Author Archives: Kara McElwrath

The start of the semester is here!  We couldn’t think of a better way to welcome you back than to showcase some of the resources and services we have available to support your teaching. We are looking forward to working with you and your students this semester!

CaptureSpace: Screencapturing Has Never Been Easier

ITS is excited to offer a new resource to the campus for recording lectures and screencaptures. CaptureSpace Lite includes many additional features beyond what TechSmith Relay has available, including the ability to:

• Record sections of your screen (not the entire screen)
• Trim videos at any point in the recording
• Trim videos after the recording has been published
• Add captions
• Upload attachments
• Add chapters (making it easier for the viewer to skip to specific topics)
• Add a title slide at the beginning and credits at the end

For additional information about how to use Capture Space Lite, please visit the Capture Space Lite webpage.

Classroom Technology Concerns? We Want to Know!

While we strive to ensure classroom technology is working smoothly, when there are issues, ITS wants to make it easy for faculty to report concerns. You will now see a Report Issues shortcut on the desktop of the instructor station in each classroom/lab. Simply double-click that icon to report any issues or concerns you may have. We will follow up with you to address them.

Based on the feedback from faculty last year, this summer we installed new projectors in over half of our classrooms throughout campus – your input makes a difference!

Taking Attendance for On Campus Courses

For faculty interested in taking attendance in on-campus courses, ITS has developed a web-based application. Check out the video for more information, including how to request this new service for your course!

Skype for Businesss: Conferencing and Online Courses/Meetings

Skype for Business is UIS’ campus solution for online collaborations, allowing users to communicate in live-time via instant message, audio and/or video chat, and desktop sharing. Skype for Business is a great tool for communicating with online students – to host class sessions, to offer office hours, for students to collaborate on group projects, and more. Please check out our Skype for Business webpage for information on how to download and start using Skype for Business.

Instructional Software: When and Where you Need It

In an effort to improve the ease of access of instructional software, users may take advantage of Citrix Virtual Desktop. This process allows users (whether on or off campus) to access a virtual computer that runs software for which UIS has licensing. Citrix Virtual Desktop runs on all platforms, including mobile devices.

Additional Software Offerings

ITS is committed to ensuring that faculty have access to the software they need. Earlier this year, we acquired site licensing for the Adobe Creative Cloud suite of applications as well as SPSS. Faculty may download any of these applications from the WebStore.

Faculty can also take advantage of Office 365 to download Office applications on their personally-owned devices, free for use. Office 365 also includes use of the Office mobile apps, allowing you to create and edit Office documents on your mobile devices.

3D Printing and Scanning

We are excited to offer 3D printing and scanning at UIS. ITS has a 3D printer and a 3D scanner available for course projects. There are many applications that can be used to design the model to be printed. We have installed the entire Autodesk suite of software in the UHB 2000 lab and the Media Lab. This software is also available free of charge to faculty, staff, and students. Please visit our 3D printing and scanning webpage for more information.

Changing your password just got easier! ITS has implemented the ability for you to set up password recovery options. Setting up your password recovery options will allow you to recover your password on your own, whenever you want, from wherever you want, using three different recovery methods (email, text, and voice).

Although not required, we encourage you to start the process as soon as possible. It will make it easier to change your password as you near your password expiration date. You can access the new system from http://go.uis.edu/password. The process is very easy and should only take you a minute to walk through the set up process.

If you would like assistance in setting up your options, please visit ITS Client Services in the lower level of Brookens Library. We will also be having drop in help sessions in BRK 141B every day this week from 11am-1pm if you would like to walk through this process with an ITS staff member.

This implementation is part of the first phase of the Identity and Access Management (IAM) project and we are excited to be the first University of Illinois campus to roll out this functionality!

We always like taking a peek into the potential future of higher education and how technology may evolve! We can’t believe how much it has evolved in just over the last few years…tablets being utilized in classrooms, an endless amount of apps for smart devices targeted towards education, online courses becoming more and more common, and more. Checkout this infographic we found that delves even deeper into what the future may hold!

Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics

It’s mid-term time! Can you believe we are already half-way through the semester? Chances are, students are preparing for midterm exams or completing midterm papers. If a paper is not assigned as a midterm project, chances are a final paper is part of the final exam or final project. We want to share a resource with you to share with students (and use yourself!) when it comes to writing papers. The tool is Excelsior College’s Online Writing Lab, commonly known as OWL. You may have heard of it already, but it recently won a WOW award and underwent a website makeover, making it even more functional and easy to navigate!

OWL is a great place to check out how to incorporate a multitude of sources into a paper and how to cite these sources, grammar tips, and even ways to avoid plagiarism. This website is a great resource to utilize as educators, and to share with students, as they will definitely utilize this resource throughout their academic career, and even beyond!

We wanted to follow up our Summer Bucket List with one more suggestion to consider these next few months! With more downtime than during the school year, summer also lends itself to be an excellent time to check up on your computer and brush up on your security smarts! We’ve shared excellent tips in the past on being safe online, but here are some ways you can utilize time this summer to make sure everything is working smoothly and safely!

• Update all software related to protecting your computer (yes, that anti-virus reminder you have been avoiding for much too long!)
• Be cautious when connecting to Wi-Fi. When using public wi-fi hotspots, make sure you do not enter passwords or access private information. Since these are open access, there is a higher possibility this information is compromised.
• Revisit your passwords: If you use the same password across different accounts or you cannot remember the last time you changed them, then now is the perfect time to reset your passwords. Make them different across accounts and very unique (using numbers, characters, uppercase and lowercase letters). Make sure you keep them in a safe place where they will not be discovered by others.

If you have questions about good web practices or about internet safety, feel free to contact us!

With the end of the semester right around the corner, faculty and students may be thinking about the best ways to showcase their work – either for a particular course or for their entire college career. There are several tools available that allow students to organize, publish, and showcase their best work. Especially for students preparing to enter the workforce, these resources can be a great way to share skills and expertise with potential employers.

We’ve blogged about student response systems before—we love them! They are great ways to keep students involved and attentive during class, and a great way to gauge how they are following along and understanding class materials. An added bonus—because they don’t require out-loud feedback, it encourages even students who normally remain quiet during class to easily provide their opinions.

In the past, we have shared tools like Socrative and TurningPoint, and today we are sharing another new web-based version we have come across called Geddit. This tool is similar to Socrative in the sense that the educator can send questions to a student’s device, and the student can respond using their own device. The added bonus of Geddit is really the ways to receive the responses and view the results.

Ask questions and see how specific students respond in a cool interface that highlights the individuals who may not necessarily be grasping a concept as well as others.

If you are interested in learning more about Geddit or student response systems in general, we’d love to work with you! Come visit ITS Client Services in the lower level of Brookens Library!

The way education is evolving with ever-changing technology is really booming these past few years, so when it comes to thinking about how it will be in the future, it can be quite overwhelming! Check out this infographic we found that looks at different approaches and opinions of how technology may effect education in the year 2020.

Is technology going to grow to be an even more integral part of education? What do you think?

Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics