Information Technology Services has developed a number of Instructional and tools and resources to help support online teaching and learning, and the development of asynchronous and interactive learning materials. For more information please visit our Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Teaching Resources and Tools
Assessments and Assignments: There are various tools to help you perform tests, quizzes and other assessments online. To learn about the various tools and scenarios, please visit our Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Box: Informational Technology Services provides secure, easy-to-use cloud storage through Box. With Box, students, faculty, and staff have a simple, secure way to share and store files online. Box enables you to consolidate your files and content in a single location, easily accessible from anywhere, on any device. Create files and folders, share them using a direct link, invite others to collaborate, and continually revise and review your content. Access, sharing, editing, and collaboration made easy! For a Box overview visit the CMC Box page, for more information visit the Box module under the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Captioning: A number of ITS tools, resources and software provide captioning functionality, these include Zoom, VidGrid and other services. To learn more about the capabilities and uses cases for each of these platforms, please visit the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site to view captioning resources and guides.
Collaboration tools: There are a number of collaboration tools and resources that are available. Office 365 and Box are primary collaboration tools for asynchronous work, while Hypothes.is, Sakai and other tools offer other various collaboration methods. To view more information on collaboration, visit our Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site or contact the help desk for an evaluation.
Digital Whiteboards: ITS has researched a number of tools and hardware that will help faculty share content online. ITS has developed a number of recommendations and solutions for various scenarios. To learn about the various digital whiteboards and hardware that are recommended visit our Digital Whiteboards and PDF annotations section inside the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Faculty Teaching and Technology Kits: Information Technology Services is offering expanded educational technology tools and equipment to aid pedagogy and assist faculty in preparing for alternate modes of teaching, developing teaching materials and building course content; some of which may require additional or special equipment beyond the standard office fare. In support of this, ITS will work directly with faculty to help identify and address any individual educational technology equipment needs. After consulting with faculty regarding their specific requirements, IT will build Teaching/Technology Kits tailored to individual faculty needs. Teaching/Technology Kit items may include the following types of equipment: Docking stations, Monitors, Webcams, Headsets, Earphones, Microphones, Mini-tripods/flexible tripods, Document Cameras, Tablets, Stylus. Please contact the IT Help Desk (x70911 or help@cmc.edu) to request a consultation appointment to discuss your specific educational technology and Teaching/Technology KIT needs.
GenApps: A new remote desktop to provide access to common academic software for students who may not have the resources to run software on their own, or for software that is platform specific. Running a limited number of academic software packages, it is not for general usage but rather to provide an academic environment where students cannot access a lab in person for academic purposes. Some of the software that is available via GenApps are: R and R Studio, STATA, SPSS, Mathematica, Maple, Palisades @Risk (and Excel), MATLAB.
Hypothes.is: A new resource to facilitate remote learning with social reading and collaborative annotation. Hypothesis.is can help students connect with faculty and with one another, even when they’re keeping their distance. Digital annotation offers new affordances, enabling students to respond to text using different media and empowering them to collaborate on understanding and developing ideas about their readings. Writing in the margins has always been an essential activity for students. Annotation helps in reading comprehension and in developing critical thinking about course materials. Hypothesis enables students to continue this essential activity with online readings. Whether you’re teaching with digital texts, or you’re focused on web literacy or digital citizenship, you and your students can use Hypothesis to annotate course readings collaboratively and have threaded discussion in the form of annotations. Hypothes.is has been integrated with Sakai for a CMC pilot program for the fall semester. During this time period, ITS will offer workshops and training sessions and support all faculty adopting Hypothes.is. Getting Started with Hypothes.is
Microsoft Office 365: Collaborate with online versions of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote. Save documents, spreadsheets, and presentations online. The Microsoft Office 365 Suite is accessible from virtually anywhere, and enables access to online tools that can be coupled with CMC’s Box.com resource for real time collaboration. Office 365, is available to all CMC faculty, staff and students. Request Activation and learn more about Office 365.
PDF Annotation: ITS has developed guides for using researched hardware and software to grade, annotate and provide feedback on digital documents. To learn about the various PDF annotation hardware and software that are recommended and available, visit our Digital Whiteboards and PDF annotations section inside the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Qualtrics: Qualtrics is Web-based survey software available for use by all CMC Faculty, Students and Staff to support teaching and research at CMC. To facilitate online instruction, ITS has recently invested in integrating the upload feature into Qualtrics which supports documents such as spreadsheets, photos, PDF, and custom extensions. Surveys can be created and distributed by anyone with a CMC email account. You can access and learn more about Qualtrics by visiting our CMC Qualtrics site.
Sakai: Sakai is the Consortial open-source Learning Management System (LMS), which allows you to provide course content to your students and assess learning outcomes via a variety of synchronous and asynchronous tools.The following are just some of the current tools that Sakai offers for your various teaching and learning needs: Announcements, Assignments/Drop Box, Syllabus tool, Discussion Forums, Resources, Roster, and Gradebook. To learn more about these tools, please visit the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site or for a quick overview visit the Sakai information page.
SPSS: ITS has negotiated expanded licensing for home use that enables all faculty, staff and students to use SPSS. Learn more about SPSS on the Academic Software page.
STATA: ITS has negotiated temporary expanded licensing for the fall semester to allow students to access STATA for classwork, thesis or institutional research projects. Contact Mike Malsed for more information. Learn more about STATA on the Academic Software page.
Surveys and Polls: ITS supports a number of tools and platforms that facilitates surveying, polling and data gathering that will enable deeper student interaction. To learn about these and various scenarios, visit the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
Tablets and iPads: To learn about the various hardware and software setups that are recommended and available, visit our Digital Whiteboards and PDF annotations section inside the Instructional Continuity Resources Sakai Site.
VidGrid: A new resource to facilitate the creation and development asynchronous and interactive learning materials. VidGrid is an Interactive Video Platform for Education that can help promote learning with interactive video lessons and student recording assignments. It captures and records from your screen, your webcam or both. You can add voice overs to slides, and it has interactive features and one-click ADA compliant closed captioning. It is also much less complicated to use than some other products. This ITS implementation is a six month pilot program. During this time period, ITS will offer workshops and training sessions and support all faculty adopting the VidGrid platform. Request activation and learn more about VidGrid.
Zoom: A full-featured web and video conferencing service that offers a space for online teaching, collaboration, meetings, office hours and group discussions. Zoom features include screen-sharing, annotation tools, white boards, chat, breakout rooms, and split-screen video conferencing to support and facilitate real-time engagement, discussion, and collaboration with your students. Request activation and learn more about Zoom.
Zoom Equipped Classrooms: Do you want to use a classroom while meeting with your students? Or perhaps you want to record class elements. Information Technology Services has installed additional equipment in select classrooms enabling these rooms to function as synchronous teaching environments to facilitate engagement with your students. More about Zoom Equipped Classrooms
Support
Have questions or need help? Please contact the Information Technology Services Help Desk or fill out an ITS Online Service Request.