TeachOIT: a Blog for People Who Teach with Technology

On Friday, January 15, 2010, the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) will be offering demonstrations of the standard presentation and audio-visual technologies available in many campus classrooms.

Two concurrent sessions are being held between 11 am and Noon in Herter Hall. If you teach in a large auditorium, please attend the session in Herter 227. If you teach in a classroom, please attend the session in Herter 225.

Instructors and teaching assistants are encouraged to bring their laptops and presentation materials with them. Academic Instructional Media Services (AIMS) staff will be on hand to test materials and troubleshoot problems.

RSVP is not required. If you have any questions about these sessions or are unable to attend and would like to schedule individual training, please contact AIMS at 545-5768.

This January, Academic Computing is offering workshops for faculty on basic technologies for teaching and research, audio & video production, and building course websites with SPARK. Many are hands-on sessions where you can learn new technologies while working with content from your own courses.

For the workshop schedule, descriptions, and online registration, visit:

https://etna.oit.umass.edu/public/workshops

Workshop topics include:

Course Sites in SPARK

SPARK provides an easy way to build a course site that is available only to the students registered for your class. In addition to posting basic course information, we offer sessions on SPARK’s tools for discussions, online quizzes, and customizing the design of your course.

Audio and Video Media Production

Learn how to convert, edit and post digital audio and video on both Mac and Windows. Check out our new workshop on the basics of shooting video, or learn how to convert your PowerPoint lecture into a video in our screencasting workshop.

Personal Response Systems (PRS)

PRS (aka “Clickers”) is a new technology for engaging students, especially in large classes. These workshops will help you manage the technology and work with the data it collects from your students. Learn how to get started with using PRS as well as how to manage student data and expectations.

Library Resources and Information Literacy

Tired of students referencing Wikipedia articles, blog posts and anonymous, dead-wrong Web sites? Learn about the array of credible online resources available through the library. You can also learn how to organize your own citations and bibliographies using RefWorks, the UMass Library’s online citation management tool.

We can also present any of our workshops specifically for your department. Call us at 545-2823 for details.

Questions? Contact the Instructional Media Lab at 545-2823 | instruct@oit.umass.edu.

The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) has increased UMail quotas for the campus community.  Faculty and staff now have 2 GB of storage, graduate students have 1 GB, and undergraduates have 500 MB. Quotas for subsidiary and NENS (non-employee, non-student) accounts were also increased to 1 GB.

This announcement comes as OIT completes significant improvements to the infrastructure that supports UMail, the campus e-mail system. In addition to increased storage capacity, UMail can now accommodate attachments up to 50 MB. 

OIT anticipates that these improvements will mean less time students, instructors and staff spend managing their e-mail.

Academic Computing is pleased to announce the next SPARK Community of Practice Lunch. For our second event of the year, Professors Rachel Mordecai (English) and Wilmore Webley (Microbiology) will join us to share their experiences using SPARK. Topics they are planning to address include managing grades, using discussion boards, posting course content, and collecting student work electronically. This event will give you an opportunity to learn more about techniques other instructors are using to manage their courses and engage students in SPARK.

Since this event may also be of interest to instructors who are considering SPARK for their courses, please pass the world along to your colleagues.

SPARK Community of Practice Lunch
Tuesday, November 17, 1:00-2:15 p.m.
Lunch & beverages will be provided!

TO REGISTER:
If you are interested in attending this event, please follow this link to the registration form:
https://etna.oit.umass.edu/public/workshops
(If you are asked to create an account, remember to register for the workshop after that!)

Questions? Call us at 577-0072.

Academic Computing is pleased to announce our next “Emerging Technologies and Pie” event of the semester:

Using Wikis with Students
Monday, November 16, 2009
1:25 PM – 2:15 PM

Professors Millicent Thayer from Sociology and Kenneth Kitchel from Classics will join us to discuss their experience using wikis with their students. A “wiki” is a special type of web site that allows users to quickly edit and modify the content. Wikipedia, a collaboratively constructed encyclopedia, is probably the most well known example of a wiki. Wikis are being used in higher education for collaborations between students, instructors, and colleagues.

TO REGISTER:
If you are interested in attending this event, please follow this link to the registration form:
https://etna.oit.umass.edu/public/workshops
(If you are asked to create an account, remember to register for the workshop after that!)

About Emerging Technology and Pie
“Emerging Technology and Pie” is an interest group for faculty and instructors who would like to learn about the latest technologies for learning and teaching. These sessions are intended as quick overviews with discussions about the application of these tools. Faculty have priority for these sessions when seats are limited. And yes, we really do serve pie.

Note: If you are interested in hands-on training in these tools, we are happy to provide it through the Instructional Media Lab (instruct@oit.umass.edu or 545-2823).

Questions? Call us at 577-0072.

As of October 30, 2009, you have 100 MB of space allotted to your blog. This increased quota, the previous quota was 50 MB, will allow you to store more images, videos, and other files with your blog. Enjoy!

Faculty can contact the OIT Help Desk for information about increasing their quota beyond 100 MB. 

More on the Blogs at UMass Amherst Service

The Center for Teaching and Academic Computing invite you to join us to explore ways to design and implement effective PRS pedagogy in undergraduate courses:

At UMass Amherst, with more faculty members teaching large lectures, many have turned to PRS technology to help them engage students and alleviate the “passive attendance” phenomenon often seen in large classes. Many first time, as well as veteran, users report that the most daunting challenge to using PRS in class is to have a well thought-out instructional plan. Zane Barlow, Biology, an experienced PRS user and winner of the Distinguished Teaching Award, will facilitate our exploration of the following issues:

• How do we use PRS to diagnose or identify students’ misconceptions and set up deeper learning experiences that lead to fuller understanding? 
• How do we manage and guide discussions associated with PRS questions? 
• Guidelines for question design—the When, Why and What to ask.

The session will be 2:30 - 3:45pm, November 19^th, 2009 in the Teaching Commons in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library 26^th floor. Seats are limited, please register by November 12^th, 2009 by contacting the Center for Teaching at 545-1225 or e-mailing the Center for Teaching at cfteach@acad.umass.edu. For online registration, visit www.umass.edu/cft.

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month!

In support of this national initiative, OIT is sponsoring a number of activities designed to help the UMass Amherst community stay safe online. Each week in October will have its own cyber security theme. Protecting your computer is easier than you think!

Week 1: Safe Computing

This week, we’ll take a look at safe computing.

Learn more about the minimum steps you can take to keep your computer secure. Take our Security Basics Quiz!

This October, Academic Computing is offering many workshops on a range of instructional technologies, including creating effective presentations, working with digital images, learning about emerging technologies and copyright issues, and setting up a Blog with the Blogs at UMass Amherst system.

Most sessions are only 50 or 75 minutes long!

October workshop topics include:

• Previews of Window’s MovieMaker and Apple’s iMovie
• Charts and Graphs in Excel 
• Digital Image Basics 
• Mac Tips & Tricks 
• Social Bookmarking with Delicious 
• Setting up a Wiki with PBWorks 
• Copyright Issues for Faculty 

To view the full schedule and register for workshops online, please visit:
https://etna.oit.umass.edu/public/workshops

Please note that our workshop registration process has changed. To access the workshop registration form, you will need to enter your NetID and password (typically the same ID and password you use for your UMail account). Once you have logged in, you‘ll be able to register for workshops and view a schedule of the events you’ve signed up for (including an easy cancel option). Our new registration system will also help us keep track of people who are interested in certain topics or who have been previously waitlisted for specific workshops.

Interested in training, but none of the scheduled times work for you? Contact the Instructional Media Lab (545-2823) to set up a one-on-one consultation.

As a regular service of Academic Computing, we can visit your class for a demonstration or workshop on a wide range of technology topics. Recent topics include building PowerPoint presentations, creating Podcasts, getting set up with Blogs, and working with Digital Images.

Recently, we have had an increase in the number of requests for this service. In order to streamline the process and insure that these events meet your instructional goals, we have formalized our process (see below).

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As a regular service, OIT’s Academic Computing staff is available to come to your department and talk to the faculty or graduate students about the teaching technologies available on campus. In particular, we think new faculty or graduate student instructors would find these sessions helpful.

Academic Computing’s Instructional Media Lab will be closed for Labor Day weekend, Saturday September 5th through Monday September 7th, but Academic Computing staff will be monitoring email. Contact us at instruct@oit.umass.edu if you need assistance with SPARK or other instructional technology topics. 

The OIT Help Desk, Software Support, and OIT Account Management will be open on Sunday, September 6 and Monday, September 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Call 413-545-9400 or stop by A109 LGRC Lowrise.

Your students will have access to your Fall 2009 SPARK on Monday September 7th (12:01 AM to be exact.)

If you have requested and received a SPARK course, but not yet opened it up and begun building it, your students will see that course listed as when the log into SPARK, but receive a “Course not yet available message” if they try to access it.

Remember that you can hide items in your SPARK course to control access to areas of your SPARK course that may still be under construction at the start of the semester.

This September, Academic Computing is offering many workshops on a range of instructional technologies, including building course websites in SPARK, using Excel for grading, and setting up a Blog. Most sessions are only 50 or 75 minutes long!

To view the full schedule and register online, please visit:
http://www.umass.edu/accoprod/workshop/register.php

Interested in training, but none of the scheduled times work for you? Contact the Instructional Media Lab (545-2823) to set up a one-on-one consultation.

Avoid the rush! Request your 2009 SPARK course now on the revised request form in SPIRE.

To request a SPARK course, log in to SPIRE. Look in the left menu under Faculty Home > SPARK Course Request. The request process has been revised since Spring 2009 and now provides several improvements in the way you view your eligible courses, check the progress of your request, activate Grade Upload, and combine multiple sections in a single SPARK course. (See previous post “SPARK Request Form Updated” for details.)

Courses are normally created within 3 business days. You will receive a confirmation email once the course is ready. Please note that you can only request a SPARK course if you are listed as the primary instructor for the course in SPIRE.

If you would like to reuse SPARK content from a previous semester, refer to the instructions at:

http://www.oit.umass.edu/spark/faculty/tutorials/

Questions? Contact the Instructional Media Lab at 545-2823 or instruct@oit.umass.edu.