ITS Training Services

Technology workshops open to Penn State students, faculty, and staff

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:10:39 -0500

Registration is now open for technology workshops offered throughout spring on topics including Access, Excel, Dreamweaver, ANGEL, InDesign, Photoshop, Blogs at Penn State, a variety of Penn State's administrative computing topics, and more. Many sessions are also offered online through Meeting@PennState (powered by Adobe Connect) meeting and training software. Log in with your Penn State Access Account user ID and password for details and to register for training.

Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology to take place March 24

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:46:06 -0500

Faculty are invited to learn and share effective uses of technology to enhance teaching and learning at the free Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology. The Symposium will take place on Saturday, March 24, 2012 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, University Park. The theme of this year's symposium is "Embracing Change and the Culture of Teaching and Learning." There is no registration fee and a continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.

The keynote speaker will be Jane McGonigal, director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit futures research group based in Palo Alto, California, and creative director at SocialChocolate.com (http://socialchocolate.com/), a game development startup. McGonigal, who holds a Ph.D. in performance studies, is the author of the New York Times best seller Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/1594202850). Her best known game development work includes "Find the Future" (http://findthefuture.nypl.org/#/) and "World without Oil" (http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/). These games have been featured in the New York Times, Wired, and The Economist, and on MTV, CNN, and NPR.

Members of the faculty who are using technology to enrich teaching, learning, or research are encouraged to submit a presentation proposal using the online form at http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/conference/proposals. The Symposium team is especially interested in sessions that illustrate how faculty and students are embracing new ideas to alter perceptions and foster innovation. Sessions can be in a variety of formats, including group presentations, poster presentations, interactive demonstrations, small-group discussions, and other activities. Each session should include some discussion of practical aspects such as the tools used, sources of support, best practices, and how the application of technology can be transferred to other disciplines. The deadline to submit proposals is October 28, 2011.

For more details and to register, visit http://symposium.tlt.psu.edu/. The Symposium is sponsored by Information Technology Services.

Penn State's video tutorial service gets a streamlined website

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:57:31 -0500

The lynda.com at Penn State website for online video tutorials is sporting a streamlined interface for the start of the fall 2011 semester. These popular software tutorials are used by students, faculty, and staff at no cost through a license agreement between Penn State and online training provider lynda.com. Be sure to visit the new site at http://lynda.psu.edu/ to watch a sample tutorial or sign in with your Penn State Access Account ID and password to dive right in to the training!

Check out this Q & A on the new website with ITS Training Services director, Chris Lucas:

What prompted the decision to change the location of the lynda.com at Penn State website?
The lynda.com service has proven to be a very popular and cost-effective way to provide training support to the entire Penn State community. However, one of our goals for the coming year is to further increase usage. We felt that moving it from the ITS Training Services site to lynda.psu.edu would give it more visibility and make it easier to access. Creating a dedicated website is just one strategy we are taking to create even more awareness of the service.

 What are the goals of this new site?
As stated previously, making the service more visible is one goal. Another goal includes helping faculty, staff, and students understand how it (the lynda.com at Penn State service) can benefit them personally. For example, we want faculty to be aware of strategies for incorporating it into their courses. Staff should be aware that lynda.com is a great resource to incorporate into their professional development plans. Students can develop skills that can help them complete course projects and boost their resume.

 What are some enhancements of the new site?
The content on the site has been condensed and streamlined to make it easy for people to find exactly what they need. We have also added a news section to the site, where we will post announcements related to the service. This includes new courses, enhancements to the service, and even online webinars that are hosted by lynda.com.

 Will the site continue to change and if so how?
Yes, the site will continue to grow. In particular, we plan on incorporating case studies of how faculty, staff, and students are using the service. We'd like to work directly with faculty and students--anyone using the service--to come up with best practices, guidelines, success stories, and anything we can add that will benefit the Penn State community. This will make the site's content even more useful.

 Is the lynda.com at Penn State service changing?
We anticipate some changes to the service that should really make the service even more valuable to the Penn State community. Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to talk about the details right now, but I'll go out on a limb and say that, if all goes well, I expect some significant enhancements to the service very soon. Stay tuned!

Faculty can request technology training for students in the classroom

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:00:55 -0500

Technology is often thought of as a tool that inherently improves efficiency and productivity, but the truth is technology only functions as well as a person's ability to use it. Chris Lucas, director of ITS Training Services, wants to make sure Penn State students have plenty of opportunities to learn technologies that can help them be successful in their coursework and beyond.

One of the ways the ITS training unit is trying to make this possible is by sending technology training experts into academic courses to provide instruction on commonly used technologies. This service is called Training on Demand, and, according to Lucas, is designed to help relieve faculty of the burden of having to be experts in every technology their students will need to use.

The training, which is provided upon request by a faculty member or instructor, typically consists of an overview of a software application that can fit into one or two class sessions, depending on the need. "We have many repeat users of this service," said Lucas, "and they seem to be very happy with it."

Ken Yednock, senior lecturer, advertising/public relations, said, "I have been most pleased with the ITS trainer who helped with my classes on Photoshop and InDesign. It is great to have this resource available for our students and to enhance our class experiences."

Not only does learning about these technologies help students in their course work at Penn State, but it also prepares them for the future by providing skills they will be able to use in their careers after graduating.

"People might assume that students are naturally technology savvy because they grew up with technology. They're known as the 'Millennial' Generation. But even though they're using cell phones and Facebook, we can't assume they know how to use tools like Excel or PowerPoint or even Photoshop--tools they might need to use in their future careers," said Lucas.

John Beale senior lecturer in the College of Communications said, "Training on Demand has offered my freshmen students an excellent introduction to The Blogs at Penn State. Scheduling a session is convenient and the students appreciate the hands-on approach of the trainer."

While additional learning options exist for Penn State students, such as free video tutorials through online training provider lynda.com, Lucas said, "The goal of the Training on Demand service is to provide students with another option for learning the technology skills needed to successfully complete their course work. They [students] also have the opportunity to ask the trainer specific questions related to using the technologies in the Penn State environment," he said.

Training on Demand is available at no cost to Penn State faculty and instructors upon request. Details, request guidelines, and a list of available topics are available at http://its.psu.edu/training/ondemand/. After reviewing the guidelines, begin the request process by contacting the ITS Training Services training coordinator at 814-863-9522 or ITSTraining@psu.edu.

Spotlight on Patty Nordstrom, Instructional Designer

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:32:33 -0500

Patty Nordstrom was born in Western Pennsylvania and grew up in Beaver County. She attended Penn State and majored in agronomy with a specialty in crops and soil. Patty went on to use this degree working for a lawn service outside of Pittsburgh after college for some time.

Patty returned to Penn State in 1990 with a mission to get more involved with the State College community. She achieved this goal by working year-round to help plan The Central Pennsylvania Festival for the Arts. Patty worked on planning the Arts Festival for six years in a row and had a marvelous time in the process. "It was great to see the results of all of my work on the thousands of happy faces walking around State College during Arts Fest weekend. It's an overwhelming sense of accomplishment," Patty said.

During her time with the Arts Festival, Patty began working on her Master's degree in Agricultural and Extension Education. She explains her experience as a form of e-learning before computers really started to kick in. This gave her an exciting glimpse of what the future had in store and how essential computers would soon be. After receiving her master's in 1995, Patty became a project assistant in Penn State's Dairy and Animal Science department and worked on several Pennsylvania Department of Agricultural Department research projects.

Patty started working with Information and Technology Services in 2010, continuing her work as an instructional designer. Patty feels that for Penn State to be most effective with technology usage, ITS needs to listen to the needs of faculty and staff.

Patty's hobbies include caring for her adopted shelter dog, Iko. She also loves school and learning, in general, and she is currently going for her D.Ed. in instructional systems.

Campus outreach initiative provides personal touch to technology training

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:48:41 -0500

Information Technology Services' (ITS) training unit is working hard to bring those at every Penn State campus the training they need through the Training on Demand program, and more specifically, a revamped campus outreach initiative. With the combination of face-to-face training, instructor-led web-based training through Adobe Connect, and free online video tutorials through lynda.com, ITS has plenty of tools to reach out and provide requested training in a timely manner.

In September 2009, ITS Training Services director Chris Lucas implemented a communication and training strategy that encourages ITS trainers to reach out to each campus on a regular basis. "My goal is to have trainers visit each campus at least once a year. It's important that we do so in order to identify the individual training needs of each campus, because they vary," said Lucas.

This campus outreach has been a big part of the progression of the Training on Demand program. Trainers are making a concerted effort to contact and visit all Penn State campuses to build relationships that foster learning by targeting learning needs and providing training designed to meet those needs.

Technology trainer, Heather Huntsinger heads the campus outreach initiative and has been working diligently to make sure all campuses are receiving the training they need. She has worked to identify, at each Penn State campus, a designated contact who is in charge of communicating training needs for that campus. To assist those contacts in identifying and targeting learning needs, Huntsinger developed an online needs assessment questionnaire. "These assessments are in place to help make sure all campuses are getting the training they want and need," she said.

Through the campus outreach initiative, representatives from ITS Training Services travel to various Penn State campuses to meet with designated contacts and discuss potential training needs of faculty, staff, and students. Since the initiative became a main priority in September 2009, members of the unit have visited six campuses in addition to the seven visited for traditional Training on Demand requests.

Those six visits included New Kensington, Greater Allegheny, Fayette, Shenango, Brandywine, and Abington campuses and have resulted in four requests for face-to-face training and one request for needs assessment assistance. Four additional campus visits are in the process of being scheduled for summer. "Face-to-face meetings provide personal attention that generates more immediate response than an e-mail or a phone call ever could. People value that we make the extra effort to travel to find out about their campus needs and seem to be more likely to use our services because of that."

As part of a continual communication plan, ITS Training Services also sends regular e-mail reminders about new and existing services, as well as important dates to keep campus contacts informed and up-to-date. Classes on Penn State's Data Warehouse and financial systems, as well as Adobe and Microsoft Office products are all popular, although ITS Training Services deals with a myriad of other requests.

Scheduling training sessions can be difficult with an already hectic training schedule at University Park. However, prioritizing campus outreach as a major initiative has allowed trainers to shift their schedules as necessary in order to accommodate the needs of all Penn State campuses. Regional visits are becoming more common, during which trainers visit and instruct at several campuses in the same geographic area over the course of one or several days. This tactic has made Lucas's goal of visiting each campus at least once per year possible. During the week of spring break, for example, ITS trainers were very busy with campus outreach, traveling to four different campuses to provide instruction.

So far, the campus outreach initiative has been met with positive accolades, which has led to many repeat customers. The ITS trainers have also thoroughly enjoyed the experience. "I really look forward to the chance to train at other campuses," says trainer Dawn Van Bramer. "Each of my visits has been really enjoyable." Van Bramer deals mostly with Penn State's administrative computing topics, Excel, and the Data Warehouse. "I never cease to be amazed by how thankful my trainees are by the time I'm done with a session."

There is no doubt that the campus outreach initiative is worth the time, effort, and travel, according to Lucas. "Going to the location in need creates a special relationship between the trainer and the training participant," said Huntsinger.

In that sense, campus outreach is accomplishing the intended goals of strengthening connections between Penn State campuses, as well as making sure that all campuses are getting the technology training they need to function at optimal levels for the benefit of Penn State, as a whole.

Meet Ryan Johnson, IT Training Specialist

Thu, 20 May 2010 11:59:00 -0500

By Peter Cardoso, Communications Intern

Ryan hails from Saratoga Springs in upstate New York and worked at the Saratoga horseracing track when he was a kid. He realized a deep passion for the weather at a very young age. Ryan attended SUNY Albany, gaining a degree in Atmospheric Science. Despite Ryan's love for the weather, he didn't much appreciate all the math involved and found that meteorology was a tough thing to break into during an internship with a TV station.

Ryan, like so many who now work in Information Technology Services, started off working down the road at AccuWeather in the TV systems department. In this position, Ryan traveled all over the United States and even worked internationally, training weather station employees on how to use new meteorology equipment and software.

Ryan loved the travel aspect of his job, but when he met his wife, Angelita who worked at AccuWeather as well, Ryan knew he had to find a different position in order to spend more time at home. Ryan became the manager of the Customer Services department, working alongside his wife there for six years. Ryan would eventually end up managing the call center. He gained a lot of training and support experience while at AccuWeather and he managed the creation of many of AccuWeather's training programs.

Ryan finally left AccuWeather and came to work at Penn State in the ITS department in 2008. Here, Ryan does training on Penn State administrative systems. Ryan very much enjoys working here at Penn State compared to the high-stress nature of his previous job.
Some of Ryan's hobbies include forcing himself to work out, hanging out with friends and going to concerts in his spare time. He is also a huge movie lover and even has a movie room in his basement with a screen, projector, and a wide array of movies.

Spotlight on Glenna Emel, Instructional Designer

Mon, 17 May 2010 13:55:38 -0500

By Peter Cardoso, Communications Intern

Glenna Emel was born in Germany into a military family, and when she was young her family was constantly on the move. She spent most of her childhood in the southern United States, moving from town to town, wherever the Army stationed her father. Glenna went on to join the Marines herself three days after graduating from high school. She trained all over the United States before getting shipped off to Kuwait to contribute to the Desert Storm effort as an ammunition and explosives specialist.

Upon her return to the United States, Glenna attended the University of Pittsburgh and earned a degree in Accounting. Although she enjoyed the course work, Glenna didn't really see herself as an accountant. She decided to attend Lock Haven University, earning a degree in education before earning her Master's in Technology Integration at Indiana Westline. She also earned a Paralegal degree through Penn State.

Glenna exercised her degrees by becoming a public school teacher for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. She taught English, Science, and Social Studies and absolutely loved her experience with teaching children.

Glenna started working in Information and Technology Services here at Penn State in 2006, starting out as an Administrative Systems financial trainer before becoming an instructional designer in 2008. Glenna now creates Web-based training and instructional materials for Penn State-specific programs including Workflow and Termination form, which brings her back to her accounting roots in a fashion that allows her to continue being an educator.

In her free time, Glenna enjoys spending time with her husband, Gary and their four kids. She also enjoys gardening in her big backyard, quilting, and camping out with her family.

ANGELshorts and tutorials on new ANGEL 7.4 features now available

Tue, 11 May 2010 13:19:13 -0500

ANGEL users can prepare for the upgrade to version 7.4, to take place the weekend of May 15, by viewing a series of ANGELshorts and animated tutorials describing the new features in ANGEL 7.4. ANGELshorts are one-page documents covering the five most essential things you need to know about the topic. Topics in the series include an overview of 7.4 new features, assessments, surveys, grading rubrics, and the merged roster manager. To access these materials, visit the ANGEL Community Hub at http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/angel/node/449.

ITS Forum recordings now available

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:52:47 -0500

Those who want to know more about the work Information Technology Services (ITS) does to improve technology culture and infrastructure at Penn State are welcome to view recordings of past ITS Forums at http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/video

Below is information about some recent ITS Forums that have been offered:

Lab Software and Students at Starbucks: New Directions

With the release of Windows Server 2008, Microsoft included a new feature called "Remote Applications". With this model, the end user is shown an application window with only the requested program running from the server. All of the applications are running from University owned hardware, using University owned licenses, and are able to be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection and a Penn State access account.

Finding and Removing Personally Identifiable Information: An Update

The University has recently purchased a new tool that will assist faculty, staff and unit IT professionals in finding and removing legacy personally identifiable information. It is critical that all such data be located and removed from systems where it does not belong. Alternately, if there is a business need for use and storage of SSN's, for example, an AD 19 Policy exception can be sought, with special attention to the security needs of the system and network. The presenters will describe new software, Identity Finder, and both its uses and limitations. The software does have both Windows and Macintosh clients.

KINBER: Connecting the Dots on a New Pennsylvania Network

A coalition of Pennsylvania higher education, health care, and community development organizations have formed a new non-profit corporation called KINBER to solicit funding available under the federal ARRA legislation. This funding will be used to construct a facility based optical fiber network throughout the Commonwealth.

Teaching and Learning with Google Apps: What's the Big Deal?

What happens when the notion of "turning in" an assignment is replaced by the idea of active and ongoing collaboration? What changes when faculty and students become co-authors in ongoing activities and what happens to the dropbox? These are only a few of the many questions swirling with the potential for change when everyone can be "an in the moment collaborator".

New releases from lynda.com

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:09:37 -0500

Checking out new releases from lynda.com is an excellent way to keep up with the latest tutorials on the most recent, cutting edge software available. This month, lynda.com focuses on Photoshop CS5, the highly hyped future addition to the Adobe family. Here you can find videos discussing CS5's new features like reshaping images with Puppet Warp and Content-Aware Fill options. Also, more in-depth videos can be found on CS5 content, including training on Flash Catalyst, After Effects, Fireworks, InDesign and more. These videos are made to help save time and energy, but most importantly improve the quality of your work. As usual, the tutorials are free, and led by industry experts that are prepared to give you a head start on the competition once Photoshop CS5 comes out this summer. Go to http://its.psu.edu/training/lynda/ to learn more.

2010 Plone Symposium East offers variety of activities for Web developers

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:22:58 -0500

The Plone Symposium East 2010 and associated training sessions and programming sprints will make up a week of Web development activity at Penn State during the week of May 24-30.

The Plone Symposium East 2010 highlights the week and will be held May 27-28 at the Nittany Lion Inn on the Penn State University Park campus in State College, PA. The event will feature a variety of sessions, focused on Zope and Plone, that are targeted at beginners, integrators, and innovators in business and education.

On May 24-26, seven in-depth training sessions, including several of general interest to web developers, will be offered. The general interest sessions are part of Chris Calloway's PyCamp - an intensive introduction to Python, JavaScript, and jQuery. While the jQuery session will cover applications to Plone, the information can be generalized to other content management systems and to static pages.

More information about these and other training sessions are available at the Symposium Web page: http://bit.ly/7wVbFi

Registration for the Plone Symposium is open, and to register please go to http://bit.ly/7wVbFi. Registration rates are $350 with an early-bird rate of $275 for attendees who register on or before April 19. Full-time students can register for $175.

Attendees can register at the door, but must pay with major credit card.

Finally, Penn State will host various high-energy programming sprints May 29-30. To register for these sprints, please go to the Plone Symposium East 2010 Sprints Wiki at https://weblion.psu.edu/trac/weblion/wiki/PloneSymposiumEast2010/Sprints. While there, feel free to suggest a sprint subject.

The 2010 Plone Symposium East is sponsored by Penn State's WebLion team, and Teaching and Learning with Technology.

Spotlight on Chris Lucas, Director of ITS Training Services

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:26:26 -0500

By Peter Cardoso, Communications Intern

Chris Lucas earned his undergraduate degree in Communication Media at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania before going for his Master's in Instructional Systems here at Penn State. Chris experienced a very broad education while at IUP, taking classes in photography, instructional design, video production, and Web site creation. These classes at IUP helped Chris discover his interest and skill with working on big projects. Chris put his skill-set to work helping faculty in the College of Education use technology in their classes. "There was a certain instant gratification that came with helping members of the faculty face-to-face," Chris said.

While working on his Master's at Penn State, Chris built multimedia-based instructional Web sites with a team through an assistantship at the Smeal College of Business. These sites documented presentations given at various international insurance conferences.

Chris then went on to become a Trainer and then Instructional Designer with ITS Training Services and focused his energy toward designing and developing instructor-led and Web-based training on Penn State's administrative systems. Later, Chris became the assistant director, managing eight staff members and serving as the unit's main project manager, along with overseeing new training and instructional design initiatives. In 2009, Chris became the director of ITS Training Services with over nine years of experience in the field under his belt.

As director, Chris points to lynda.com as a major asset for the Penn State community. With hundreds of video tutorials available, any faculty member or student having problems with technology should be able to find a solution using lynda.com as a resource.

Chris also emphasizes the use of analytics to help with assessing developing trends. ITS analyzes these trends to discover the needs of Penn State faculty and students. "I want to reach students, staff, and faculty with the technology training they need in the way they would best like to receive the information," says Chris. "To do this, communication is key. We need to find out what people really want."

Chris got married to his wife Jen last year in Jamaica, tying the knot shortly after noon and flying around the Caribbean Sea on Jet Skis by 1:30 p.m. Some of Chris's hobbies include being a huge Penn State football fan, as well as rooting for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Chris also enjoys playing video games and guitar in his spare time.

Free technology tutorials provide fast and convenient professional development

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:45:22 -0500

Online technology tutorials can be a great way to supplement job knowledge and skills, especially as the Penn State community prepares for the next round of SRDPs. Thousands of high-quality video tutorials on hundreds of technology topics are available at no cost to the Penn State community through a license agreement with lynda.com, Inc., an industry leader in online training. These tutorials are broken down into manageable segments and available 24/7 for convenient, self-paced learning. Topics include Microsoft Office applications, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, SQL, Drupal, audio and video editing applications, ColdFusion, operating systems, and hundreds more. To learn more and to access the tutorials at no cost, go to http://its.psu.edu/training/lynda/.

Spotlight on Alan Klein, Penn State Technology Trainer

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:10:28 -0500

By Peter Cardoso, Communications Intern
_________________________________________

Alan Klein, a State College native, graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1994 with a B.A. in Professional Photographic Illustration. He returned to State College after graduating and kicked off his career in professional commercial business photography, freelancing for various businesses, magazines and the Associated Press on a national level. Unfortunately, a shallow market for his expertise forced Alan to consider an alternate career path.

Alan attained his Web Master's Certificate from the Penn State World Campus and quickly went on to build Web sites for a number of different clients. Soon after, Alan landed a job here at Penn State working part-time for Information Technology Services (ITS) before getting involved with the Spanish department, managing their online content and ANGEL accounts.

Soon enough, Alan returned to his roots in ITS accepting a position as a technology trainer in ITS Training Services. "Working with computers is something I never planned on," Alan says, "it just happened." Alan never saw himself becoming a teacher. In fact, it's something that always spooked him out. However to Alan's surprise, he found himself enjoying instructing others on programs for which he had a high level of expertise, and he began to realize this untapped talent in software instruction.

Beginning with Adobe Photoshop 2.5 in college, which came packaged on a series of floppy discs, Alan has been working with Adobe products almost since they were invented, making him a seasoned veteran when it comes to training and troubleshooting these programs.

Also an active Web 2.0 user, Alan stresses the need for Penn State to stay current with these up-and-coming Web tools to be more in touch with students. However, Alan concedes that it's difficult to see where exactly all of these new technologies are taking us. "Anything can happen with Web 2.0. It's just like the ocean, you go up and down with the current."

When Alan isn't instructing professors on how to use ANGEL or showing a student how to podcast, he loves to hike throughout Pennsylvania. Alan uses the Web site www.geocaching.com, which probes its users to go in search of items hidden at certain coordinates using a GPS system. Geocaching has led Alan all over the state of Pennsylvania, as well as to thirteen other states. He has now reached an astounding 1,000 items listed on the Web site.

Alan is also a member of The Penn State Karate Club and has a great appreciation for karate, not just for its deep and rich history, but also for the physical and mental clarity it brings to him.

A list of Alan Klein's classes can be located on the ITS Training Services Web site.