All posts by Randolph Pfaff

Using Google Apps in (and outside of) the Classroom

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As more faculty move to Google Apps for Education, we want to provide some ideas for how you can use the apps in your classes. We would also like to hear from you. If you have interesting or innovative use cases, please send an email to [email protected]. We would be happy to feature your stories in an upcoming newsletter.

Create
You can use Google Drive to quickly create and share lecture notes and presentations. Gather the information you need, create your doc or presentation in Drive, and then click “share” and copy the link to send to your students.

Collaborate
In addition to creating your own documents and presentations, you can also use Drive to start projects and then invite students to collaborate. Students can also use Drive to create assignments and then share them with you in order to get feedback. Drive allows for real-time chat, multiple comment conversations, and maintains a full history of revisions. You can work with students to develop a paper or presentation and track their progress as you provide feedback.

Collect
Need to gather information from students at the start of the semester? Looking for an easy way to create appointments during your office hours? Try Google Forms. You can create forms from within Drive in order to gather feedback quickly and track the results in a spreadsheet.

Empower
Your students can use Google Sites to compile portfolios or gather resources for a group project. Sites allows for embedding of documents, spreadsheets, images, videos, and more, making it the perfect place to create and display projects while gaining valuable technology and communication experience.

To find out more about each of the apps and what they can do, visit the Google Apps project site and click on the links under the “Using Google Apps” section.

Simmons Network Improvements Are Under Way

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In an effort to improve network security and to provide better access to services based on your role at Simmons, Technology has begun a project to enhance both the wired and wireless networks.

This project began on March 20th and will continue through April 30th. It should not cause any downtime on our networks but you might notice some minor changes to your login process during the project if you’re using a personally-owned Mac or PC or a Simmons-owned Mac. If you’re using a Simmons-owned PC or accessing the network wirelessly or via a wired connection in the residence halls, you shouldn’t notice any change.

If you have additional questions, please contact the Service Desk at 617-521-2222.

Upgrading Simmons Computers to Internet Explorer 9

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windows_logoThis week, our Endpoint Systems team will be deploying Internet Explorer 9 to all Simmons-owned PCs. You won’t have to do anything to initiate the deployment but you will see a message prompting you to restart your computer once the installation is complete.

Upgrading to Internet Explorer 9 is necessary in order to comply with the requirements of integral systems, including Moodle. In addition, there are several major new features available in this version, including the ability to perform a search directly from the address bar and choosing your most frequently visited sites when you launch a new tab. Please note that, by default, Internet Explorer 9 hides toolbars (including Favorites). To enable these, right click next to the address bar and click “Favorites Bar.”

Please visit Microsoft’s official Internet Explorer 9 homepage to find out more about what is available in the newest version.

Simmons Connection is Now Available on Mobile

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s57_datatelportal-logonewsletterWe know that you’ve been waiting for Simmons Connection to be available on mobile devices and we’re happy to announce that we have completed an upgrade that allows for full mobile access.

You can now use Connection, including AARC, by visitingconnection.simmons.edu on any common mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android devices, etc.). We recognize that the lack of mobile access made things difficult for many of our customers, especially students, and we hope that this upgrade makes accessing grades, registration, student billing and other services easier and more efficient.

In addition to the mobile upgrade, we’re also working on a project to enhance the news and announcements section of Connection. This upgrade will allow you to add rich media to announcements, comment and interact, and share listings on Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Based on your feedback, we’re also investigating alternatives to Planga as the event management tool for Simmons. We included Planga in Simmons Connection because it is a free tool and we wanted to test the value of an event management platform for our community. After months of use, it has become clear that Planga does not have the tools that you want nor does it have the technical capacity to fully integrate into Connection. Moving forward, we will assess other products based on criteria that you provided for us over the last six months. As soon as we have more information about when and how we will replace Planga, we’ll send an update to the entire Simmons community.