mgardzina September 24th, 2009
digitalMEDIAlab
Over the summer of 2009, we made some big changes to the College’s digital media lab located in Taylor 205. The old lab saw a lot of use and sparked a wonderful variety of media projects, but was looking a little tired and no longer meeting the demands of digital media use at The College of Wooster. So last Spring, The Office of Information Technology formed a project team to talk to academic departments about their needs for digital media in the curriculum and based on those needs, set out to rethink the space and find the right technologies. This project team’s plan was implemented over the summer with some work continuing through this academic year. See the information below to find out what we’ve done.
Technologies now available in the digitalMEDIAlab
- twelve new iMacs running Mac OSX Leopard and Windows XP
- a projector, screen and instructor station for workshops
- two group stations with flexible furniture, mobile whiteboards and mobile LCD screens to accommodate laptops (coming soon)
- a large format printer and color printer
- an audio recording booth
- multi-standard and region free video import and editing station
- three NTSC video import and editing stations
- two scanning stations with optical character recognition and the ability to scan film, slides, and high-quality images
Mary Schantz August 25th, 2009
The typical U.S. office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of copy paper each year. How much paper is 10,000 sheets? In one large stack, 10,000 sheets of unused paper, weighs about 100 pounds. Last year, members of the College of Wooster Community printed and copied roughly 5,400,000 pages. That’s equivalent to 27 tons of paper.
The Environmental Defense Fund provides a paper calculator to help organizations and individuals understand the impact of paper usage. Click here to see a break down of our contribution and what you can do to help reduce paper usage on campus by 5%:
Continue Reading »
mgardzina July 23rd, 2009
The Department of Instructional Technology is pleased to welcome our new intern, Jedidiah Rex. Jedidiah is currently finishing a masters degree program in Instructional Technology at Kent State University and expects to graduate in December. Most recently he completed a practicum experience at Valley Christian Academy where he served the school by working in the technology lab and taught some technology courses. Jedidiah also has extensive experience as a music educator both in class settings and private instruction. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education from Malone College. At Wooster, he will be providing support to faculty and staff in their use and implementation of technology in the curriculum and instruction. He will also manage the updated Taylor digital media lab and provide support for the general operations of the Instructional Technology department. Welcome, Jedidiah!
dwaldron May 16th, 2009
The Office of Information Technology will sponsor training courses in Microsoft Word and Excel 2007 for those interested in upgrading from Office 2003 to Office 2007. While 2007 has functionality similar to that of the previous version, the look and feel of Office 2007 is very different. The training schedule is as follows:
| May 27th |
9:00-4:00 |
Microsoft Word Beginning |
| June 18th |
9:00-4:00 |
Microsoft Word Intermediate |
| June 12th |
9:00-4:00 |
Microsoft Excel Beginning |
| June 25th |
9:00-4:00 |
Microsoft Excel Intermediate |
To sign up for these courses, please email Mary Schantz, Director of User Services. Seats are limited and fill quickly!
dwaldron May 6th, 2009
Steve Ehrmann, one of the founders of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group, recently visited the College of Wooster. On April 7, Steve delivered a public talk entitled “Greater Expectations for 21st Century Learning: Implications of Information Technology for the Nature of Education at the College of Wooster.” Steve’s talk was part of the series of events associated with our inaugural Instructional Technology Month.
Steve earned undergraduate degrees in aerospace engineering and urban planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a Ph.D. in management and higher education, also from M.I.T.
QuickTime is required to view the video. To do so, launch the QuickTime application. Choose the “Open URL” option from the “File” menu. Enter the URL “rtsp://helix.wooster.edu/Ehrmann.mov” and click “OK.” Please note that the video can only be viewed from on-campus locations. The slides Steve used during his presentation can be accessed at http://tinyurl.com/djplnq.
dwaldron April 29th, 2009
Jerry McMillen |
|
OIT welcomes our newest employee, Web Systems Administrator Jerry McMillen. Jerry comes to us from Cuyahoga Community College where he was employed as Programmer Analyst. In this capacity, Jerry developed web-based applications and applications for mobile devices for faculty, staff and students. He provided administrative and develoment support for CCC’s course management system and provided support for a variety of database applications. He worked to automate database functions and to integrate various applications with CCC’s Banner administrative software system. Jerry earned his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from The University of Akron and holds a masters degree in Educational Technology from Cleveland State University. At Wooster, Jerry will support the various software servers being implemented in conjunction with the web initiative and the redesign of Wooster’s primary website. Welcome, Jerry! |
dwaldron April 24th, 2009
OIT has implemented a system that permits members of the faculty and staff to create accounts that allow temporary guest access to the College’s wireless network. Guests receive a user id and password combination, instructions for connecting to the COWGuest wireless network and information on acceptable use. All the information necessary to create and manage temporary accounts is available in the online documentation. OIT is delighted to make this new service available to the College community.
dwaldron April 24th, 2009
On Friday, April 3, A trio of nationally renowned figures gathered at The College of Wooster on Friday, April 3, for a half-day forum, entitled “Great Decisions in Times of Economic Crisis.” This group included Donald Kohn, vice chair of the Federal Reserve System, William Longbrake, retired vice chairman and CFO of Washington Mutual and former CFO of the FDIC, and James Stewart, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at the Columbia School of Journalism. The forum was moderated by Richard Seaman, President and CEO of Seaman Corporation and a member of Wooster’s Board of Trustees.
This extraordinary event can now be viewed online:
Introductions by John Rudisil and Richard Seaman
The Remarks of James Stewart
The Remarks of Donald Kohn
The Remarks of William Longbrake
Questions and Discussion
OIT extends a special thanks to Michael Naylor, Assistant Director of Digital Infrastructure for Media Services and Systems, and the Media Services group for making it possible to share this content online.
dwaldron April 22nd, 2009
Happy Earth Day, Wooster!
It seems appropriate to mark the occasion by posting about a technological development of a kind not usually covered by the OIT blog. Jon Bohmer, a Norwegian-born entrepreneur based in Kenya has developed a solar oven. Dubbed the Kyoto Box, the oven consists of two cardboard boxes and an acrylic cover that admits and then traps the sun’s rays. A bit of black paint and silver foil help to concentrate the heat. Without electricity or any power source other than the sun’s rays, Kyoto Box users can boil water and cook many foods. The ability to boil water is critical to fighting waterborne illnesses. In addition, the Kyoto Box could reduce the use for wood and other fossil fuels for cooking in the developing world. The oven is expected to cost approximately $5. More information is available from CNN.
dwaldron April 16th, 2009
The Instructional Technology Faculty Fellows Program is a new program for any member of the campus community whose continuing contract has a teaching component. The dates for the program are May 18-22, 2009. The goals of the program are to increase the number of faculty taking advantage of Web 2.0 and other technologies in their teaching and scholarship, to familiarize faculty with tools and project types with which Instructional Technology can help, and to help faculty learn how to assess technology projects. Participants will also be expected to develop a project to be implemented in one of their Fall courses and to participate in continuing dialog throughout the Fall Semester.
The Program seeks to select a diverse group from all level of teaching experience, technology use, and project implementation and across all disciplines. Successful applicants will be expected to attend all sessions, must be willing to communicate to their department and campus the projects and tools with which they are working, and must be teaching a course in the Fall of 2009. Upon completion of the week-long portion of the program participants will receive a certificate, designation as a Faculty Instructional Technology Fellow, and half of the $1500 stipend (deposited into a research account awarded to the participating faculty member). The second half of the $1500 stipend will be deposited to participants’ research accounts upon implementing a project in one of their Fall 2009 courses.
Applications for the program will be accepted until midnight on April 26. Applicants will be notified about the status of their application not later than 5 PM on May 6. Further information about the program is available from Matt Gardzina, Director of Instructional Technology.
