Hello CSUSM faculty and welcome to the fall 2019 semester. This newsletter is to update you on some of the activities that Instructional & Information Technology Services (IITS) has been working on to support your use of technology for teaching, research, student advising,and other work tasks. We hope you will find the time to review this update.
Faculty and students at CSUSM are requesting capabilities to explore new technologies
that require spaces and equipment that are incompatible with standard classrooms and
their uses – more akin to lab and studio spaces in the Arts and Sciences. After receiving
input from instructors across campus from a variety of disciplines, we spent the summer
redesigning our Media Production Studios. We now have a dedicated photography studio,
learning glass studio, and two upgraded production studios for video and AR/VR as
well as new carpet and paint throughout. This reimagined use of space has been rebranded
as Inspiration Studios. We invite you to contact us to discuss how you and your students
can be inspired and experience these emerging technologies.
Before paint & carpet
After paint & carpet
Photography Studio
Some examples of new frontiers we're helping to explore:
Contact us at mpsrequests@csusm.edu to schedule a tour. Keep an eye out for our grand opening invitation and our Dell AR/VR day in September!
The Tech Bites lunch and learn workshop series for AY 19-20 starts September 12th. Based on your feedback, we’re including a wider range of topics focused on these themes:
Faculty can attend any of these stand-alone workshops or attend five and earn a certificate. See workshop descriptions, schedule and register.
Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching
and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Thanks
to advances in educational technology, we are seeing an increased demand for more
options and more flexibility when it comes to how students learn. Instructional materials
that students can access easily, and in a format they prefer, is one key to academic student success. Blackboard Ally is a tool in Cougar Courses that helps instructors build a more inclusive learning
environment and improve the student experience. Learn how to use the new Ally tool, strategies for creating more accessible course
materials, address the common issues identified by the Ally tool, and increase the
accessibility of your course by attending one of our Tech Bites workshops or email
ally@csusm.edu to setup an individual consultation.
As of fall 2019 the iclicker receivers will become obsolete. Anyone who uses iclickers will want to start using Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere is a great engagement tool that works much like iclickers? It is free to students! The automatic gradebook sync feature and student iclicker registration in Cougar Courses will no longer be available. Please come to one of our Poll Everywhere training sessions to learn more about it, or contact cchelp@csusm.edu if you have any questions. The RSVP form is right on the page.
The Cougars Affordable Learning Materials (CALM) initiative helps faculty find lower-cost alternatives to costly textbooks
by using high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER). In academic year 2018/19 15
faculty, teaching a combined 118 course sections, participated in CALM. These sections
contained 9,181 students, with an average savings of $119 per student. The total textbook
savings for students is $1,092,539, and the total savings between 2013 and 2019 is
over $4.4 million dollars. We are still accepting applications for the CALM professional
development opportunity for AY 2019/20.
As part of a systemwide initiative, CSUSM also began the initial deployment of multifactor authentication for individuals who have elevated or sensitive levels of access into CSUSM systems. Beginning in the fall of 2018, CSUSM implemented the Duo multifactor authentication software into applications that store or process “Level 1” confidential information. Similar to other products, DUO uses a smart phone to validate access for individual users. This added protection has proven to be a minor inconvenience for staff in exchange for much greater security. Implementation for all faculty and staff will continue through 2019-20 with the eventual deployment to students.
Perusall is a collaborative reading annotation tool. In addition to uploading URLs and PDFs, you can now add Word and Excel documents. For instructors of computer science or statistics, where students work with source code, you can also upload source code files in most major languages to your course. Perusall automatically adds syntax highlighting to the code and students can discuss it like any other reading. This video offers a good brief overview.
If you'd like help getting Perusall setup, contact ids@csusm.edu.
Want to know more about GIS or get GIS help? Contact Allen Risley (arisley@csusm.edu) for help adding a GIS component to your class or using GIS in your research.
Every classroom in the new Extended Learning Building classrooms has an instructor
station that has a large Dell Canvas interactive tabletop display paired with height-adjustable
table. Instructors can use it as a traditional desk or a fully interactive tool. If
you would like to see our original prototype, and provide feedback, visit the Technology
Resource Center (TRC) in Kellogg 2414. Our team of instructional designers will be
happy to give you a demo and discuss how you can use OneDrive and OneNote to engage
your students.
It take a village... a village of IITS staff and students pulling together to unload,
unpack, tag, and store 1,000 computers (our largest number of units) that are used
for the annual computer refresh program. This year we accomplished this task in roughly
3 hours. There is still work ahead as we work to make sure you get your new equipment
on time and ready to go.
If you want to know more about the projects that IITS is involved with, or want to know how to partner with IITS, visit our project tracking website that shows progress on IT projects and how the projects align to the needs of the campus community. Visit the Instructional and Information Technology Services website to learn more about our teams, services, and campus IT strategic plan.
Register now for for one of our TechBites workshops and learn more.
