After six years, I am leaving the Provost’s Office and returning to the Faculty of Resource Economics. Thanks to everyone as it has been a great six years. To see an overview of the main projects we were involved in during that time you can view the slides of a presentation I gave to the Dean’s Council.
see summary for a table of our IT rooms by room size categories
rooms-with-it-after-summer-08.jpg note: once image appears, click on it to enlarge
We had another good summer with IT classroom improvements, 
many using the CIP IT Lite installation package given the smaller room sizes. Click on the slide, or here, to open a text file [pdf] on how to use these rooms. Or watch the video.
The Lite package incudes:
Projector, Sanyo XU-78, 3000 lumens Dalite Model B 70” by 70” matte screen Extron Medialink wallmounted switcher Extron projector amplifier Two ceiling JBL speakersWe have renewed our access to Atomic Learning for this coming year as our pilot proved its usefulness to our instructors, students, and staff. Atomic Learning provides training on over 110 of the most commonly used software applications, such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and many more for either the Mac or PC platform. Atomic Learning delivers a library of thousands of short, easy-to-view-and-understand tutorial movies that can be used as an integral part of a professional development program, a valuable curriculum supplement and an anytime/anywhere software training resource. In fact, you will find some training videos for software that our campus does not support and hence you will be limited to Atomic Learning as your resource for those tools.
How to access Atomic Learning:
OIT and Library staff have worked with Atomic Learning to allow both on and off campus access from all UMass Amherst students, staff and instructors.When on campus [or dialing in to campus with a modem] using UMass Amherst internet access:
The standard url for connecting is — http://www.atomiclearning.com/highed
When off campus using other internet access: http://silk.library.umass.edu:2048/login/atomiclearning
Off campus, you will be prompted for your UMass NetID and password, then after a brief redirect which happens automatically and should take only a few seconds you should be at Atomic Learning’s home page for the University of Massachusetts. Although most people have successfully used this off-campus link, there are some who cannot get in.
Of those who are unable to connect from off-campus, we think most are coming from computers behind firewalls or other secured networks that have blocked port 2048. The user must be able to get through port 2048 to connect to our proxy server which is set to port 2048. Please let us know if you are experiencing access problems.
Questions:
See Atomic Learning’s support page for the Atomic Toolkit and getting started tutorials.Atomic Learning will field questions from end-users on using Atomic Learning and troubles with Atomic Learning, via online form, email and phone support (9 am to 6 pm EDT).
From their support page:Use the online form to submit a question
Phone us at 866 259-6890, extension 8
Email us at cs@atomiclearning.com
Atomic Learning will be the official support provider for this learning tool, but the Learning Commons and Technical Support Desk located on the Lower Level of the W. E. B. Du Bois Library will also try to assist you with the software packages that we do support.
We hope you find this a useful IT resource.Please feel free to send your comments and evaluations of these tutorials to Richard Rogers in the Provost’s Office [ rogers@provost.umass.edu ].
Categories
GET with IT
http://www.umass.edu/loop/talkingpoints/articles/74960.php
13 named General Education Fellows as part of effort to revitalize undergraduate curriculum
Thirteen faculty members have been selected as General Education Fellows, a year-long program based in the Center for Teaching that Provost Charlena Seymour as part of a renewed campus-wide focus on the importance of General Education.
The fellows for the next academic year are: Alexandrina Deschamps, Women’s Studies; Linda Enghagen, Hospitality and Tourism Management; Gerald Friedman, Economics; Dan Gerber, Public Health; John Gerber, Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences; Lisa Green, Linguistics; John Hird, Political Science; Alice Nash, History; Ellen Pader, Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning; Randall Phillis, Biology; Marios Philippides, Classics; Arunas Rudvalis, Mathematics and Statistics; and Jacqueline Urla, Anthropology.
“This is an impressive group of faculty teaching some of our most demanding courses and this program along with the recommendations from the General Education Task Force will have a big impact on our teaching General Education courses,” said Seymour.
The program was developed in response to the provost’s desire to encourage more faculty to teach General Education courses and to convince students of the courses’ importance to their education while on campus and beyond. As Matt Ouellett, director of the Center for Teaching, said, “Provost Seymour was very clear that she wanted a high quality program based on sound pedagogy to signal her commitment to General Education on our campus.”
The General Education Fellows program features instructional technologies to improve both teaching and learning “as these tools if used well, engage students and enhance learning,” says Richard Rogers, associate provost for Academic Technology.
The program begins June 2 with an event for the entire campus’ General Education faculty to engage in reinvigorating and the retelling the Gen Ed story. The next day, the 13 fellows begin an eight-day “reboot” camp where the staff from the Center for Teaching, OIT Academic Computing, Library, and several invited distinguished teachers will lead them through a series of workshops and activities designed to improve their “General Education Teaching with Instructional Technology” or “GET with IT.”
Each fellow will receive a Tablet PC or a MacBook Pro, an inking pad, and a $4,000 stipend to redesign their General Education course. In addition, each fellow will be assigned a mentor and “work with instructional technology student helpers that OIT Academic Computing recently hired to help support this new program,” said Copper Giloth, director of Academic Computing.
May 9, 2008.
Our electrical team has now completed the needed work on these rooms and hence they are now ready to go!
Dickinson 110, 114, Tobin 307, and Draper 124
During Spring Break we were able to install full CIP IT packages into Dickinson 112, 214, and Holdsworth 202. In addition, we almost completed the installs in Dickinson 110, 114, Tobin 307, and Draper 124 as they “only” need the electrical wiring to be connected.
We also installed the CIP IT Lite package into these four rooms: Bartlett 3, 35, 314 and Dickinson 210.
We have purchased access to Atomic Learning for this semester—from now to May 31, 2008—to test its usefulness to our instructors, students, and staff. Atomic Learning provides training on over 110 of the most commonly used software applications, such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and many more for either the Mac or PC platform. Atomic Learning delivers a library of thousands of short, easy-to-view-and-understand tutorial movies that can be used as an integral part of a professional development program, a valuable curriculum supplement and an anytime/anywhere software training resource. In fact, you will find some training videos for software that our campus does not support and hence you will be limited to Atomic Learning as your resource for those tools.
Categories
CIP IT “Lite”
Over winter break we began a project to equip our smallest classrooms with a smaller AV package to meet the needs of more classes. We completed Dickinson 206 and LGRT 1234 with this simplified package that requires the instructor to bring her or his laptop to the room or to ask AIMS to deliver a DVD/VCR to the room. We are calling these new, smaller installations CIP IT Lite. During spring break, we will continue installing these “Lite” packages. We call this CIP IT Lite because we do not install a locked AV cabinet in the room and it also lacks a dedicated DVD/VCR. All the equipment is accessed in these rooms from a wall plate. The instructor attaches her/his computer to the wall plate with the provided cable. If a DVD is needed and the instructor cannot use her/his computer to play it, AIMS can bring over a DVD, or VCR, to connect to the wall plate as well. The amplifier and the speakers are installed in the ceiling along with the projector.
These rooms work best for instructors who only need their computer for their presentation since the ceiling installed amplifier, speakers and projector make this a great presentation experience without the cost, and loss of floor space, of the other equipment. Thus if you use only a laptop for your teaching, you can use a full CIP IT or CIP IT Lite room with equivalent success. We are using the savings to do more rooms.
Equipment in a CIP IT Lite room:
Sanyo XU-78 Projector XGA 3000 lumen
Dalite Model B 70” by 70” screen
Extron Medialink Projector Switcher
Extron MPA-122 Amplifier
JBL Ceiling Speakers
Wall connection plate and connecting cable(s) for connecting your own computer or an AIMS DVD or VCR.
Categories
New Classroom IT Key Procedure
We changed our key procedure and now use a “submit and pickup” method using the Web-based Key Request Form www.umass.edu/provost/key-request
You will be sent an email when your key is ready for pickup at the reception desk in the Office of the Provost, 362 Whitmore. Be sure to bring your campus ID (or driver’s license) when you stop by to pick it up.