Our friends at the Center for Teaching are offering a great series of workshops this semester that seek to provide a venue to talk with colleagues about new challenges, exchange ideas, and share teaching resources. There are two series being offered: “Teaching Large Classes” and “Teaching Online and Hybrid Courses.” Specific topics include engaging students,…
Category: Announcements
February Workshops at Academic Computing
Starting this week, Academic Computing is offering several workshops on using Excel, SPARK, PRS and the UMass blogs system. Workshop topics include: Setting up a blog for your course Managing PRS data Building a new course from scratch in SPARK SPARK discussion tools Collecting assignments in SPARK Working with the SPARK grade book Calculating grades…
Fall Semester Winding Down
The Fall semester is winding down as everyone scrambles to administer final exams and grade projects and papers. The Instructional Media Lab is keeping busy with a seemingly endless flurry of questions about grading in SPARK and Excel. Our busy January workshop season is near at hand so updates to this blog may drop off…
Major Upgrade to Blogs at UMass Amherst Planned for Jan. 7
The Office of Information Technologies (OIT) will be performing a major upgrade to our Blogs at UMass Amherst service on Wednesday, January 7, 2009. The new version of Blogs comes with big improvements to the software’s interface and a revised list of supported themes, widgets, and plugins. more…
Library Workshops in January
Our friends in the library are offering two workshops this January that may be of interest to you: Putting Reading Lists Online in Refshare Thursday January 8th, 10-Noon Learn how to use the RefShare feature in RefWorks to create reading lists you can share that link back to the library’s subscriptions and print holdings. We’ll…
A Librarian Near You!
In addition to help in the libraries, you can now visit a librarian for research and reference assistance at a variety of locations across campus. Drop by to chat with your librarian and encourage your students to make use of library services for doing any research project!
January Workshops at Academic Computing
This January, Academic Computing is offering workshops for instructors on basic technologies for teaching and research, audio & video production, SPARK, emerging technologies, and copyright. 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: http://www.umass.edu/accoprod/workshop/register.php
Open House for New Video Conferencing Classroom
Join us for an open house to celebrate the opening of OIT’s new Video Conferencing Classroom! OIT is hosting an open house in our brand new facility in Engineering Lab 2 (Room 115) on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 from 3 to 5 p.m. Refreshments will served. Come see how our state-of-the-art facility can be used…
December Workshops: Emerging Technologies and Putting Materials Online
This December Academic Computing is offering several workshops that will be useful to instructors considering what technologies you might use next semester. Take a break from writing and grading finals to join us for coffee or tea and cookies to talk about tools you might use in the Spring semester! Putting Materials Online: Which tool…
Personal Response System (“Clickers”) Seminar for Instructors – Nov 25
For those of you who are curious about or considering using PRS in your classes, the Center for Teaching, OIT Academic Computing, and the Provost’s Office are co-hosting an event on November 25 for instructors who want to learn more. Details below. PRS, or Personal Response System, is a tool that many professors at UMass…
Upcoming SPARK Grade Book Workshops
If you use the SPARK Grade Book to manage your students’ grades, consider attending one of Academic Computing’s upcoming Grade Book Management workshops. These 50-minute sessions will focus specifically on calculating final grades and preparing for SPARK to SPIRE Grade Upload. Bring your assignment weights or grading scheme, and leave with columns ready to do…
UMass Blogs Activity
Nick and Michele just finished pulling together some data on the use of the UMass Blogs service for the Fall semester: 72 instructors have attended one of our recent blogging workshops! Of the almost 300 blogs that have been worked on this semester, there are: 54 course blogs (see some examples) 11 faculty professional/research blogs…