Tag Archives: 201302

Simmons Connection is Now Available on Mobile

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.

The Move to Moodle Gathers Steam

The Spring 2013 phase of migrating courses from eLearning to Moodle is now complete! The School of Management, The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The School of Nursing and Health Sciences, and several departments in The College of Arts and Sciences are now using Moodle. All together, this Spring we migrated about 60 courses from eLearning to Moodle; 160 new Moodle courses were built from the ground up.

Getting Up to Speed on Moodle
Since July, faculty have attended over 140 hours of dedicated Moodle training. In addition, we’ve been busy hosting drop-in sessions, in which faculty can stop by without an appointment for immediate one-on-one support, and staffing Moodle informational tables around campus. We’ll continue to have tables outside the library where students and faculty can have their questions answered. Finally, improved, searchable Moodle documentation is poised to be integrated with Technology Support’s FAQ database later this month. Keep an eye out!

What’s New in Moodle
This December saw a big update to Moodle that brought with it a number of improvements. Moodle’s new drag-and-drop feature allows instructors to drag multiple files from their computer directly into their Moodle course with a flick of the wrist. Moodle Assignments have been streamlined and made more flexible. In response to faculty requests for a tool that would let students sign up for Groups, we’ve added the new “Group Choice” activity.

Hook into Educational Tools through Moodle
Moodle facilitates integration with educational tools to enhance your course. Access the Library’s Course Reserves system directly from Moodle. There’s no need for students to log in again, and instructors no longer have to establish special passwords for their courses. More faculty are also trying out Tegrity, our Moodle-integrated content capture solution, to record videos of lectures and course content. Tools like these make it easier for faculty to flip the classroom and spend more face-to-face time on interactive work and discussion.

 

Google Apps for Faculty and Staff Remains on Schedule

google_apps_smAs of today, Technology has migrated approximately one-third of all faculty and staff to Google Apps for Education, including the School of Social Work and the School of Management. In the coming weeks, we’ll be working with GSLIS and the School of Nursing and Health Sciences to transition them to Google Apps as well.

With Spring semester moving along quickly, we want to make everyone aware that we’re hosting four drop-in training sessions every week on Tuesday and Thursday. Three of these sessions cover the basics of Gmail and Google Calendar, while the remaining session focuses on the other apps, like Drive and Sites. You can find an upcoming session by viewing the training calendar available here. You can also access additional resources on the Google Apps project site: googleapps.simmons.edu.