Training – Page 23

OIT and A-LEC Help Students Excel with Excel.

Almost two dozen students attended last night’s Excel@Excel hands-on-workshop at SMU’s Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center. The OIT-lead workshop was part of the A-LEC’s practical learning strategy sessions offered throughout the term. A-LEC has partnered with OIT to facilitate four of the 25 sessions available to both undergraduate and graduate students.

Excel@Excel Training in the A-LEC Yesterday’s workshop covered the basics of Excel and an introduction to formulas. OIT will offer a second Excel workshop for students on February 25th that will explore more in-depth formulas and functions. While last night’s and the February 25th session are both a student-only training, IT Training regularly offers workshops for all members of the campus community. For more information about upcoming training opportunities, visit our IT Training workshop schedule.

“I’m excited that we have such great training opportunities for all of our campus,” stated Laurene Klassen, the Manager of IT Training, “but, let’s not forget the challenges that some people have to attend our workshops. I always try to encourage others to check out Lynda.com. So many people aren’t yet aware of the great online resources we have and I’m working hard to get the word out. Our Lynda.com license strengthens our training department by offering the courses we can’t regularly offer. Now, we have the tools to assist others to increase their learning by leaps and bounds.”

Photo Credit: Rebecca Umobong

Preparing & Building Courses in Canvas

Canvas Tips & Tricks
When teaching any online course for the first time, course materials and files must be readied and assembled for course uploading. Creating new organizational folders for each course is one easy starting point for ensuring that your course materials for the transition to Canvas.

On your computer, create a new course folder for each unique course you are teaching. (Include any/all courses you have taught previously using Blackboard that you will teach again—especially consider courses you teach infrequently but will teach again in the future)
Copy or move all relevant course files into the relevant course folder.
Utilize SMU’s Box cloud storage service to maintain your course folders so as not take up space on your hard drive (Tip: SMU Box is also a great way to share your course folders/files with colleagues!)
Use your reorganized course folders to build your courses in Canvas.

Exporting, Reclaiming & Reorganizing course Materials from Blackboard

Many educators who have utilized Blackboard have accumulated substantial course materials and course artifacts which are still only stored within Blackboard. While Blackboard is still openly available to faculty until the end of June, all instructors are advised to export/download any and all course materials for reuse well before the June deadline. Since courses, course materials and files will not be moved automatically into Canvas, all educators must ensure, before June 30th, that course materials required for reuse are exported or downloaded from Blackboard for use in building new Canvas courses. Academic technology team members and instructional designers are available immediately to help guide you through this process. While SMU will offer numerous day-long “Canvas Conversion Labs” during May and June to assist with exporting course materials from Blackboard, please start preparing your materials now. Recovering Blackboard course materials after June 30th will be handled on case-by-case requests, since Blackboard will no longer be openly accessible.

Build courses in Canvas

After you’ve become familiar with Canvas and have consolidated digital course materials in folders for each course, you are ready to build out your course. course shells for your upcoming courses will be available for building and publishing well before the start of each term. If the official course shell is not yet available, please request a “sandbox course” from the OIT help desk for each course you’d like to get a head-start on building.

We’re excited about the opportunities that the Canvas course management system offers the SMU community. SMU, OIT and CTE are committed to providing as much training, guidance and instructional design assistance as possible during this transitional year.

Even with that support, however, most of the work that needs to be completed between now and the time SMU turns off Blackboard now falls to the instructor.

If you have yet to begin preparations for using Canvas, please begin the process of learning Canvas, preparing your course materials (especially those which you might need to retain from old Blackboard courses) and start building your courses in Canvas itself. An initial investment into planning for this imminent change in course management systems will pay dividends as SMU moves exclusively into Canvas.

Post updated 02/12/2016.

Canvas is Now: Learn, Prepare & Build

SMU’s transition to Canvas is rapidly moving forward. Formal weekly Canvas training workshops began in early January and will continue through September. Roadshow sessions and “convert to Canvas labs” will be offered throughout May and June and customized departmental Canvas training sessions may be requested. OIT’s embedded academic technology team, in partnership with the Center for Teaching Excellence, is gearing up to provide expanded support and instructional design consultation to assist and to ensure SMU’s educators can capably LEARN Canvas, PREPARE course materials, and BUILD courses with this exciting new SMU cloud system. If you are an instructor who has yet to begin preparations for using Canvas, the time to begin is now.

After the current term, SMU courses will be published exclusively for use within Canvas. Blackboard will no longer be available for open use after this semester. As of June 30th, 2016, Blackboard—and all course materials and information stored therein—will no longer be openly accessible to educators or students.

How should faculty proactively prepare for changing to Canvas?

Do not wait until the last minute. Prepare now. All educators currently have unrestricted and open access to previous course materials in Blackboard. However, waiting until the last minute will result in frustrations and challenges which are entirely avoidable and will result in unfavorable teaching experiences for educators and students alike. While SMU’s academic technology team, training team, help desk and instructional designers are available to assist educators and students through the transition to Canvas, educators must begin learning Canvas in order to ensure the best and smoothest experience in building out courses in the new system.

Canvas Preparation Elements:

Learn Canvas
Prepare Course Materials for Canvas
Build Courses in Canvas

LEARN CANVAS. The more you learn about Canvas and its capabilities, the more Canvas can be used to serve you and your students in your classes. Though many faculty have already chosen to “jump in” and find Canvas to be highly accessible and intuitive, attending a training session, participating in an online Canvas class or watching self-paced online tutorials will help grow your own broad awareness of the powers (and subtle nuances) of SMU’s new LMS. Please take advantage of these resources:

Workshops	Canvas Resources	Request Departmental Training
Online Training	Canvas Community	SMU Canvas Page

We hope to see you at one of our workshops and labs soon!

Continue Reading: Preparing & Building Courses in Canvas.

02/12/2016: Post updated with reference to faculty.
03/10/2020: Updated course link(s) from Lynda.com to LinkedIn Learning

New IT Training Available: Canvas, Qualtrics, Excel, and More.

IT Training We have added several new IT Training Workshops for the spring term, including new courses in using Canvas, Box, and Qualtrics.

Canvas: An Introduction

This class covers the newly introduced Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) that will be replacing Blackboard. These open sessions will introduce you to the Canvas interface, creating course content, customizing your course’s look and feel, assignment grading, and new features that were not included in Blackboard. Find the full schedule on the IT Training page.

Box: Getting Started

Box This class is a quick introduction to SMU’s new cloud storage system, Box. Learn how to log into Box, add and organize files, install desktop sync software, and share/collaborate files with others. To register, please visit the IT Training page.

Excel@Excel

Excel
This 1 hour hands-on workshop is designed with students in mind. We’ll explore basic workbook management, working with tables and charts, using the basic functions SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, and MIN, plus much more. For more information, please visit the IT Training page.

Excel 2013: Understanding Formulas and Pivot Tables

Excel We’ll kick off this workshop by reviewing basic formulas and order of operations. Next, we’ll explore more advanced features such using IF logic, VLOOKUP, creating Pivot Tables, and more. To register, please visit the IT Training page.

Qualtrics: Creating Basic Surveys and Registration Forms

In this introductory session, we’ll learn how to use Qualtrics for event registration and basic surveys. To register, please visit the IT Training page.

Sitecore Training

We are offering several courses in using Sitecore, SMU’s Web Content Management System. In Sitecore: Getting Started, we cover the basics of using Sitecore. This introductory training is for individuals who have never used Sitecore or will be responsible for editing existing content and adding basic pages. In Sitecore: Advanced Topics, we take advantage of HTML & CSS to spice up those pages. New this year is Sitecore: A Q&A. Have a question about Sitecore that has been bugging you? Join our open forum to get your questions answered about using Sitecore. To find out more or to register, please visit the IT Training page.

Sharepoint: Moving Inside.SMU to the Cloud

This session is designed to get you acquainted with the new look and feel of Inside.SMU (SharePoint 2013). We’ll review the basics of working with a team site and will also briefly discuss some of the new features you should expect as we move to the cloud. To register, please visit the IT Training page.

Meet the New IT Training Team

The IT Training Team 2015 was a year of transition for the Training and Communications team. Now that we are fully staffed we wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. To get to know us a little better, visit the IT Connect blog.

Meet the New IT Training Team

2015 was a year of transition for OIT’s IT Training & Communication team. Now that we are fully staffed we wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. We’re eager to serve you and hope we can meet you in one of our workshops soon!

Laurene Klassen

Laurene Klassen Laurene Klassen, Manager of IT Training & Communication has been with IT for the past seven years. She recently became a Microsoft Certified Trainer and holds her Microsoft Office Specialist Master certification. In addition to Microsoft courses, she often provides instruction for new system rollouts such as Concur and Selectica. In addition, she provides ongoing training for my.SMU.

“One of the things I enjoy most is helping people work smarter and more efficiently. I love learning new technology shortcuts and time savers and enjoy passing those on to our colleagues,” Laurene shared.

Prior to working in IT Training, Laurene worked with in Development and External Affairs. She holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from Dallas Baptist University and a Master of Liberal Arts from SMU. Laurene is a native of Massachusetts but is a Texan at heart.

Ian Aberle

Ian Aberle Ian Aberle is an IT Communications Specialist and Trainer for the IT Training & Communication team. Ian is responsible for much of OIT’s digital communications, graphics, and social media. Ian provides various training classes/initiatives with expertise in SMU’s Web Content Management System (Sitecore), web design, SMU’s digital signage solution (Appspace), and various tools in the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.

“I love helping others to find creative solutions for their needs”, Ian recently commented.

Before joining the OIT IT Training & Communication team last year, Ian served as the Manager of Multimedia & Web Development for Academic Technology Services for over 10 years and managed the students of the SMU STAR Program since 2001. During that time, Ian assisted faculty and staff with digital media, blogs, podcasting, and other Web 2.0 technologies. He also provides training and guidance with software and technologies, such as the Adobe Creative Suite and Apple Final Cut Studio. These skills have made a wonderful addition to the OIT Communications Team.

In his free time, Ian likes to spend time taking photos and road trips with family. You can see the outcomes of both on his site at ianaberle.com.

Zach Peterson

Zach Peterson, who has worked for the Help Desk since 2012, has recently transitioned to the IT Training & Communication team as a Training Specialist!

You may have spoken to Zach by calling the OIT Help Desk. Now, he will begin teaching several courses on Box, Sitecore, Qualtrics, and other services as we kick off our 2016 training sessions. He’s already jumped in with both feet by launching our Canvas training and compiling documentation and tutorials on various applications.

Zach commented, “I’m really excited to be starting this new position where I can continue doing what I love: teaching people how to use all of the amazing IT resources SMU provides. Plus, I look forward to meeting the people I’ve spoken on the phone with in person!”

Before working at SMU, Zach worked for the University of North Texas on both their Denton and Dallas campuses in both technical and customer support positions. He also has K-12 IT experience from his time at Northwest ISD near Fort Worth. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Radio, Television & Film from UNT and is currently studying towards a Master of Liberal Studies degree here at SMU. He grew up in Valley View, Texas.

Lynda

Lynda.com is one of the newest members of the IT training team. Lynda.com brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from hundreds of accomplished teachers and recognized industry experts to us through lyndaCampus. lyndaCampus provided thousands of hours of training to institutions around the world, including more than half of the Fortune 50 companies, all branches of the U.S. military, and 31 state governments. Through the lyndaCampus website, available at smu.edu/Lynda, you can access a vast online library of instructional videos covering the latest software, creative, and business skills – day or night.