Technology Assistance for Displaced Departments
Download a brochure [PDF]:
Suitable for printing and distribution at your next departmental meeting.
As the fall semester begins, the UI community is attempting to return to its main missions--instruction and research. Many students, faculty and staff in the campus community will be working under irregular conditions throughout the semester.
We at the Student Instructional Technology Assistant Program are here to help. We support faculty, graduate students and staff using instructional technology at The University of Iowa. Graduate and undergraduate SITAs are assigned to work as technology consultants with the goal of introducing instructors to available technological resources that can aid and enhance the classroom experience.
The SITA Program is always available to help instructors meet their technology needs, be it summer, spring or fall. We would be happy to discuss any of these options with you for the fall semester or beyond for general classroom use:
How to begin:
Individual SITAs have been assigned to relocated departments around campus. To contact your representative send an e-mail to sita@uiowa.edu.
Does your summer course require a good deal of lecture time you are not sure how to make up? Try audiocasting your lectures for your students. Using some basic software (like Audacity and Garage Band) and a microphone, you can create a sound recording of a lecture. The audio file you created can then be posted to your class ICON site or published as a Podcast feed that students can subscribe to or download to a personal MP3 player. They can catch up with important class content outside of class and valuable class time can be devoted to new material and discussion.
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Does your summer course require students to collaborate on projects or workshop peer output? A Wiki can help. Wiki's allow for collaboration, workshopping, and editing online and outside of class meeting time. Wikis work like web pages. You add content and create links. Unlike web pages, you don't have to know HTML or other programming languages to use Wiki pages. If you can word process, you can Wiki. Besides ease of use, Wikis allow for collaboration, because anyone with permission is allowed to edit the pages and add content. Wikis can be a good place for project organization and collaboration.
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Maybe you would like to post more class content on a Website but don't know how to code HTML. We can help with that too. We can get you started with the basics like creating a home page, loading content and creating links. We can also help with design aspects.
Don't forget about ICON: An ICON site is another option for moving information to your students quickly. Visit ICON for more information or proceed directly to support for instructors.
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Do you want to maintain that live classroom environment while working with distance-learning students? Elluminate is a collaborative software package that enables remote presentation with a live classroom feel. It supports video chat, text chat, slide sharing, and screen sharing. And, it is web-based. Click here for more information.
Another option for two way remote communication is live video conferencing.
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Perhaps you require students to post content that reflects research or engage in asynchronous discussions? A blog (or weblog) may be of use to you. Essentially, a blog looks and feels like a website. However, instead of simply going to the site to receive information, your students can interact with the content and respond to it. Students can post comments, documents, images, sound files, videos, etc. Blogs are interactive, easy-to-use, modular applications that require no knowledge of coding.
