Monthly Archives: October 2014

Fire Damage

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Hi Everyone,

It’s been an eventful week! As most of you know, over the weekend there was a fire in Mary Gates Hall that originated in CIC 076.

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The fire was caused by a broken motor in the ventilation system (or something of the sort!), and unfortunately caused a few other rooms to be covered in soot.

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We are so grateful for your flexibility this week. There was some disruption in class locations, and we really appreciate your help in working everything out!

As of right now, all the rooms are back up and running except for 076, which may take longer than a week to repair. Therefore, please make sure to follow the temporary schedule that was sent out over email until further notice. As soon as we have more information, we’ll let you know!

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Thanks for your understanding!

If you didn’t receive the new schedule, please email Tesla at schaeffe@uw.edu.

Icons Upon Icons

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Many instructors performed double-takes as they first examined the wealth of icons on their CIC computer screens. You can find most necessary course tools grouped under two headings: “Browsers, Cloud Services, News & Weather” and “Microsoft Office.” However, some of you may want to explore additional options:

  • To support student research: Evernote creates searchable, cloud-based archives of notes and digital clippings. Students may also use the tool to present research-in-progress to peer groups.
  • To incorporate print or digital publishing into course assignments: Adobe’s InDesign and Acrobat Pro help users author printable brochures and PDF files as well as digital EPub books . Microsoft Publisher has templates for multiple types of print publications, including flyers, pamphlets, brochures, and business cards.
  • To create web pages: Dreamweaver, part of Adobe’s Creative Suite, features “starter templates” students can customize. They may also build pages from scratch using a textual/graphical interface (read, no coding knowledge required).
  • To create, remix, or edit images: Try Adobe Fireworks, Illustrator, or Photoshop. The free program, GIMP, features fewer options than the Adobe Creative Suite programs, but works fine for basic image composition and editing.

The iSchool’s web site contains a complete list of lab software. Let Kimberlee or Tesla know if you’d like a training workshop on any tool listed.

Using Panopto in the CIC

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Hello CIC Instructors!

One of the most exciting new features of the CIC classrooms is that they now support Panopto, which is the video sharing platform that the UW has recently adopted (this is a switch from Tegrity). Panopto enables you to create, edit and share video files directly through Canvas, so that you can easily integrate them into your teaching.

You can access Panopto through the left-hand toolbar of your Canvas course, and from there you can click “Create” in order to launch the Panopto Recorder. You and your students can then record videos and webcasts directly from the webcams on CIC computers.

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After you’ve created a video, you can either embed it directly onto Canvas or provide a link to it that students can follow. Students can create and upload their own videos, potentially as part of a Canvas Discussion, portfolio reflection or multi-modal assignment.

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We’re working on a page for the CIC Faculty Guide that gives detailed instructions on using, modelling and assessing Panopto videos, but for now – take a minute to explore it yourself! As always, let us know if you have any questions.

You can also find instructions and answers to FAQs from UW IT Connect by going here.

Thanks, and we hope you had a productive week in the CIC!

Saving and Transferring Files in the CIC

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Hello CIC Instructors!

We are pleased to let you know that we’ve updated the CIC Faculty Guide with new instructions and screenshots to correspond with the new technology in the labs. The Faculty Guide is a wealth of information and is definitely worth perusing when you have a moment, even if you don’t have pressing questions. You can find it here.

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Since the new computers will automatically clear the desktop of any saved work when the students sign off, it is now more important than ever to develop clear practices for saving and transferring work in your CIC classes. To that end, we’ve also added a page to the Faculty Guide that walks through some of the more effective saving options: USB/ flash drives, the U Drive, Canvas files and cloud storage. Please take a look at it when you have the chance – and if you have a different way of saving and transferring student work that you’ve found to be successful, please let us know in the comments! We’d love for this blog to become a space where CIC instructors can interact and share ideas.

Have a great week!

Troubleshooting Display Problems

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We hope all of your classes in the CIC are going well!

This week, we’ve had a couple of questions about what to do if the Instructor Station computer screen does not match the display on the flat-screen. Usually, this happens because the instructor computer automatically opens all PowerPoint presentations in “presenter mode,” which leaves the display screen empty after the presentation is closed.

The good news is… there’s an easy fix!

If this happens during your class, press the Windows button + the P key.

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From there, select “Duplicate” from the menu on the right. This will ensure that the display matches the instructor screen.

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If for any reason this doesn’t help, try restoring the computer to its default settings by signing off and letting it reboot. To do this, right-click on the Windows icon and select “Shut down or sign out,” and then “Sign out.”

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We hope this helps! As usual, please don’t hesitate to ask Kimberlee or Tesla if you have any questions or would like to talk about the new technology.

Thanks!

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