Technology Profiles

As reports of cases of the H1N1 flu virus increase around the country, Penn State recognizes that large numbers of faculty and students may be unable to teach or attend classes due to illness or because they are home-bound, caring for family members. In preparation for an outbreak, ITS is focusing on creating additional support for technologies that allow faculty and students to continue their teaching and learning activities with minimal disruption even if classroom attendance or traditional instruction is not possible. We recommend that colleges and campuses stress the importance of learning how to use these tools before they are needed.

ANGEL  - ANGEL is the most commonly used learning technology at Penn State.  However, most faculty are not using ANGEL to teach courses completely online, so they may not be familiar with using the complete set of tools available in ANGEL such as posting instructional videos, quizzing, discussion forums, using dropboxes, and taking attendance through online participation.  

• Getting Started with ANGEL (pdf)
• 5 Things You Need to Know about ANGEL 7.3 (pdf and video)
• 5 Things You Need to Know about Discussion Forums (pdf and video)
• ANGEL Content and Drop Boxes
• Fostering Communication and Discussion in ANGEL
• Using ANGEL for Assessment and Feedback
• ANGEL Training Sessions
  

Blogs at Penn State - Faculty who approach the 1 GigaByte quota in ANGEL can also use the Blogs at Penn State platform to post media files and other educational resources.  ITS provides technical and pedagogical support of these features through a series of how-to guides, hands-on sessions, and recorded training sessions.

• Getting Started with Blogs at Penn State Web Site
  
• Blogs at Penn State Overview (recorded session)
  
• Using Blogs in the Classroom (recorded session)
• Blog Training Sessions

Web Conferencing  - Adobe Connect is a web conferencing tool that can be used to create and distribute lectures and presentations. Connect supports audio, video, slide presentations, screen sharing, and whiteboard activities as well as chat and polling.  Live sessions can be recorded for later viewing by those who were unable to attend the session.  In addition to live presentations, Adobe Connect can also be used to create prerecorded lectures that students can watch at any time.  In 2008-2009, Penn Staters participated in 42,000 live meetings and recorded sessions via Adobe Connect.

• Getting Started with Adobe Connect
• Adobe Connect Pro for Classroom Use (recorded session)
• Adobe Connect Training Sessions
  

Prerecorded Lectures - Faculty who are comfortable recording their lecture material ahead of time have several options.  They can create audio or video recordings and make them available to their students through iTunesU (see http://digitalcommons.psu.edu/podcasting).  Faculty who would like to sync audio with PowerPoint slides can use Adobe Presenter on Windows or Keynote on a Macintosh, which are available for purchase through the Penn State Computer Store. As an alternative, faculty can create screencasts that combine a voice recording with video recordings of anything on their computer screen using Jing, which can be downloaded and used for free.

• iTunesU Tutorials
• Getting Started with Podcasting
  
• Free access to Audio Recording hardware at University Park
• Adobe Presenter 7 Basics (pdf)
  
• Adobe Presenter Tutorials
• Voice Annotation using Keynote
  
• Creating a Video with Jing (pdf)

Support for these technologies will be available 24/7 through the recently expanded hours of the ITS Help Desk or through the ITS Knowledge Base.  Training and how-to guides will be provided by ITS's Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) group.

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