelty's job, helping to increase efficiency within ETS, is vital to the role in the mission of its parent group, Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT), a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS). TLT seeks to enhance teaching and learning with technology at Penn State, and ETS supports TLT by developing valuable course tools and delivering expert service and training to the Penn State Community.

Kelty's list of job responsibilities reflects his dedication to helping ETS run smoothly. A small sample of it includes:

• Setting up and maintaining computers in-house, including PC, Macintosh, and Unix platforms.
• Keeping machines and software current and secure.
• Supporting, maintaining, and creating user accounts for course tools for faculty, students, and staff, such as CourseWeb, CourseTalk, Quiz Wizard, and the Assessment Survey Kit (ASK); also, helping to support Penn State's Course Management System, A New Global Environment for Learning (ANGEL).
• Occasional "house calls" to faculty members to walk them through one of the course tools, also, playing a consultant role.
• Helping with ETS surveys regarding technology use by faculty, staff, and students
• Providing technical assistance with setup for presentations, conferences, and expos as needed to further Penn State's mission to support information technology.

Part of Kelty's job is also to "understand all the users and where they're coming from. We keep our employees abreast of the latest technology. They're demanding, but that's fine. When we go out and see the students and how dynamic they are, we have to keep up with them. When we see the big picture, it all makes sense." Willie says he is always learning something as he keeps stride with new technology developments.