ITS Training Services

Become a fan of ITS Technology Training on Facebook

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:44:17 -0500

Now you can find out about upcoming learning opportunities while you're catching up with friends and coworkers on Facebook. Visit http://www.facebook.com/psuitstraining/ or type "ITS Technology Training" in the Facebook search field to see technology tips from ITS trainers, as well as information about upcoming training sessions. You can also join in the conversations and contribute your ideas about technology learning opportunities at Penn State.

Participate in Penn State's Computer Security Contest, Enter to Win a PC Netbook!

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:56:26 -0500

Register to win an Eee PC Netbook by participating in Penn State's Take Control Computer Security contest. Meet the "ITS Squirrel," learn nine steps to keep you and your computer safe, and enter the contest at: http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol/. Contest ends December 4, 2009.

Take Control is a University-wide campaign, sponsored by Information Technology Services, to increase awareness of computer security dangers and to help students, faculty, and staff protect themselves, their data, and their computers.

Go to http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol/ and enter the contest today!

Teaching with Technology Certificate program overview to be presented Nov. 23-24

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Graduate students are invited to attend a free overview workshop on the Teaching with Technology Certificate program on either November 23 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. or November 24 from 9:00-10:00 a.m. in 169 Willard Building, University Park.

The Teaching with Technology Certificate program enables graduate students to strengthen their educational technology capabilities. Through the free certificate program, participants apply existing technology skills, acquire new skills, and develop a philosophy about teaching with technology. They then assemble an online portfolio highlighting their knowledge and skills, under the guidance of departmental representatives. Upon approval of this portfolio, students receive a certificate from The Graduate School. The workshop will discuss the flexible structure of this portfolio program and highlight the benefits to students wishing to showcase both their teaching and their technology skills in a competitive job market. The Teaching with Technology Certificate program is sponsored by The Graduate School and Information Technology Services.

To register for the workshop, visit the ITS Training Services Web site at http://its.psu.edu/training/ and select the "Register for training" link.

Free hands-on technology workshops now open for students

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:09:22 -0500

Registration is open for the free workshops offered by ITS Training Services that are designed to meet the needs of graduate students at Penn State. Many of these workshops are available over the fall break, including SPSS, Scientific Computing, Refworks, Penn State Thesis Template, and more. From the ITS Training Services home page, click on Look for Training to view all training options.

Technology training for everyone at Penn State--know your options!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:51:32 -0500

From hundreds of training sessions scheduled throughout the year, to training for groups upon request, to online video tutorials that are available any time, ITS fulfills a variety of technology training needs at Penn State. Watch this three-minute video to "Get to Know ITS Training Services."

Register for technology workshops offered this fall

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:00:00 -0500

Registration is now open for the technology workshops offered throughout fall semester by ITS Training Services. Popular topics include Access, Excel, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, cascading style sheets, XHTML, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, ANGEL, Penn State's administrative systems, and many more. For convenience, many sessions are offered via Adobe Connect online meeting and training software, and others are offered as "lunchtime sessions," from noon until 1:00 p.m. Visit the Web site for more information and to register for training at http://its.psu.edu/training/ .

ANGEL 7.3 learning opportunities available

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:22:28 -0500

Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL, has recently been upgraded from version 7.1 to version 7.3. The new version of ANGEL features enhancements to several existing tools, and several new tools help course editors perform administrative tasks. There are also several minor interface changes. Users can learn about the features of ANGEL 7.3 in several ways:

Read the ANGEL Help and Information Guide article entitled "ANGEL 7.3 New Features" at http://angelkb.ais.psu.edu/article.asp?article=1610&p=2.
During the week of August 17-21, workshops will be offered on the following topics: What's New in ANGEL 7.3, Course Gradebook, and Start Using ANGEL in Your Course Right Away. To register, visit http://its.psu.edu/training/, then select the "Register for training" link.
Attend an ANGEL Town Hall on August 25 from 10:00 a.m.-noon in 116 Wagner, University Park or via an Adobe Connect desktop videoconference. This is an open forum where in-depth exploration of new tools and features will take place. To register, visit http://its.psu.edu/training/, then select the "Register for training" link.
To access a series of ANGELshorts on new features including course mail, the HTML editor, and discussion forums, visit the ANGEL Community Hub at http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/angel/.
Watch a recording of a previous What's New in ANGEL 7.3 workshop at https://breeze.psu.edu/p42497699/.
To learn about Technology Learning Assistants, who provide one-on-one consultation on ANGEL and other technologies for teaching, e-mail tlatutors@psu.edu.

Follow us on Twitter!

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:05:30 -0500

Now you can find out about new technology learning opportunities by following psuITStraining on Twitter, a social Web tool that provides quick access to brief information. If you're already on Twitter, just visit http://twitter.com/psuITStraining/, click to follow, and receive updates on upcoming classes and other learning opportunities. We'll post when seats are available for specific classes, when the ITS training group is going to be at an event, and when registration opens for a scheduled training session. If you're not using Twitter, you can still sign up to receive monthly e-mail updates on upcoming learning opportunities through the Training News List by sending a blank e-mail to L-TRAINING-NEWS-SUBSCRIBE-REQUEST@LISTS.PSU.EDU.

To learn more about Twitter, view the video "Twitter in Plain English."

Take advantage of Penn State's Technology Training Community

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:42:34 -0500

An online learning resource is open for the participation of students, faculty, and staff at Penn State. The Technology Training Community allows users to browse current tips and information or log in to participate in forum discussions on the many technology topics that affect their lives and roles at the University. Though originally developed to foster continued learning for participants of the ITS technology workshops, this community is open for everyone at Penn State to use at their convenience for informal learning and information sharing. Please visit the community at http://technologytraining.psu.edu/ or e-mail techtraining@psu.edu with questions.

Plagiarism prevention tool available for use in courses

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:40:09 -0500

Penn State faculty who are planning future courses may wish to incorporate Turnitin, a plagiarism prevention tool that promotes learning while saving class time.

Turnitin is an originality detection system owned by Turnitin.com, to which Penn State has a license. Faculty can submit students' papers themselves or allow students to submit their own papers to the system to perform originality checks against millions of Web pages, books, journals, and previously submitted papers. Turnitin can be used as a tool to teach plagiarism prevention. Any instructor who is teaching a Penn State course can request a Turnitin account by e-mailing turnitin@psu.edu. To learn more, visit http://tlt.its.psu.edu/turnitin/.

Turnitin is administered by Information Technology Services.

Teaching and Learning with Technology Web site redesigned to help users

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:52:23 -0500

To help faculty, students, and staff more easily find information about its services, Teaching and Learning with Technology, a unit of Information Technology Services, has redesigned its Web site at http://tlt.its.psu.edu/.

The site's new home page features quick links to topics grouped by category. These help reduce the number of times visitors must click to reach relevant information. To illustrate examples of how its services are being used by individual members of the Penn State community to enhance teaching and learning, the site also features stories, videos, and photos. These demonstrate how the unit's services benefit--and inspire--a variety of people from a wide spectrum of academic fields, not only "technology" fields.

Several of the unit's services have multiple Web pages associated with them. For each of these services, individual "springboard" pages were created which provide a brief overview along with all the related links to pull all the relevant information together.

The site also provides News, Events, and Discussion sections. Visitors can subscribe to each of these using an RSS feed reader to receive the latest updates.

For any questions, e-mail tlt@psu.edu.

Linux computer labs available for faculty to reserve for courses

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:35:02 -0500

Faculty who are interested in using computers with the operating system Linux for their courses can reserve computer labs at 316 Hammond Building and 216 Osmond Building. The Linux labs give faculty, students, and staff the opportunity to work on a powerful operating system that is quickly being adopted into business, industry, science, education, and government.

The Linux labs machines are state-of-the-art high performance computers, set at large desks with 30-inch monitors at each station to provide students with a natural collaborative work area. The labs also feature a podium computer with projector.

The Linux computer labs can be useful to faculty teaching a variety of subjects. Linux offers benefits such as a high amount of computing power, a variety of programming languages, and a selection of modeling and calculating software such as Mathematica,
Matlab, Ansys, Abaqus, Comsol, and many others. If faculty need a specific type of software for their course, they can request it to be added by emailing clc-linux@psu.edu.

The Hammond lab has twenty-four Linux computers and can seat forty students in collaborative work areas, while the Osmond lab has seventeen computers and can seat thirty-two students. The Faculty can reserve either lab for an entire semester or on an ad-hoc basis.

To help faculty learn more about Linux, ITS Training Services is offering Getting Started with Unix/Linux January 10 from noon to 2:00 p.m. at 23 Willard Building. The training session is being offered as part of the Winter-Fest technology training week, and enables attendees to acquire a basic understanding of Linux. Visit the ITS Training Web site for details and to register at http://its.psu.edu/training/.

The Linux labs are maintained by Classroom and Lab Computing, a unit of Teaching and Learning with Technology, in collaboration with the University Committee on Instructional Facilities. For more information on Linux labs, please visit http://clc.its.psu.edu/Labs/Linux/. You can see photos of the Hammond lab here: http://clc.its.psu.edu/Labs/Linux/hammond.aspx. To reserve a Linux lab, faculty should contact their departmental scheduling coordinator.

New issue of ANGEL Shorts focuses on publishing final grades

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:40:47 -0500

ANGEL Shorts are one-page documents covering a specific point of interest in Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL. They cover the five most essential things a person needs to know about the topic in order to get the most from its use. The aim is to help faculty, staff, and students maximize the value of using ANGEL as a teaching tool. The latest issue of ANGEL Shorts focuses on "Five Things Faculty Should Know about Publishing Final Grades." This issue, as well as all previous issues of ANGEL Shorts, is available as a downloadable PDF file on the ANGEL Community Hub at http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/angel/.

Faculty, staff invited to participate in beta test of enhanced version of Turnitin

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:41:46 -0500

Turnitin is conducting a beta test of a new, enhanced version of their Web-based plagiarism prevention resource, and faculty and staff are invited to participate. Some of the enhancements being evaluated include a redesigned interface, expanded student paper databases, improved Originality Reports, and expanded content databases.

For more information about participating in the beta test and to see demonstrations of some of the enhancements, please attend one of two informative online sessions offered Thursday, May 15 at 1:00 p.m. or Friday, May 16 at 10:00 a.m. in the Adobe Connect meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/turnitin/. Before joining a Connect meeting, please read through the Getting Started information at http://meeting.psu.edu/quickstart and test your connection with our generic test meeting room at https://breeze.psu.edu/testmeetingroom/. Questions can be directed to turnitin@psu.edu.