Whether teaching in-person, online, or a blend of the two approaches, there are technologies that can meet specific needs for you and your students.
Canvas
Our learning management system is probably the most important of the educational technologies you will use. It’s the central focal point for materials and many of the online activities used in classes. You can get support and information from three courses:
- Canvas guides provided by Instructure
- For 24/7 Canvas support provided by Instructure Technical Support, log into Canvas and click the Help Icon at the bottom of the Navigation bar. There is a phone number and a link for live Chat specific to faculty (and for students, specific for student support).
- Contact Sharon Birch in the TLDS for support and consultation on anything related to Canvas
The Teaching and Learning Design Studio will periodically offer workshops on particular aspects of using Canvas and a new “Canvas Basics for Faculty” course in Canvas will be available in summer 2021.
Video Technologies
Vidgrid is our tool for both screencast recording and video streaming. Contact the ITS helpdesk for a recording account and contact the TLDS with any questions about best practices in video for teaching and learning. for those of you who are new to Vidgrid, we have a resource page.
While everyone has probably had more than enough Zoom to last a lifetime, we do still keep an eye on what’s up in the Zoom world and any improvements to the platform. Contact the Teaching and Learning design Studio with any questions. If you happen to be new to Zoom, we do have a resource page.
Communication and sharing technologies for online teaching and working remotely
VPN: VPN or Virtual Private Network is a way for you to securely connect to networked campus resources even when you are off‐campus. Specific details can be found in the ITS Knowledgebase for how to connect to VPN from a Windows PC or a Mac computer. Everyone has access to VPN, but you will need to enable multiple-factor identification.
Links to ITS resources for setting up VPN:
Setting up VPN
Enabling multiple-factor identification
Cisco Jabber: Jabber is a tool that allows you to use your cell phone as if it is your desk phone on campus. It also has a chat feature to instant message faculty and staff who use the tool. ITS must enable Jabber for your account. If you don’t have a cell phone that can use the Jabber app, then you can still forward your office calls to another phone. This must be done while you are on campus from the Jabber program running on your
office PC.
Links to ITS resources for setting up Jabber:
Set up Jabber
Call forwarding using Jabber
Zoom: Zoom is web‐conference software that allows you to talk to others, share what is on your computer screen and/or text chat. Everyone has access to a basic Zoom account, and hopefully everyone is fairly familiar with it by now as an excellent communication tool! See the Zoom page in the ITS knowledgebase for more specific information about Zoom accounts, and check out the Zoom page here in the Resources section for more resources on using of Zoom.
Office365 OneDrive: OneDrive is an app that is part of Microsoft Office365 that allows users to save and access files in the cloud. The easiest way to login is to click the e‐mail button from the college homepage and then click the squares in the upper left of the screen to access all of the Office365 apps. More details about OneDrive can be found in the ITS Knowledgebase.