News and Notes from TLT – Summer 2019

In this issue: 
  • Fall ‘19 Courses in Canvas 
  • Inactive vs. Deleted Students 
  • NEW Canvas add-ins: Poll Everywhere and Screencast-O-Matic 
  • Accessible Course Content (coming soon: Video Captions and Transcripts) 
Fall ‘19 Course Load Date – Available in Canvas by the end of the day on June 18th. 
  • To customize your dashboard – in the Courses tab, select the star next to the courses you want to see on your dashboard 
  • If you are interested in getting a head start building your courses, create a Master Class and import the content once courses are loaded. Videos and Guide. 
  • When it’s time to import your course content, be sure to “select specific content”. This will not only prevent duplications, but also prevent unwanted content/settings to transfer.
    • IMPORTANT: If you chose to import ALL, including course “Settings”, and have manually altered course dates in your previous course, those old dates WILL transfer. This may prevent students from participating in your course
“Inactive Students”   

Beginning June 10, 2019, any student who is removed from a course after the start date will be listed as “inactive” in Canvas, instead of disappearing completely. This improvement will allow you to retain submissions, attendance information, etc. within the course. 

Coming Soon! Poll Everywhere in Canvas starting Fall ‘19 

Poll Everywhere will soon be integrated into Canvas. You will be able to: 

  • Import your course roster, automatically giving your students a participant account 
  • Send scores from your poll to the Canvas gradebook
  • Add polls into your course Modules
  • For more information or to get an account, email TLToffice@widener.edu.
*NEW* Screencast-O-Matic in Canvas 

Did you know you can screen capture within your Canvas course? The Screencast-O-Matic integration has been added university wide, allowing you to create instructional videos with a few simple clicks. 

Accessibility 

As you prepare your courses, keep accessibility in mind. For more information on creating an accessible Canvas course and creating accessible documents check out the Digital Accessibility course in Canvas

Coming Soon! Video Captioning 

Widener will soon be offering video captioning through Cielo24. If you have instructional videos and want to learn more about the new captioning service, email captions@widener.edu.

News and Notes from TLT – Spring 2019

As the Spring ‘19 semester winds down, it is time for another TLT update…  

Canvas Course Uploads 

Summer ‘19 Courses- Your Summer ‘19 courses were added into Canvas this week.  Now that your courses are loaded, you are able to import your content from a previous semester or from your Master Class. For more information on building and maintaining Master Classes, view the guide and short videos.  

Fall ‘19 Courses– Your Fall ‘19 courses will be loaded into Canvas 10 weeks prior to the start of the semester. You do not need to wait for the upload to build your courses. Simply create a Master Class now and you will be ready to import your course content!  

TLT-led Workshops 

New dates and times, PLUS a new session on utilizing classroom technology! Sign Up Here       

(Hint: Here is the full LIS Event Calendar– Bookmark This Page!)

*Spring ‘19 Breakfast Series*  How Can I Engage My Students in Canvas and Beyond?

Come join TLT for a light fare breakfast during this three-part series to increase student engagement in your Canvas courses. Sign up to attend any or all of these workshops, in any order you wish.

a. Engagement: Student Teamwork

Collaborations, Groups/ group assignments, Wiki pages, Flipgrid 

b. Engagement: Constructive Feedback  

SpeedGrader, Audio and Video, Journaling, PollEverywhere 

c. Engagement: Rubrics and Grades  

Experiencing Rubrics, Turnitin (new Plagiarism Framework)New Gradebook 

Making the Canvas Commons Work for You 

Did you know you can share instructional resources (rubrics, quizzes, pages, etc.) with your colleagues within Canvas? 

“Commons is a learning object repository that enables educators to find, import, and share resources.” In this session, you will explore the free content available to you and learn how to create and utilize a shared resource center for your faculty groups. 

*New*  Getting Comfortable with Your Classroom Technology 

Do you know… 

     How to black out projection without turning off the classroom projector?       How to take advantage of the dozens of Zoom ready rooms?                                   How to incorporate screen sharing from students? 

Topics covered:

  • Classroom controls 
  • Zoom 
  • PrideShare 
  • Tips and tricks 
Training feedback from your colleagues… 

“Real time polling can be an effective pedagogical tool to gauge what students know or don’t know before you begin a subject, and to assess what they’ve learned after you’ve covered something. I had been using Kahoot! but found it to be a little goofy for college level classes and a little difficult to integrate into power point presentations. PollEverywhere offers a more professional presentation and is much easier to utilize in presentations. Following the TLT training I was able to convert my polls from Kahoot! to PollEverywhere, and given the ease of PollEverywhere, am working to add more polls to my presentations.” 

~Stu Eimer, Associate Professor, Sociology 

“My attendance to a workshop on Canvas’ different capabilities regarding Student Teamwork was excellent. I used it almost immediately as I was trying to schedule my field work with students. We went right to “Collaborations” and were able to create a shared document, just like a google doc, that met our needs perfectly. So easy and convenient. And I would never have known that capability was there without our Teaching and Learning Technologies team.” 

~Nadine McHenry, Professor, Education 

“I highly recommend the Canvas training sessions!  I thought I had my Canvas courses working pretty well, but Jessica taught me how to use groups much more effectively- uncovering functionality I never knew existed.” 

~Mark Paterson, Clinical Assistant Professor, Physical Therapy 

January 10th – Canvas Trainer Returns to Widener

Mark your calendars!

We are excited to announce that the excellent Canvas trainer that came to Widener’s Bridge Week in May will visit us again (virtually this time).

There will be two 50 minute live sessions that faculty can attend virtually via Zoom or in person (more details on location to follow).

January 10, 2019
  • 1:00-1:50 PM – Take Student Engagement to the Next Level in Canvas (while taking advantage of some time-saving features for faculty).
  • 2:00-2:50 PM – Incorporate Rubrics, Outcomes, and ILOs in Canvas. We’ve made it easy!

Any questions, please contact TLToffice@widener.edu

 

Say Hello to LinkedIn Learning!

On December 18th, Lynda.com will become LinkedIn Learning

We’re excited to let you know that we’ll be upgrading one of your learning and development benefits, Lynda.com, to LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning has the same great content as Lynda.com, and it will provide a more personalized experience.

Accounts will be upgraded on Tuesday, December 18th, at which time you will no longer be able to access Lynda.com.  But don’t worry, all your learning activity and history will be seamlessly transferred to LinkedIn Learning.  After the upgrade is completed (we expect it to take up to ~18 hours), you’ll receive an email to activate your LinkedIn Learning account.

More information on the upgraded LinkedIn Learning environment is available here.  Answers to questions like “What if I don’t have a LinkedIn account?”, “Do I need to connect my LinkedIn profile?”, and “Will my administrator have access to view my LinkedIn activity on my personal account?” can be found in the LinkedIn Learning FAQs.

We look forward to the upgrade and seeing how LinkedIn Learning helps you continue your growth and success!

Microsoft Office 365 Resources

Some helpful resources for getting started or learning more
about Office 365!

Office 365 is the Microsoft collection of productivity applications that you’re already familiar with, like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It also includes Outlook (email and calendars), OneNote, and OneDrive (cloud-based file storage).
Click on any of the Office 365 applications below for more info, including Quicksheets you can download for getting started, helpful tips, Microsoft info sites, links to mobile downloads, and videos!

The Office suite is available for all Widener faculty, staff, and students to download on up to five devices as a part of our campus Microsoft agreement. If you want to install Office on your personal computer, we have Office 2016 download instructions.

Need training? Client Success has you covered…

Client Success provides training sessions on a variety of topics, including the Office 365 suite of applications.

Upcoming OneDrive Training Sessions

Upcoming OneDrive training sessions are scheduled for October 30th, and November 5th and are open to all Widener employees. You can register for any of those sessions using the Open OneDrive Training – Registration form.

Recent Examples Illustrate How We Can Help

Our initial training sessions began with a handful of targeted groups.  These initial sessions have helped us build a successful training program that we’re excited to share with everyone!

Microsoft Forms training provided one group with the tools and knowledge necessary to completely revamp a cumbersome registration process. Microsoft Groups training provided another with the ability to establish a new electronic records handling process – just in time for the “Printer Right-Sizing” campaign. Lynda.com from LinkedIn training helped yet another team create and share meaningful playlists for their target audience. And most recently, our OneDrive for Faculty sessions supplemented TLT Canvas training, providing extra help for building course content.

Training Requests

If you’re interested in attending training on a different topic, at a different time, or you want to schedule training for your department/group, please use the Training Request form.  Future training sessions will be offered based on your feedback from this form.

Moving forward

Microsoft is always updating versions, changing features, or adding functions. And sometimes Widener makes changes that can affect existing processes or bring new tools to the table. Keep an eye out for anything new that we can help you learn and master.

If you haven’t already, subscribing to this blog is a great way to stay informed on new initiatives and upcoming changes. Visit our previous post for instructions on subscribing to the RSS Feed to get blog posts sent right to your Inbox.

We always value your input and feedback. Please contact Client Success if you would like to share your thoughts and ideas about how our training process can continue to improve. We’re here to help you be successful in your part of making Widener great!

One Year Later with Lynda.com

Last April, we began providing Widener faculty, staff and students with access to the Lynda.com library of tutorials on technology, creative, and business skills. In the first year, we’re happy to see that 926 of us have viewed 16,900 videos.

Here are courses that have been viewed by the most people (or for the most total hours):

  1. Learning Canvas 2016
  2. Learning Office 365
  3. SPSS Statistics Essential Training
  4. How to use Lynda.com
  5. Learning Canvas 2017
  6. Social Media Marketing: Optimization
  7. Excel 2013 Essential Training
  8. Learning with Lynda.com
  9. SharePoint: Compliance Management
  10. Office 365: Learning Excel

Remember, you can access Lynda.com from any device with Internet access, even when you’re away from campus. (Students: if you need to brush up on a skill for an internship or summer job, remember that you can still use Lynda.com.) All you need are your Widener username and password when you visit lynda.widener.edu. Enjoy!

New Roles for Two ITS Employees

Our new employees are great, but so are our veterans. We’re celebrating two long-time employees in ITS as they take on new roles in the organization.

kitchenjJohn Kitchen

Long-time ITS employee John Kitchen ’97 stepped into the Interim Director of Client Success position several months ago. Good things followed immediately, so it didn’t take long for it to be clear that he was the right person for the job. Effective immediately, John Kitchen deletes the word “Interim” from the beginning of the title.

The director of client success position is responsible for leading a variety of crucial services at all three campuses: our help desks and student labs, the asset management program, desktop software, and technology training.

John Kitchen has deep experience in all of these areas. He has worked in ITS for a total of 18 years, and has been in charge of supporting law school IT needs since 2006. He’s a recognized leader in his field, currently serving as a vice president for the Philadelphia local chapter of HDI, a professional association for the technical support industry.

Jackie MacDonald

As part of John’s charge to deepen our focus on client advocacy, he promoted Jackie MacDonald ’12 to the newly created position of client success analyst. Jackie has worked in several different positions in ITS in her eight years at the University. Jackie is an in-house expert for Macs as well as the systems that manage our trouble resolution and asset management data. Most importantly, Jackie has always been a person who acts as a “voice of the client” in ITS processes, pointing out how we can improve our services for faculty, staff, and students.

The client success analysts—we will eventually have two at the Chester campus— focus more of their time on the parts of IT support that extend beyond the help desk. In addition to asset management, Jackie will spend a lot of her time supporting training and professional development efforts to make better use of our supported software. She was the driving force in our launch on Lynda.com last year, and one of the main reasons that over 825 Widener community members have already taken advantage of the technology learning platform.

If you or your department would like to discuss technology learning needs, contact Jackie to let her know of your interest.

External OneDrive File Sharing

We’re enabling one of the most requested features for Office 365.

ODFBUntil now, OneDrive file sharing to external accounts has been disabled. In our ongoing effort to support your academic and business needs, ITS is happy to announce that you can now share your OneDrive files with anybody.

Sounds great! How do I do I get started?

1. Log into Office 365 and click on Apps Launcher and click on OneDrive. (It’s a blue button in the upper left that looks like a waffle.)

image of Microsoft

2. Right click on the document you plan to share and choose Share.

3. Click on drop down option “Only people in Widener…” in pop up window.

4. Click on Anyone (you will see a check mark) to share the file outside of Widener University accounts.

a. Note that Allow editing is checked by default; if you do not want to allow editing, uncheck this box.

b. Also, there is an option to enter an expiration date for the link to expire. We recommend entering a date.

c. Click Apply when finished with Link Settings.

5. Enter the recipient’s full email address then click below to choose that email.

a. For multiple users, enter each email address and click on the email below it.

b. When all of your recipient emails have been entered, you can enter an optional message.

c. Other options include clicking on Copy Link, which will create a link to copy into an email, etc., to send to recipients.

d. Clicking on Outlook will open a sharable link in an email (in a pop-up window), addressed to the recipient emails you entered earlier. This is a great option for when you need to attach additional files to the email, insert a signature, etc.

6. Click Send to send link to recipients.

a. You will get a pop-up stating a link to your files have been sent. You can click the Copy button to copy and paste the link if needed.


b. Each recipient will receive an email supplying a link to the file and an optional message if entered.

c. If you granted the recipient edit access, they will be shown as a Guest Contributor in the document when editing.

 

To remove a share

a. Right click on the file and click on Details.
b. Click Manage access (in blue letters)
c. To stop sharing this file:
i. Click on the x to the right of the specific link to end share.
ii. To stop all sharing of this file, click Stop sharing (under Manage Access).
d. Click Stop sharing button to confirm.
e. Click X at top right to close Manage access window.
f. Under Has Access, you should see updated icons.
g. Click at top right to close Details window.
h. At far right of file, you should see “Only you” if you removed all sharing.

If you have any questions, please contact the HelpDesk or submit at ticket at quickticket.widener.edu