http://news.its.psu.edu/students/ Fewer Americans turn to us than to any other news source. en-us ©2009 The Pennsylvania State UniversityMon, 23 Nov 2009 19:47:01 -0500 http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1154 To optimize the performance of Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL, during fall finals week, the Import Wizard and Export Wizard tools will be turned off from 4:00 a.m. Saturday, December 12 until 6:00 a.m. Saturday, December 19. These tools include the Copy Course, import Content Package, import Master Course, and export ANGEL Archive functions. Note: During finals week, instructors can continue to create course content and create master courses and learning object repositories. Students can continue to upload/download files and access lesson content. The tools for importing and exporting individual lesson content items between courses and groups will be turned off as well. These are only temporary changes to improve ANGEL performance during the period of intense usage associated with finals week. The Copy Course tool allows instructors to copy one of their existing ANGEL courses into another course section. A master course is a special course set up as a template that multiple instructors can import into another course section. The ANGEL Archive tool is used to download a backup of a course as a ZIP file; this file can then be imported into another section using the import Content Package tool. Instructors who need to use these tools to set up a course for the spring semester are encouraged to plan ahead and perform necessary course imports or exports prior to finals week. For any questions, contact ANGEL support at angelsupport@psu.edu. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:29:10 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1152 Enter to Win a PC Netbook! Register to win an Eee PC Netbook by participating in Penn State's Take Control Computer Security contest. Meet the "ITS Squirrel," learn nine steps to keep you and your computer safe, and enter the contest at: http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol/. Take Control is a University-wide campaign, sponsored by Information Technology Services, to increase awareness of computer security dangers and to help students, faculty, and staff protect themselves, their data, and their computers. Go to http://its.psu.edu/takecontrol/ and enter the contest today! Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:07:10 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1149 Students in any major at University Park may apply to become a Technology Learning Assistant (TLA) for the spring 2010 semester. The TLA program is a one-credit course through which students provide participating faculty members with five to ten tutoring sessions on technology-related teaching, learning, and class management topics. These topics can include basic computer skills, e-mail and file organization, PowerPoint, Excel, creating Web pages, and other applications. TLAs also demonstrate how to use Penn State services such as ANGEL, podcasting and iTunes U, Adobe Connect, ITS Streaming Services, and the Blogs at Penn State. Students in the TLA program gain one-on-one consulting experience, practice communication and organizational skills, and earn one credit with the possibility of earning wages in subsequent semesters. To apply to become a TLA for the spring 2010 semester or for more information about the program, visit http://tlt.its.psu.edu/tla/students/ . Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:44:13 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1153 Penn State faculty and staff are invited to submit a proposal for presentation at the thirteenth annual Penn State Web 2010 Conference, scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, June 7 and 8, 2010, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel at University Park. Proposal criteria and the submission forms are available at http://webconference.psu.edu/call/. Multiple submissions are welcome; however, each proposal must be submitted separately. Though this conference is designed for the Penn State community, the Web Conference committee entertains nominations for presenters from outside of the Penn State system. Proposals must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, December 4, 2009. Suggested topic areas are inclusive of but not limited to: * Innovative uses of the Web * Collaboration and Communication * Applications for Web development * Works in progress * Security issues * Usability * Accessibility * Design * Content management * Web communication technologies (RSS, blogs, wikis, podcasting, Twitter, chat, and other collaborative technologies) Web 2010 presentations will be placed within tracks. The tentative tracks for the conference include: Penn State Services, Marketing and Communications, Management, Social Networking and Building Communities, TechMasters, Usability, Accessibility and Standards, and Progressive Strategies. As part of the proposal form, you will be asked to self-select in which tracks you feel that your proposal might fit. The Web Conference Programming Committee reserves the option to consider your proposal for openings in alternate tracks when appropriate. Presenter guidelines for the conference are available at: http://webconference.psu.edu/presenterguide/. The conference is open to University employees, especially those who support an official Penn State Web site as a server administrator, writer, content manager, designer, programmer or manager. Last year's conference offered twenty-four sessions and attracted more than 400attendees from several campus locations. More information about the conference is available at http://webconference.psu.edu/. Please share this information with colleagues who may be interested in presenting at this year's conference. Inquiries regarding the proposal process can be directed to the conference planners at webproposals@psu.edu. Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:25:50 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1151 Voters may have already rocked the vote on November 3, but students, faculty and staff can continue the democratic process by voting for their favorite “December Deals” products at Penn State’s Computer Store this month. From printers to accessories, Penn State community members can vote for great products with remarkably reduced prices. Visit http://computerstore.psu.edu/vote/ between November 9 and 17 to cast your vote and register to win a prize. Winning products and prize winners will be announced on November 18, so be on the lookout for more information. Once the votes are tallied, products will be on sale at the Computer Store December 1-18 — just in time for the gift giving season. Visit the Computer Store 365×24x7 for great deals and store hours by going to http://computerstore.psu.edu/, or visit one of the Computer Store Showrooms in the HUB-Robeson Center and in Willard Building at University Park. Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:20:02 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1145 On Sunday, November 15, 2009, from 5:00 until 11:00 a.m., Information Technology Services (ITS) will upgrade the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server, which supports Penn State Directory Services, to Tivoli Directory Server version 6.2. The upgrade is being performed to enhance the performance and stability of the directory server. During this timeframe, several of the directory server's update-oriented services will be disabled; however, users will still be able to perform directory lookups via http://www.psu.edu/directory/. In addition, other directory-dependent services such as e-mail services, Penn State Access Account Storage Space (PASS), calendaring, and a variety of University-wide Web services will not be affected by this outage. The directory-related services that will be disabled during the upgrade timeframe include: *Directory entry and e-mail forwarding updates via the ITS Secure Server, https://www.work.psu.edu/ *Group creation via the User Managed Groups (UMGs) interface, https://umg.its.psu.edu/ *The Automatic E-mail Reply Message Utility (the "vacation" service) via https://www.work.psu.edu/vacation/ *The Student Organizations Server Administrative interface, https://admin.clubs.psu.edu/ Information and requests for assistance may be directed to ITS Help Desk staff at helpdesk@psu.edu. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:34:20 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1146 On Wednesday, November 11, 2009, during the regularly scheduled maintenance window (5:00-7:00 a.m.), Information Technology Services (ITS) will perform a hardware upgrade to the MySQL cluster systems that supports several University-wide services. Though this maintenance is being performed during the established maintenance window, several widely-used services may experience intermittent outages during this time. Services include: *The Penn State Book Exchange, https://bookexchange.psu.edu/ *ITS News (administrative and public interfaces), https://news.its.psu.edu/admin/ and http://news.its.psu.edu/ *ITS Alerts (administrative and public interfaces), https://alerts.its.psu.edu/admin/ and http://alerts.its.psu.edu/ *ITS Downloads, https://downloads.its.psu.edu/ *The Blogs @ Penn State, https://blogs.psu.edu/ (Moveable Type system that supports The Blogs @ Penn State service) *Chat services via Jabber (beta), chat.psu.edu *Report Hate, https://reporthate.equity.psu.edu/ It is very likely that any outage time for services of this type will be very brief, perhaps only a few minutes, and the upgrade itself is expected to only take a few minutes. However, additional time has been allotted for any maintenance-related troubleshooting that may need to occur, and because the services noted above are widely used. Inquiries and request for assistance should be directed to ITS Help Desk staff at helpdesk@psu.edu. Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:32:58 EST http://news.its.psu.edu/students/story-1142 To meet the growing national trend toward team-based learning, Information Technology Services (ITS) has been installing collaborative learning spaces equipped with the latest technologies throughout the University Park campus. The new learning spaces, many of which are available around the clock, are helping faculty test the limits of team learning by making it easy for students to collaborate on activities and course projects. Collaborative learning spaces at Penn State are popular with students, said Mary Ramsey, manager, learning spaces, because they make group project assignments easier to complete. “It’s nice for students to be able to work together in the same location as opposed to say being in different residence halls,” Ramsey said. "Having a place where you can go and work together helps expedite the project.” Along with supplying these spaces with comfortable furniture that students can arrange to meet their group needs, ITS has installed technologies designed to assist students with team projects. Ramsey said there are several technologies that are available to students. In addition, wireless is available, if students opt to bring their own laptop. Below are several popular collaborative spaces currently available at University Park: TeamSpot Two "TeamSpot" locations In 201 Pollock enhance students’ ability to collaborate on group projects via technology, allowing them to transfer files, collaboratively edit documents, and share individual computer screens on a large, central monitor. “In this area, we have a very large screen with a couple of computers around it. It’s great for collaboration,” Ramsey said. “For example, someone can be working on an intro to a project paper while somebody else is working on the analysis part, the final report, the appendix, and so on. Thus, you can have different people working on various aspects of the same document and when it is pulled up on the large screen, everyone can see it, share it, and modify it.” Each TeamSpot station features Windows computers, with either a 37" or a 40" shared LCD HD monitor, tables for 2-6 students, wireless access, and a semi-private location. Ramsey said that it may take a while for students to fully comprehend how all this equipment can help them. “TeamSpot is a good collaborative tool, but it is a little more complex to use and to understand its concept,” Ramsey said. “Students may walk in and wonder ‘why do we have these computers around here, and what do we do with the big screen’?” To resolve the confusion, an instructional video on using TeamSpot is in development, she added. The video will not only include how to use the tools, but summarize why students might want to use each of the elements in the system. CopyCam Another collaborative technology available for students is the CopyCam, located in 107 Warnock and 102 Wagner, which enables students to write on a regular whiteboard and then electronically save and share notes, drawings, etc. “It’s a whiteboard with a big camera that captures what is written on the board. You write on the whiteboard like you normally would without CopyCam,” Ramsey said. “Instead of taking time to copy down the notes that were on the board, you simply press a button and save it to your flash drive. CopyCam is not extremely complicated, so it doesn’t require any training.” MIDI Keyboard In addition, students can create music with the collaborative tool available to them in 107 Warnock. In this location, a Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) keyboard with a microphone is installed on a Windows computer. A MIDI keyboard is also installed on an Apple computer in 201 Pollock. Students use the technology by playing and composing with the keyboard similar to a piano. Along with the MIDI keyboard, there is a microphone for vocal input as well as software to help students record and edit music. “It’s not a collaborative tool like TeamSpot where you are working on a document collectively, but instead you are writing music,” Ramsey said. “We put the MIDI keyboard in Warnock because so many music students live in North Halls and it gives them easy access to it.” ITS also offers music students a variety of software for use with the MIDI keyboard. Among the types of software available are programs that offer students “virtual musicians” for accompaniment, produce sheet music, teach piano, produce dance music, provide music editing and production, and more. To see a complete list, go to http://clc.its.psu.edu/Labs/Windows/Software/music_software/musicworkstation.aspx . Electronic Whiteboard Another tool available in Pollock is the Interwrite electronic whiteboard. The e-whiteboard enables students to interact and write on the board using dry erase markers, then have their work save electronically to a file. This allows more efficient use of time because students do not have to copy the information on the whiteboard to a notebook, they can merely save it. To learn more about collaborative learning spaces and available technologies, go to http://tlt.its.psu.edu/learningspaces/. This site will be updated later in the fall, so check back soon for the latest information. Mon, 02 Nov 2009 22:30:56 EST