Faculty Workshops + Events

Register for any, or all, of our upcoming workshops in the Information Services Events calendar, using the links below, or contact Jessica McCullough. Need to learn something that is not listed here? Contact teachtech@conncoll.edu with your questions and someone from the RS&CT team will respond!

Many online workshops are recorded. You may view those recordings in our MediaSpace channel (Conn College login required).

Upcoming Workshops and Events 2024-25

Faculty Learning Community: Practical Applications of AI in the Classroom
Tuesdays, 3:30-5:00 PM
September 10 + 24, October 15 + 29, November 12, December 10
Library & Information Technology, Center for Teaching & Learning, and the Writing Center invite you to join a faculty learning community focused on the practical applications of generative AI to improve  teaching and learning. Our goal is to collaboratively explore how AI can be integrated into your courses, and to support one another in rethinking assignments and course design. Pre-registration is required by September 3 in order to participate. 

ePortfolio Community of Practice
Mondays, 2:00pm-3:00pm
September 16 + 30, October 14 + 28, November 11 + 25, December 9
This semester, join a community of practice with other instructors and take your ePortfolio practices to the next level!  In this hybrid weekly meeting of current ePortfolio users, we will discuss the opportunities, benefits, and challenges of successfully implementing the ePortfolio in your classes.  Each week will focus on a different theory of ePortfolio research or practical application principle and will be suited to the needs and interests of the group. 

Globally Networked Courses Brown Bag Lunch Series
Walter Commons
Wednesdays, 1:15-2:00 PM
October 16, November 20, December 18
Join us for a brown bag lunch series, hosted by The Water Commons and Library & Information Technologies, where we’ll explore the possibilities of globally networked courses. In this series, we’ll cover essential topics such as how to get started, different models for global course networking, available funding and professional development opportunities, and best practices for managing logistics. Faculty who have successfully implemented these approaches will share their experiences, offering insights into both the rewards and challenges.

Introduction to Video Editing Software – iMovie (CT DS Exchange)
Wednesday, October 30, 2024 | 3:00-4:00 PM
Online
This workshop will introduce attendees to the basics of video editing using iMovie software. iMovie is available in the recording studios at Connecticut College and Trinity College.

Previous Workshops, 2024-25

Hypothesis Updates and New Features
Tuesday, August 20, 2024 | 1:00-2:00 PM
Zoom
Join us to learn about some exciting new Hypothesis features!

• Exporting and Importing Annotations: You can now carry over existing annotations on Hypothesis-enabled readings when using Moodle’s course copy function.
• Moodle Groups: Enhance collaboration in your classes by utilizing Moodle course groups to create small group annotation spaces within your Hypothesis-enabled readings.
• Moodle Files: Easily add social annotations to PDFs you’ve uploaded to your Moodle course. -Annotating YouTube video transcripts: Add a YouTube URL to Moodle and enable Hypothesis.

Crafting your Writing and AI Course Policies 
Tuesday, August 20, 2:00-3:00 PM
Zoom
Led by Summar West, Writing Center, Ashley Hanson and Lori Looney, Research Support, this workshop will lead faculty through the creation of writing and AI course policies. You will leave with clear, consistent policies that set expectations for student work, reducing misunderstandings and potential disputes.Don’t miss this opportunity to refine your course guidelines and foster a more productive and equitable academic environment.

Lightning Round: Panorama for Accessibility
Thursday, August 22, 2024, 9:00-9:30 AM
Monday, August 26, 1:00-1:30PM
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 12:00-12:30 PM
Zoom
Are you looking to enhance your course’s accessibility? Or wondering about those new icons you’re seeing in Moodle? Join us for this quick, focused training session to learn more about Panorama, Moodle’s newest plugin for accessibility. Panorama allows students to view and download course resources in multiple formats to meet their diverse learning needs. In this session you’ll learn how to make small but powerful changes to ensure all students have opportunities to succeed. 

Introduction to Pressbooks
Thursday, August 22, 2024, 10:00-11:00 AM
Pressbooks is an open publishing platform that can be used to create teaching materials for courses or to create open books with students as an alternative to traditional research papers. Join us for a showcase of Conn Pressbooks and a demonstration of the platform’s easy-to-use editing dashboard. 

Get Stuff Done – In Person with Snacks
Monday, August 26, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Visualization Wall, Shain Library Lower Level

Join us to… get stuff done. You’ll find staff from Research Support and Curricular Technology available to help you before the semester begins. Get your Moodle site ready, consult with your library liaison, or drop by the IT Service Desk. Join us in the Tech Commons on the lower level of the library. Coffee and snacks will be available! This is a drop-in event, no need to register. If you are unable to come or prefer to DIY, take a look at our collection of how-to instructions and videos.

Previous Workshops, 2023-24

Moodle Updates for Fall 2023
Monday, August 14, 1:00 – 2:00 pm | Zoom
Thursday, August 17, 9:00 – 10:00 am | Zoom
Thursday, August 24, 9:00 – 10:00 am | Zoom
Join us for an overview of some of the latest changes to Moodle for Fall 2023. We’ll provide an overview of the updates and give you a chance to ask questions.

Get Stuff Done 
Wednesday August 23, 9:00 am – 12:00 pm drop-in | Lower Level Shain – Visualization Wall
You’ll find staff from Research Support and Curricular Technology available to help you before the semester begins. Get your Moodle site in order, consult with your library liaison, drop by the IT Service Desk, and visit our technology petting zoo! Join us in the Tech Commons on the lower level of the library. Coffee and snacks will be available! This is a drop-in event, no need to register. If you are unable to come or prefer to DIY, take a look at our collection of how-to instructions and videos. 

Pressbooks for Scholarship and Assignments
Tuesday, September 5, 10:00 – 11:00 am | Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Lower Level
Would you like to create open educational resources or engage in open pedagogy by involving students in the creation of OER? Join us to get started in Pressbooks, our open publishing platform. We’ll cover the basics, including layouts, adding multimedia to chapters and browse examples of Pressbooks.

“Did You Do The Reading?”: Tech Tools to Help Your Students Read Better
September 12, 2:00 – 3:00 pm | Advanced Technology Lab or Zoom
Start the new year with some new tech tools that will help your students be more effective readers! This workshop will discuss some of the education research from 2022 surrounding reading assignments and will then showcase some tools, both new and tried-and-true, that you can introduce in your course to help your students actually do the reading and get more from it. We’ll explore example assignments and brainstorm ideas for new approaches to encouraging close reading.

An Intro to ICPSR using the Open Flint Data Collection – Open to Students, Faculty, and Staff
Thursday, September 28, 4:15 – 5:15 pm | Zoom
Representatives from ICPSR, a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences, will demonstrate how to access data using their Open Flint Data collection. 

Library Lightning Round: Advanced Search Techniques in OneSearch – Open to Students, Faculty, and Staff
Tuesday, October 3, 10:45 – 11:00 am | Davis Lab or Zoom
Learn how to use a variety of advanced search techniques in OneSearch to get the most out of the library’s collections.

Light-weight Text Analysis with Voyant Tools – Open to Students, Faculty, and Staff
Thursday, October 5, 1:30 – 2:30 pm | Davis Lab or Zoom
Voyant Tools is an open source, web-based application for lightweight text analysis. It functions as a one-stop shop, offering an easy to use interface that processes text in seconds, organizing it into a series of interactive lists, charts, graphs, and networks. The application allows users to play with the resulting visualizations, to explore the text from different angles, such as word clouds, term frequency lists, frequency distribution plots, and keyword in context. With no background knowledge or skills necessary, Voyant Tools is conducive to incorporating text analysis activities into the undergraduate classroom to facilitate reading and interpretive practices. This workshop offers a hands-on tour of the web-based application using pre-established textual corpora. 

Research Data Storage and Management
Wednesday, November 8, 1:15 – 2:15 | Zoom
Do you find yourself struggling to organize and manage all your different files related to your research and scholarship? We will offer strategies for storing, managing, and sharing different types of research data. We will also introduce Kaltura Media Space and Scrivener.

Information Services Orientation for Adjunct Faculty
Monday, January 8, 12:00-1:00pm | Zoom
This session will include information about the technologies Information Services supports for faculty and student use, as well as library and research resources available to faculty and students. It will also include a brief introduction to Moodle, the college’s learning management system.

Pre-semester Talking Teaching Collaboration with Research Support & Curricular Technology
Wednesday, January 17, 10:00 – 11:30 | Visualization Wall, Advanced Technology Lab
AI: Wondering about how to address AI in your courses? Join us for an engaging workshop where we delve into diverse strategies for addressing AI in the classroom. Discover various approaches to communicate the nuances of AI to your students. Hear firsthand experiences from faculty members who have successfully integrated AI into their courses. Finally, we will explore a range of popular AI tools used by both faculty and students.

12:30- 2:00 pm |  Visualization Wall, Advanced Technology Lab
Moodle: After refreshing your syllabus, join us to learn about high-impact Moodle practices, feedback we’ve collected from students, and get hands-on assistance with preparing your Moodle sites for the new semester.

Lightning Round: LGBT Magazine Archive and Gerritsen Women’s History Collection
Thursday, January 18, 1:00-1:30 pm | Zoom
A brief introduction to two Gender Studies historical databases.

Creating Pressbooks with Students
Thursday, January 18, 2:00 – 3:00 pm | Zoom
Pressbooks is an open publishing platform used to create open books with students. Join us for a demonstration of Pressbooks authoring tools and discuss how the platform can be used to build assignments that engage and connect your class.

Lightning Round: Advanced Search Techniques in OneSearch
Thursday, January 25, 4:00 – 4:30 pm | Zoom
Learn how to use a variety of advanced search techniques in OneSearch to get the most out of the library’s collections.

Lightning Round: Apply for the Library Prize to Showcase Your Research
Tuesday, January 30, 1:00 – 1:30 pm | Zoom
Learn about the annual Connecticut College Prize for Undergraduate Library Research. Applications are due March 8th. This brief workshop will cover eligibility, the application form, and evaluation criteria.

Google Productivity for Faculty
Wednesday, January 31, 10:30-11:30 am | Advanced Technology Lab
Google Workspace offers an array of tools to help you work more productively and efficiently. Join us as we talk Calendar, Drive, Shared Drives, and Mail, and share the latest and greatest Google updates, tips and tricks that will help enhance your teaching, advising and research.

Lightning Round: WeVideo for Simple Collaborative Video Creation
Friday, February 2, 12:00 – 12:30 pm | Zoom
An introduction to WeVideo, a cloud-based video creation platform. Students may create individual or group projects using a large database of ready-to-use video and audio content, or uploading their recorded content. 

Love Data Week: ChatGPT4 for Data Analysis
Monday, February 12th, 1:15 – 2:15 pm | Zoom
This workshop will explore the capabilities of ChatGPT4’s Advanced Data Analysis features from reading and describing datasets to generating advanced data visualization and regression analyses. Whether you’re a researcher or just curious about this AI tool, this session will provide a useful introduction to harnessing the power of ChatGPT4 for your data tasks. 

Lightning Round: What’s New in Statista
Tuesday, February 13, 2:00 – 2:30 pm | Zoom
Statista consolidates statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources. Join us to learn about Statista’s new search release and updates to the platform. 

Love Data Week: Finding and Using ICPSR Data
Thursday, February 15, 1:15 – 2:15 pm | Zoom
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is the world’s largest archive of digital social science data. This session will focus on how to find and access available data via the ICPSR website, with simple instructions for setting up an account, searching for and accessing datasets. 

Lightning Round: Advanced Search Techniques in OneSearch
Monday, February 19, 4:00 – 4:30 pm | Zoom
Learn how to use a variety of advanced search techniques in OneSearch to get the most out of the library’s collections.

Lightning Round: Automatically Create Citations and Format Bibliographies with RefWorks
Wednesday, February 28, 4:00 – 4:30 pm | Zoom
Make your research more compelling with perfectly crafted citations, bibliographies, and references in any style. Learn how to export citations from library catalogs and databases, and Google Scholar, to minimize keystrokes and maximize efficiency.

Publishing Open Access: How the Library Can Support You
Thursday, March 7, 10:00 – 11:00 am | Advanced Technology Lab
The publishing landscape is changing rapidly, with library agreements that provide institutions not just the ability to read articles but also to publish open access research. At this workshop, we’ll give an overview of the latest trends, talk about the ways the library is supporting open access publishing, and discuss how you can take advantage of our new open access agreements.

Automatically Create Citations and Format Bibliographies with RefWorks
Thursday, April 18, 9:00 – 9:30 am | Zoom
Make your research more compelling with perfectly crafted citations, bibliographies, and references in any style. Learn how to export citations from library catalogs and databases, and Google Scholar, to minimize keystrokes and maximize efficiency.

Previous Workshops, 2022-23

Podcast Assignments and New Recording Studio
Monday, January 30, 2:30-3:30pm | Advanced Technology Lab
The library has a new recording studio located on the third floor! Come see the space and equipment and hear from Professor Sufia Uddin about scaffolding podcast assignments. The recording studio features two microphones and a three camera set-up, connected to a video switcher which is connected to an iMac. Post-production software includes Apple Final Cut, Audacity, DaVinci Resolve, OBS, Rogue Amoeba Fission, Loopback, and more.

Unable to attend but want to learn more about the studio? Email teachtech@conncoll.edu to arrange small group or individual appointments. 

“Did You Do The Reading?”: Tech Tools to Help Your Students Read Better
Tuesday, January 31, 1:30-2:30pm | Advanced Technology Lab, Lower Level Shain Library, and Zoom
Start the new year with some new tech tools that will help your students be more effective readers! This workshop will discuss some of the education research from 2022 surrounding reading assignments and will then showcase some tools, both new and tried-and-true, that you can introduce in your course to help your students actually do the reading and get more from it. We’ll explore example assignments and brainstorm ideas for new approaches to encouraging close reading.

Using the Visualization Wall for Classes 
Thursday, February 2, 1:00-4:00pm Drop-in | Visualization Wall, Lower Level Shain Library
Drop by to learn how to use the Visualization Wall, located in the Technology Commons of the lower level of Shain Library. The visualization wall is a high-resolution display system offering touchscreen control, wireless display of laptops and mobile devices, and moveable seating in a large open space. Many faculty regularly use the wall for student presentations, while courses in Computer Science and the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology have used the system to design and present interactive interfaces for games and other applications. Attendees will receive the passcode and be able to use the wall afterward on their own.

Collaborative Student Assignments using Pressbooks and WordPress
Thursday, February 9, 12:00-1:00pm | Zoom 
In this workshop, we will browse examples of classroom assignments using Pressbooks, a self-publishing platform, and WordPress, an application for creating websites. Join us for a discussion on using these products as teaching tools to engage students and create real-world assignments that can be shared with the public.

Love Data Week Events

Introduction to Webscraping Tools
Wednesday, February 15, 2:30-3:30pm | Zoom
This workshop will introduce several web scraping tools that allow you to extract and analyze data from Twitter and any websites that allow scraping. Participants will learn about the use cases for web scraping and the transformative power of no-to-low-code tools in the data gathering process, as well as what is possible with some Python coding skills.

Help! I need to find a dataset
Thursday, February 16 1:15-2:15pm | Zoom
This session will introduce you to tools that canvas data basics topics such as finding statistics to answer a research question, evaluating datasets, and interpreting and using data. In addition, you’ll become acquainted with both library and open access resources for accessing datasets on a variety of subject areas.

Wiki Edu and Wikipedia Assignments 
Thursday, March 2 2:30-3:30pm | Zoom
Looking for a new assignment idea that empowers your students to contribute to public scholarship while honing their research and writing skills? Join us to learn about leveraging open pedagogical practices through Wikipedia editing assignments. Professor Ariella Rotramel will share their scaffolding strategies and past experience using the support services offered through the Wiki Education Dashboard.

Using Data Visualization to Teach Research Methods
Thursday, October 6, 1:15 – 2:15 PM | Virtual
Data-centered courses can be successful in achieving important learning outcomes related to critical thinking. This workshop will demonstrate how data visualization can increase student engagement in the research process both as stand alone activities or as part of a semester long research project.

Technology, Accessibility and Universal Design: Strategies for Equitable Classrooms
Co-sponsored with the Office of Student Accessibility Services
Tuesday, October 11, 9:00 – 10:00 AM | Advanced Technology Lab
All of us have a goal of providing an inclusive, accessible, and equitable experience for all of our students. Join us for a discussion of some of the barriers that students face, and learn about tools and strategies to address those barriers. You’ll leave with some easy-to-implement practices and tips that will improve the learning experience for all your students.

Introduction to Web Scraping Tools for Gathering Data from Social Media and Websites
Wednesday, October 12, 3:00-4:00 PM
This workshop will introduce several web scraping tools that allow you to extract and analyze data from Twitter and any websites that allow scraping. Participants will learn about the use cases for web scraping and the transformative power of no-to-low-code tools in the data gathering process, as well as what is possible with some Python coding skills.

Getting Started with Pressbooks
Monday, October 24, 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Virtual
Would you like to create open educational resources or engage in open pedagogy by involving students in the creation of OER? Join us to get started in Pressbooks, our new open publishing platform. We’ll cover the basics, including layouts, images and open licenses, browse examples of Pressbooks and explore advanced features, such as integration with H5P and Hypothesis. 

And, We’re Rolling: Creating and Sharing Video Lectures, Tutorials, and More
Tuesday, October 25, 1:00-2:00 PM | Virtual
This workshop will showcase the versatility of video and how you can use this medium to enhance your work at Conn.  If you are looking to flip some of your lectures, create tutorial videos for your program or center, or incorporate video into a student assignment, this workshop is for you!  We will discuss two free tools for creating and editing video, Screencastify and Kaltura Capture, and also how to go about sharing those videos publicly with MediaSpace or privately on Moodle.

Free Stuff from the Library!
Friday, October 28, 10:00 – 11:00 AM | Virtual
Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Ed, thousands of scholarly journal articles and more! Please join us for some top tips for finding and accessing free research resources brought to you by Information Services.

Library Lightning Round: How to Compare Laws by State
Wednesday, November 9, 2:15-2:30 PM | Virtual
Debates about gun regulation, abortion, and voting rights have been at the the center of recent news. Learn how to use the National Survey of State Laws in the HeinOnline database for quick state-by-state law comparisons.

Not Just for Students! Websites & Professional ePortfolios for Faculty
Tuesday, September 27, 10:30-11:30 AM | Virtual
Do you have a digital space to promote your teaching, service, and scholarship?  If you do, when was the last time you updated it?  Many students are using ePortfolios in the Pathways and Centers for this kind of work, but did you know you can create a professional portfolio too? Join us on Zoom to learn about two software platforms – Domain of One’s Own (WordPress) & Google Sites – to create your own teaching and/or research portfolio.  This workshop will focus on creating and designing your site, adding content, and incorporating reflection and metacognition into your professional portfolio.

Library Lightning Round: Using the Campus Art Collections Across the Curriculum
Wednesday, September 28, 2:45 – 3:00 PM | Virtual
The new Campus Art Collections database brings together the Campus Art Collection, including the outdoor sculpture collection, the Chu-Griffis Collection for Asian Art, the Japanese Print Collection, the Wetmore Print Collection, and the Artists’ Books Collection. We will also soon make available the Rose Shinbach Collection of Delft Pottery. The college’s art collections represent a broad range of subjects, time periods, and cultural origins, now fully searchable and browseable by facets. Come learn about ways you might use these collections in your courses, including opportunities for students to work with the physical collections.

Library Lightning Round: Advanced Search Techniques in OneSearch
Tuesday, October 4, 12:15-12:30 PM | Virtual
Learn how to use a variety of advanced search techniques in OneSearch to get the most out of the library’s collections.

Creative Ways to Use Social Annotation in Your Courses
Thursday, September 8, 12:00 – 1:00 PM | Virtual
This workshop covers a variety of discussion protocols and active-learning strategies that can help make social annotation even more fun and engaging for you and your students.

Using Hypothesis with Small Groups
Monday, September 12, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Virtual
This workshop focuses on the options for using Hypothesis in small groups and covers how social annotation can be used to create a more collaborative learning environment.

Free Stuff from the Library!
Tuesday, September 13, 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Virtual
Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Ed, thousands of scholarly journal articles and more! Please join us for some top tips for finding and accessing free research resources brought to you by Information Services.

Getting Started with Pressbooks
Tuesday, September 20, 10:00 – 11:00 AM | Virtual
Would you like to create open educational resources or engage in open pedagogy by involving students in the creation of OER? Join us to get started in Pressbooks, our new open publishing platform. We’ll cover the basics, including layouts, images and open licenses, browse examples of Pressbooks and explore advanced features, such as integration with H5P and Hypothesis. 

Library Lightning Rounds: A Brief Introduction to Statista
Thursday, September 22, 1:15-1:30 PM | Virtual
Learn how to get the most out of Statista, a database for finding statistics, consumer survey results and industry studies from over 22500 sources on over 60000 topics.

Using Hypothesis with Small Groups
Monday, September 26, 4:00–5:00 PM | Virtual
This workshop focuses on the options for using Hypothesis in small groups and covers how social annotation can be used to create a more collaborative learning environment.

Get Stuff Done!
Wednesday, August 24, 9:00 AM – noon | Tech Commons/Vis Wall
Classes start next week! Come to Shain Library and you’ll find staff from Research Support and Curricular Technology available to help you “get stuff done” before the semester begins. Get your Moodle site in order, consult with your library liaison, drop by the IT Service Desk, talk to Media Services about your classroom and visit our technology petting zoo! Join us in the Tech Commons on the lower level of the library from 9-noon– we’ll provide coffee and snacks and any help you might need!

Previous Workshops, 2021-2022

**Check out the Connecticut Digital Scholarship Exchange for additional workshops offered by Trinity College and open to our faculty**

Wednesday, Aug 25 at 11am | Dilley Room + Zoom Online and in person.
Make reading more active, visible, and social in Moodle! Hypothesis brings discussion directly to your assigned readings by enabling students to add comments and start conversations in the margins. In this workshop, we will discuss ways to integrate Hypothesis into your teaching strategy and create your first Hypothesis assignment in Moodle!

Activating Annotation in Moodle with Hypothesis
Monday, Sept 20 at 4:30pm
Becky George, Hypothesis Success Specialist, will discuss how collaborative annotation with Hypothesis can be used to make student reading visible, active, and social. In addition to sharing pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, Becky will demonstrate how Hypothesis can be used with course readings in Moodle. After presenting, Becky will lead participants in a discussion about how Hypothesis collaborative annotation can be used in their specific disciplines and with their specific teaching and learning objectives. Participants can expect to come away from this session with a clear idea about how they can start incorporating collaborative annotation into their courses to improve student success.

Annotating Class Readings Online Using Hypothesis
Wednesday, Aug 25, 2021
Make reading more active, visible, and social in Moodle! Hypothesis brings discussion directly to your assigned readings by enabling students to add comments and start conversations in the margins. In this workshop, we will discuss ways to integrate Hypothesis into your teaching strategy and create your first Hypothesis assignment in Moodle!

New Resources for Diversity and Inclusion Research
Thursday, Oct 7at 2:00pm
In recent years the library has made a concerted effort to add resources to diversify our databases and collections to support research from a variety of perspectives. Some new additions include online access to the NAACP Papers, Historical Black Newspapers, Women and Social Movements, Disability in the Modern World and North American Indian Thought and Culture. Come learn about these and other resources and how they might be integrated into your teaching and research.

Open Access Week (October 25) Workshops:

Data Visualization I: Explore and Clean Data with OpenRefine
Monday, Oct 25th at 1:15pm
This workshop will introduce OpenRefine, a powerful but user-friendly program for exploring and cleaning messy data. With its ability to incorporate textual cleaning techniques such as clustering and faceting, OpenRefine provides an advanced alternative to Excel without needing to understand computer programming. Registrants will be sent instructions for installing OpenRefine prior to the workshop.

Activating Annotation in Moodle with Hypothesis
Tuesday, Oct 26 at 4:30pm
Becky George, Hypothesis Success Specialist, will discuss how collaborative annotation with Hypothesis can be used to make student reading visible, active, and social. In addition to sharing pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, Becky will demonstrate how Hypothesis can be used with course readings in Moodle. After presenting, Becky will lead participants in a discussion about how Hypothesis collaborative annotation can be used in their specific disciplines and with their specific teaching and learning objectives. Participants can expect to come away from this session with a clear idea about how they can start incorporating collaborative annotation into their courses to improve student succes

Copyright Essentials for Teaching and Research
Wednesday, Oct 27 at 10am
Do you have questions about which materials you can use in your teaching and research, and when you can use them? In this workshop, we’ll help you sort through the key issues surrounding copyrighted materials, including the application of Fair Use as well as various exceptions to copyright, such as the TEACH Act and library reproduction. We’ll also dive into some issues that arise most frequently among college faculty, including the use of copyrighted materials in teaching and assignments; images and video; concerns arising from the public presentation of student work; and copyright/ownership of your own research.

OER and Your Course: Integrating Open Content into the Curriculum
Thursday, Oct 28 at 1:15pm
It’s Open Access Week! Explore copyright-free multimedia resources to use for your teaching. In this workshop, we will look at newly created resources for the humanities, social sciences, STEM and biological sciences. Faculty OER advocates will discuss the ways in which OER reduce prohibitive costs, help you incorporate diverse voices, and support your unique and creative courses.

Introduction to PressBooks: Publish Digital Books & Open Educational Resources
Friday, Oct 29 at 1:15pm
Interested in creating, adapting or remixing a digital book? With Pressbooks you can create textbooks, monographs, and teaching materials; export books in multiple digital and print formats; and create custom course materials and open textbooks. Add embedded media and interactive content to Pressbooks for added engagement and assessment of learning. See examples here.

Text Analysis with Voyant Tools(part I of II)
Thursday, Nov 11 at 1:15pm
Voyant Tools is an open source, web-based application for lightweight text analysis. It functions as a one-stop shop, offering an easy to use interface that processes text in seconds, organizing it into a series of interactive lists, charts, graphs, and networks. The application allows users to play with the resulting visualizations, to explore the text from different angles, such as word clouds, term frequency lists, frequency distribution plots, and keyword in context. With no background knowledge or skills necessary, Voyant Tools is conducive to incorporating text analysis activities into the undergraduate classroom to facilitate reading and interpretive practices. This workshop offers a hands-on tour of the web-based application using a pre-established textual corpus. Next semester in part II of this workshop, we will build our own textual corpus to analyze.

Domains & Donuts
Wednesdays 9-10am, September 8-December 8
Advanced Technology Lab
Open to ALL – faculty, staff, and students. Come by our biweekly drop-in events to show off a digital project you’re working on and gain feedback, learn how to make your own website, or troubleshoot as you develop your site (plus donuts!). Domain of One’s Own is our hosting system for many web applications used for class projects and open scholarly publishing, including WordPress, PressBooks, Omeka, and Scalar. To create your own domain and begin developing a digital project, visit www.digital.conncoll.edu or contact Lyndsay Bratton for more information (lbratton@conncoll.edu).

IS Orientation for Adjunct Faculty
Tuesday, January 11 at 12pm
Wednesday, January 19 at 12pm
This session will include an overview of Moodle (the college’s Learning Management System), information about other supported technologies for faculty and student use, and library and research resources available to faculty and students. This workshop is geared to faculty who are new to the college, but anyone who would like a refresher is welcome to attend!

Hypothesis Workshop
Thursday, January 20 at 10:45am
Eryn Barker, Customer Success Specialist, will discuss how collaborative annotation with Hypothesis can be used to make student reading visible, active, and social. In addition to sharing pedagogical best practices for collaborative annotation, she will demonstrate how Hypothesis can be used with course readings in Moodle. Participants can expect to come away with a clear idea about how they can start incorporating collaborative annotation into their courses to improve student success.

Google Sites for Teaching
Tuesday, January 25 at 1:15pm
It has never been easier to integrate website design and e-portfolio projects into your class!  Google Sites provides a streamlined, user-friendly platform for web development that can be integrated into your course in a number of different ways.  Students can develop a valuable skill by using Google Sites as a vehicle for creating their own e-portfolio or website, either as a group or individual project.  Instructors can utilize Google Sites to create a course webpage or develop digital educational resources.  This workshop will cover the basics of integrating Google Sites into your course, including creating customizable templates and sharing published sites, how to use key features of the platform, and a chance to try Google Sites for yourself.

Hypothesis Workshops with Eryn Barker
Wednesday, February 9 at 3:15pm
Eryn Barker, Hypothesis Customer Success Specialist, will demonstrate the following: social annotation in small groups, using multimedia and tags in annotations, active learning strategies. Participants will come away from this session with a variety of ways to creatively use social annotation in their courses.

Recording and Sharing Lectures, Instructions, and Student Feedback
Friday, February 11 at 12:00
Delivering recorded mini-lectures, instructional how-to videos, or student feedback has never been easier with lightweight, inexpensive or free, software tools. In this workshop we will share our recommendations for making and sharing screen recordings, describe interactive features such as embedded questions and captions, and walk you through the process from start to finish. 

Hosting and Sharing Video: Kaltura’s MediaSpace
Thursday, February 17 at 1:15pm
This workshop will introduce you to Kaltura Mediaspace, a video streaming platform that expands on the functionality of using Kaltura in Moodle. Mediaspace can be used for anything from class projects to showcasing conference or event videos. You can use Mediaspace to create public or private playlists, channels and video galleries, all while collecting valuable data on how and how often your videos are viewed.

Using Voyant Tools for Text Analysis I: Introducing Voyant Tools
Tuesday, March 8 at 1:15pm
Voyant Tools is an open source, web-based application for lightweight text analysis. Its easy-to-use interface processes text in seconds, organizing it into a series of interactive lists, charts, graphs, and networks. The application allows users to play with the resulting visualizations, to explore the text from different angles, such as word clouds, term frequency lists, frequency distribution plots, and keyword in context. With no background knowledge or skills necessary, Voyant Tools is conducive to incorporating text analysis activities into the classroom to facilitate reading and interpretive practices. This workshop offers a hands-on tour of the web-based application using pre-established texts. In part II of this workshop we will explore building our own textual corpora to analyze.

Scholarly Publishing Online
Thursday, March 10 at 2:45pm
This workshop will provide examples of scholarly works published online by Connecticut College faculty and an overview of scholarly publishing tools and support available to Conn faculty. Through Digital Connecticut College, you can create your own free conncoll.edu domain to utilize WordPress, Omeka, Scalar, and PressBooks for publishing text, multimedia, and digitized archival collections. We will discuss how these platforms can be used to publish multimodal digital projects such as podcasts, oral histories, mapping, and OER (open educational resources)–whether as stand-alone digital projects, or as digital companions to journal articles or book publications. Related topics of interest to participants, such as peer review practices in digital scholarship, will be discussed.

Data Mining Interest Group
Friday, April 1 at 12:00
The Digital Scholarship & Curriculum Center and library colleagues are organizing a faculty interest group this semester around the topic of data mining for research. Together, we’ll explore tools for collecting and analyzing Twitter/social media data for research, as well as mining data contained within websites and digitized corpora (e.g. newspapers). The goal is simply to learn and experiment together in an informal format, among an inclusive and collegial group of colleagues. Faculty from all disciplines and all levels of experience are welcome.

Visualization of Data – Tableau
Monday, April 4 at 1:15pm
This workshop will introduce you to Tableau,  a suite of software tools for data analysis and visualization. It enables you to import numeric or categorical data to produce a range of graphs with end user interactivity. With the drag and drop interface you can easily create charts, maps, dashboards and stories which can be published or embedded into a website.

Using Voyant Tools for Text Analysis II: Creating Textual Corpora
Tuesday, April 5 at 1:15pm
A textual corpus is a collection of texts which have been selected and brought together for the sake of studying their language on a computer. The answer to the question of how one should prepare a text or textual corpus for analysis using Voyant Tools is that it depends. Should texts be organized by author, date, publication, or some other combination? While Voyant does a decent job of extracting text from HTML, MS Word, MS Excel, ODT, Pages (Apple), PDF, plain text, RTF, XML, and others, that still doesn’t tell us how to organize texts for analysis. Are we going to analyze a student essay, one or more scholarly articles, news articles, speeches, whole books? In this workshop we will experiment with creating and analyzing various kinds of collections of text, including news articles, speeches, and books.

Previous Workshops, 2019-2021

Additional workshops and seminars can be found on the Spring 2021, Fall 2020, or Summer 2020 pages.

Not Just for Students! ePortfolios for Faculty
Friday, February 28, 2020
Many students are using ePortfolios in the Pathways and Centers, but did you know you can create a portfolio too? Join us to learn about two software platforms – Digication and Domain of One’s Own – to create your own teaching and/or research portfolio.

Connecticut Digital Humanities Conference
Saturday, February 29, 2020 
We are co-organizing the inaugural Connecticut Digital Humanities conference in partnership with Wesleyan University, Trinity College, Yale DHLab, and the University of Connecticut. The free, all-day event will include over 30 talks, roundtable discussions, workshops, and panel presentations by faculty, students, and librarians across the northeast. The full program is available online. We hope to see you there!

Connecticut College will be represented by:

1. Di Luo (Art History/Architectural Studies): “Photogrammetric Modeling in Surveying and Teaching Chinese Architecture”
2. Benjamin Beranek (Economics), Lyndsay Bratton (Library), Danielle Egan (GSIS), and Christopher Steiner (Art History): “Supporting Experimental Research in the Liberal Arts: The Digital Scholarship Fellows Program at Connecticut College”
3. Anna Vallye (Art History/Architectural Studies) and Rose Oliveira (Library): “Mapping Urban Renewal in East New London”
4. Anthony Graesch (Anthropology) and Lyndsay Bratton (Library): “The Kw’éts’tel Project: A Case Study of Integrating Open Scholarship into Research Design and Peer Review into Open Scholarship”

Library Tools to Stay Current with Research 
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
The library provides access to, and support for, many resources that can help you stay current on research in your field as you move through your career. In this workshop we will look at options for setting up notifications/alerts from within research databases, Google tools including Google Alerts, accessing collections while away from campus, collaboration and organization tools, and discuss some of the benefits and challenges of open platforms such as Google Scholar.

Visualization of Data Lunch Series: Tableau
Friday, February 21, 2020
Tableau allows you to generate a huge variety of data visualizations to explore and share your data in new ways. Tableau is easier to use than Excel charts and far more powerful than Google Sheets. Visualizations can be exported and shared as static images or interactive displays. Join us for our second Visualization of Data lunch series and learn the basics of Tableau!

Better Student Feedback with Technology! – Related Blog Post
Tuesday, February 11, 2020 
Feedback can be a powerful tool in your classroom. Technology has the potential to make it more effective and impactful. Join us to learn about strategies and technology tools that can be integrated into your course and teaching. Topics will include video and audio feedback and online rubrics.

Using Library Data Resources for Class Assignments – Related Blog Post
Thursday, February 6, 2020
The library provides access to a surprising amount of data that can be used to teach quantitative reasoning with fun exercises based on Census data, social data, voting data and more. In this workshop, we will look at the library databases DataPlanet, ICPSR, and Social Explorer, as well as other popular data sites.

Visualization of Data Series: Visualization of Space with Story Maps
Friday, November 1, 2019
Join us for the first workshop in our new lunchtime series, Visualization of Data. In our inaugural workshop, Beverly Chomiak will inspire us to think about mapping in new ways as we explore existing Story Maps in a variety of disciplines. Beverly will then get us started creating our own Story Maps. Lunch is provided.

Open Educational Resources for Your Courses
Friday, October 25, 2019
It’s Open Access Week! Explore copyright-free multimedia resources to use for your teaching and research. Use the library’s databases to find images and videos that can be used to supplement current textbooks and course materials. In this workshop, we will look at resources for the humanities, social sciences, STEM and biological sciences.

Google Assignments in Moodle
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Google Assignments (formerly Course Kit) is a plugin for Moodle that facilitates assignment submission using Google Drive. Google Assignments integrates into Moodle to allow students to submit assignments and instructors to provide feedback using the Google Drive interface, while also integrating with the Moodle Gradebook.

Digital Connecticut College: Build Websites and Tools For Class Engagement
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Digital Connecticut College provides students, faculty, and staff with the opportunity to create a digital presence through various media such as websites, blogs, portfolios, and wikis. WordPress, MediaWiki, Drupal, Scalar, and Omeka are all available for developing class projects, sharing your research, and creating your digital identity. Digital Connecticut College also has other, very simple interactive applications that you can use to engage your class through collaborative writing and image collections.

Test Drive Our New Overhead Book Scanner
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Scan print publications quickly and easily with the library’s new 400dpi overhead book scanner. OCR the text to make it accessible for students. Export mp3 files that read the text aloud. The cropping feature enables you to select, crop and export images or text with the swipe of a finger. The new scanner should make it easier for you to prepare higher quality course materials in a fraction of the time required on our old MFDs. 

Moodle (and More!) Drop-in
Monday, August 26, 2019
Are you ready for the new academic year? Members of the Instructional Technology staff will be available to answer questions on Moodle, WordPress, Computer Labs, Google Apps, or whatever else is on your mind. Bring your own computer or use one of ours in the Advanced Technology Lab and get last-minute class preparation done. Refreshments will be provided.

Previous Workshops, 2018-2019

Moodle (and More!) Drop-In
Monday, August 27, 2018 | 9:00-11:00am | Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library
Are you ready for the new academic year? Members of the Instructional Technology staff will be available to answer questions on Moodle, WordPress, Computer Labs, Google Apps, or whatever else is on your mind. Bring your own computer or use one of ours in the Advanced Technology Lab and get last-minute class preparation done. Refreshments will be provided.

Copyright Essentials for the Classroom
Tuesday, October 2 | 10:00-11:00 am | Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library
Do you have questions about which materials you can use in in your teaching and research, and when you can use them? In this workshop, we’ll help you sort through the key issues surrounding copyrighted materials, including the application of Fair Use as well as various exceptions to copyright, such as the TEACH Act and library reproduction. We’ll also dive into some issues that arise most frequently among college faculty, including the use of copyrighted materials in teaching and assignments; images and video; concerns arising from the public presentation of student work; and copyright/ownership of your own research.

OER and Your Course: Integrating open content into the curriculum
Monday, October 22 | 3:00-4:00pm | Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library
Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials that are distributed at no cost and have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-­purposing by others. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks,  streaming videos, tests, software, and other materials. Much work has been done at the College to integrate OER into classes. We will share what OER programming is developing and how to integrate these resources and practices into your own courses.

Digital Scholarship & Pedagogy in the Liberal Arts Symposium
Monday, November 12 | 8:30am-3:15pm | Chu Room, Shain Library
Keynote + Reception | 4:30-6pm | Olin 014
Join us November 12, 2018 for the Digital Scholarship and Pedagogy in the Liberal Arts symposium at Connecticut College! The symposium is the culminating event of the first year of the Digital Scholarship Fellows Program, funded by the Office of the Dean of Faculty and supported by staff members across Information Services. Our keynote speaker will be Nicholas Bauch, PhD, who published the first project in Stanford University Press’s digital scholarship publication series. His born-digital project, Enchanting the Desert (May 2016) integrates his scholarship on the Grand Canyon with historical images by photographer Henry G. Peabody and interactive GIS mapping.

Digital Connecticut College: Making WordPress & Omeka Sites, and More
Thursday, November 29 | 9:00-10:00am | Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library
The college has a new service for website hosting available to the campus starting this semester. Digital Connecticut College allows individuals to create and maintain websites of their own using WordPress, Omeka or other web technologies. At this workshop, we will help you get the process started, and show examples of the types of projects that you can create.

Creating Online Coursepacks
Monday, February 4, 3:00 – 4:00pm | Advanced Technology Lab
The library offers many services to help you create online coursepacks that are completely free for your students to access and can be easily integrated into Moodle. We’ll provide an overview of our print and electronic book and journal collections and share several ways that we can help you locate and adopt freely available content, including open educational resources. Bring your syllabus and build a list of resources that will supplement current course readings or replace old material.

Close Reading Online: Social Annotation and Reading Tools
Monday, February 11, 3:00-4:00pm | Advanced Technology Lab
Are your students reading course materials on laptops or other devices? Online annotation tools can support students’ close reading of texts in an online environment. These same tools can be used to support collaborative reading where students add annotations, questions, and discussion directly on the texts themselves! Intentional use of social annotation tools make texts come alive for students, create community, increase participation and comprehension, and, as a result, improve learning. In this workshop, we’ll look at tools such as Hypothes.is, CommentPress, and RefWorks. We will also discuss criteria for selecting tools and consider issues such as privacy and accessibility.

Tools in a Flash: Google CourseKit
Wednesday, February 20, 11:30-12:00 | Advanced Technology Lab
New this semester! Introducing Google CourseKit, a plugin for Moodle that facilitates assignment submission using Google Drive. CourseKit integrates into Moodle allowing students to submit assignments in Drive, and allowing instructors to provide feedback, while also integrating with the Moodle Gradebook.

Digital Connecticut College: Making WordPress & Omeka Sites, and More 
Wednesday, March 6, 3:00 – 4:00pm | Advanced Technology Lab
Learn how to make your own websites using Digital Connecticut College. Digital Connecticut College provides students, faculty, and staff with the opportunity to register a domain name and create a digital presence through various mediums such as blogs, portfolios, and wikis. You can easily install open source applications such as WordPress, MediaWiki, Drupal, Scalar, and Omeka to your own domain, and use this space to develop class projects, share your research, and create your digital identity. At this workshop, we will help you get the process started, and show examples of the types of projects that you can create.

Promote and Preserve Your Research with Digital Commons
Wednesday, April 3, 3:00-4:00 | Advanced Technology Lab
Digital Commons is a free electronic archive of the research and publications of Connecticut College faculty, students, and departments. It can be used to ensure easier access to your journal articles, provide a venue for other unpublished scholarship like conference papers, store and publish datasets, or deliver newsletters to a wider audience. In this workshop we will explain the advantages of using Digital Commons, demonstrate its analytics capability, and show the wide range of faculty and College publications gaining wider audiences through Open Access publishing. We can also show you how we determine what of your published research may be reproduced in Digital Commons. Bring a cv or list of recent publications and we can check it for you in the course of the workshop.

Previous Workshops, 2017-2018

Weatherproofing Your Class – Related blog post
Wednesday, January 24, 1:30 – 2:30 PM| Advanced Technology Lab
Can’t get to campus because of the weather (or other surprises)? Sip hot chocolate and learn to employ technology creatively so you don’t have to cancel class! During this workshop we will discuss tools and strategies for modifying your class in response to last minute events. You will leave with hands-on experience using communication and collaboration technologies, such as Moodle discussion boards, Google hangouts and Zoom, screencasting and recording tools, that will help you achieve your learning goals despite the snow.

Better Student Papers through Better Planning! Concept Mapping
Monday, February 5, 9:30 – 10:30 AM| Davis Classroom
Students struggle with identifying potential paper topics and finding the scholarly materials to support that work. Concept mapping is a tool that can help students generate and organize ideas. Explore high-tech and low-tech options. Come have coffee and learn more.

Tools for Mid-Semester Feedback
Thursday, February 22, 3:00 – 4:00 PM| Advanced Technology Lab
How is the semester going so far? Join us as we discuss technology tools including Moodle Questionnaire and Google Forms, that can provide information on students’ progress in your course and give you valuable insight to guide your teaching through the rest of the semester. This workshop will include hands-on practice and discussion.

Citation Chaos! – Canceled
Monday, March 5, 9:30 – 10:30 AM | Davis Classroom
Recent encounters at the Reference Desk indicate that students are spending more time on citations than on paper content. Is there a way to strike a balance? Tools for possible solutions, including RefWorks will be addressed.

Neatline Mapping Tool for Omeka
Thursday, March 29, 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Advanced Technology Lab
Neatline is an easy-to-learn tool for creating digital scholarship projects using maps and timelines. Join us to learn how Neatline can help you and your students interpret and visualize history to tell dynamic stories, and to see some examples of Neatline projects created by College faculty and staff.

Promote and Preserve Your Research with Digital Commons
Wednesday, April 11, 4:00 – 5:00 PM | Davis Classroom
Digital Commons is the online home for the scholarly, creative, and published works produced by Connecticut College faculty, students, and staff. Come learn how Digital Commons is used by our community and by researchers around the world, and how it can help you publish, promote, and preserve your work in a robust, reliable environment for access by scholars today and in the future.

Reading Group: Debates in the Digital Humanities
Thursdays 2:30-3:30: September 21, October 26 & December 7
Advanced Technology Lab
Texts Available Online

Should liberal arts campuses do digital humanities? What is the role of teaching and learning in digital humanities? How are the digital humanities impacting your field? How do the digital humanities engage with, improve, and/or perpetuate problems of social justice? Debates in the Digital Humanities addresses these questions and many more. We will read some chapters together, and others of your choosing, based on your own interests.

Reflect, Integrate, Demonstrate: Student Digital Portfolios
Tuesday, September 19, 2:00 – 3:30
Advanced Technology Lab

As we build a curriculum that asks students to reflect upon and integrate their coursework and co-curricular activities, several members of of our teaching and learning community are experimenting with digital portfolios as a space for this work. Through digital portfolios, students can archive artifacts that document and demonstrate their path through their education. Narrative explanations and curated examples make clear why they selected courses, a major or pathway, as well as what they learned and accomplished. We will demonstrate platform options and end with a discussion and leave with ideas for future implementations.

Instructional Technology Office Hours
Wednesday, August 23, 10AM-2PM
Advanced Technology Lab

Are you ready for the new academic year? Members of the Instructional Technology staff will be available to answer questions on Moodle, WordPress, Computer Labs, Google Apps, or whatever else is on your mind. Bring your own computer or use one of ours in the Advanced Technology Lab and get last-minute class preparation done. Refreshments will be provided.

Media Literacy and Fake News
Tuesday, September 26, 2:00 – 3:30
Neff Lab

Authorship, authority and credibility.  How do we help our students distinguish a more-credible resource from a less-credible one? What is media literacy and why do our students need to understand it? We will offer assignment ideas and class activities faculty can use to incorporate media literacy into their courses.   

Maximizing the Visibility of Your Research
Wednesday, October 25, 4:15-5:00
Neff Lab

Did you know that institutional repositories like Digital Commons work directly with Google and other search engines to maximize the visibility of your work? Putting your published research in Digital Commons is an easy, effective way to increase access to your work by making it available to a worldwide community of researchers who might not otherwise have access to expensive databases. Bring a CV to this workshop and library staff will help you determine which articles, conference presentations, and other research can be made openly available in Digital Commons.

Google Calendar: More Useful than You Think
Thursday, November 2, 2:00-3:00
Advanced Technology Lab

Looking for a way to organize your time and share that information with colleagues or students? Consider Google Calendar! Part of our Google suite, the calendar is an easy but powerful tool that can quickly boost your productivity. We will look at basic calendar features, plus appointment slots and invitations, that will: make your availability visible (or not) to others, help you streamline advising and other sign-ups, and keep everybody on the same page about time, location, and attendance for planned events. We’ll show you how to sync your calendar with your phone and to control automated reminders.

Copyright Essentials for the Classroom
Tuesday, November. 14, 10:00-11:00
Advanced Technology Lab 

Do you have questions about which materials you can use in in your teaching and research, and when you can use them? In this workshop, we’ll help you sort through the key issues surrounding copyrighted materials, including the application of Fair Use as well as various exceptions to copyright, such as the TEACH Act and library reproduction. We’ll also dive into some issues that arise most frequently among college faculty, including the use of copyrighted materials in teaching and assignments; images and video; concerns arising from the public presentation of student work; and copyright/ownership of your own research.

Previous Workshops, 2016-2017

Open Access/Digital Commons for Faculty
Thursday, March 30, 12:00-1:00 PM
Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library

Did you know that most journals allow you to make previously published articles freely available over the internet? Archiving your research in an institutional repository like Digital Commons makes it accessible to researchers who don’t have access to expensive databases and can make it more readily discoverable by those who do. Drop by and bring a c.v. or list of publications to this workshop and we will show you how to determine which articles can be made open access and how we make your research as widely available as possible.

Digital Commons
Tuesday, April 4, 4:00-5:00 PM
Neff Lab, Shain Library

Digital Commons is the online home for the scholarly, creative, and published works produced by Connecticut College faculty, students, and staff. Come learn how Digital Commons is used by the Connecticut College community and by researchers around the world, and how it can help you publish, promote, and preserve your work in a robust, reliable environment for access by scholars today and in the future.

International Women’s Day Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
Wednesday, March 8; 5:00-7:00 pm
Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library

Shain Library is hosting its first Wikipedia Edit-a-thon in honor of International Women’s Day! A Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is a meetup where novice and experienced editors come together to improve Wikipedia entries. Wikipedia has been critiqued for gender bias in its entries both for its lack of women editors, and for its inattention to and even deliberate minimization of women’s history. This is an opportunity for faculty, students, and staff to engage with their discipline and enhance and/or create entries on women and women’s history. We will identify a selection of entries that need attention but welcome and encourage input on additional topics. As part of the event, we will cover the basics of editing in Wikipedia, and will have Wiki-ambassadors (experienced Wiki-editors) on hand to provide additional support.  Food will be provided as we talk and edit. More information to follow.

Tools in a Flash: Moodle Gradebook
Monday, March 6, 9:30-10:00 AM

Get your Moodle gradebook in order! The Moodle gradebook is a great way to keep students informed about their progress in class, but it is important that it’s set up correctly so that there are no surprises at the end of the semester. This session will go over common gradebook setup scenarios and help you get your own gradebook ready to use for the semester.

Tools in a Flash: Scalar
Thursday, March 9, 9:30-10:00 AM

Looking for an alternative to WordPress for your digital projects? Come learn about Scalar, a free online platform built by the University of Southern California. Great for incorporating multimedia formats into your text, Scalar is easy to use and looks beautiful.

Tools in a Flash: RefWorks
Thursday, February 16, 9:00-9:30 AM

RefWorks is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create a personal, searchable database of citations.  There is a new version of Refworks which adds increased functionality such as drag-and-drop uploading of pdfs, an enhanced PDF reader, and simultaneous group document editing.  Additionally, there is now a Google Docs add-in to complement the Word add-in for creating in-text citations, footnotes, endnotes and bibliographies.

Tools in a Flash: Omeka and Digital Collections
Tuesday, February 28, 9:30-10:00 AM

Do you have scholarly digital collections but no way of managing or displaying them? Interested in having your students create and publish digital archives and collections, or to develop digital exhibitions for the public? Stop by and learn about Omeka, a free, easy-to-use, web-based platform for creating and managing digital collections and exhibitions. Omeka is as easy to set up as a blog, and provides a flexible, powerful suite of features to help foster user interaction and participation with your content.

We ❤ Google
Tuesday, February 14, 9:00-10:15
Neff Lab, Shain Library

Get the most out of G Suite (previously Google Apps for Education). In this session we will explore some of the lesser known but valuable tools in our suite of Google applications. Topics include citation tools in Docs, Forms, and Google Groups. Valentine’s Day treats will be provided!

Research Practices and Media Literacy in a ‘Post-Truth’ World
Tuesday, February 21, 9-10:15 a.m.
Haines Room, Shain Library

The national discussion surrounding “fake news” has thrust media literacy into the spotlight. At this workshop, we’ll consider the relevance of media literacy to student learning and research. Librarians will lead a discussion on how you can help students evaluate resources, provide information on media-related tools and resources, and present some results from the Research Practices Survey we undertook with incoming first-year students. We’ll also suggest and brainstorm assignments that are designed to help students evaluate and use the media sources they encounter.

Take Control of Your Google Drive
Monday, September 12, 1:30 – 2:30 PM
Neff Lab, Shain Library 2nd Floor
Is your Google Drive driving you crazy? Confused about folders and sharing? Come to this workshop and spend one full hour organizing your Drive so that you can find important documents quickly and share things with others.  We will start with some brief instruction, but most of the hour will be dedicated to getting your Drive in order!

Back to School Basics
Tuesday, August 23, 10:00 – 11:00 AM
Online, details will be emailed to registrants
Are you ready for classes? Tie up loose ends from the comfort of your home or office. In this virtual workshop we will cover essential elements of preparing for your classes, including: getting Moodle sites set up, scheduling lab and library research sessions, making course material more accessible, and whatever else is on your mind. There will be time for open questions with instructional technologists.

Get Out of Your Inbox! Gmail Productivity
Thursday, September 22, 9:00 – 10:00 AM
Neff Lab, Shain Library 2nd Floor
Spending too much time in your Inbox?  Stressed out by unread email?  Ready to mount a resistance to email’s ever-increasing bid on your time?  In this session, we tackle best practices for emailing, and we discuss some strategies for making the most of gmail.  Come sip some coffee, munch on a bagel, and learn how to make gmail do the simple work, leaving you more time to be productive.

Wikipedia Assignments for Developing Literacies
Wednesday, September 28, 1:00 – 2:00 PM
Haines Room, Shain Library lower level
In addition to adding much needed diversity and authority to Wikipedia, Wikipedia editing assignments teach students many important skills and requires them to think critically about information. Join us to discuss the value of Wikipedia editing and how to incorporate these assignments into your classes.

Digital Publishing and Visualization Platforms: Scalar and Tableau
Thursday, October 20, 3:00-4:00 PM
PC Classroom, Shain Library lower level
WordPress is not the only free publishing platform on the block for digital projects. Come learn about Scalar, a free online platform built by the University of Southern California. Great for incorporating multimedia formats into your text, Scalar is easy to use and looks beautiful. Tableau is a free platform for building interactive visualizations with your data. You can then embed your creations into WordPress and Scalar sites, or anywhere else you publish to the web.

Previous Workshops, 2015-2016

Virtual Classroom Connections
Thursday, March 31, 9:00 – 10:00 AM
Dilley Room, Shain Library
Have you considered using technology to team teach with a CTW colleague or to offer a course to students at those campuses? Interested in institutional partnerships and global connections? If so, this is the workshop for you. More and more CC faculty are using web conferencing or teleconferencing tools to bring experts into their classes, to connect students to a different culture or language, and to broaden course offerings. At this workshop, faculty practitioners will discuss the benefits and challenges of mediated presence and inter-campus collaborations; instructional technologists will describe the technologies currently available on our campus to facilitate consortial course-sharing and to further global engagement.

WordPress for Reflecting, Creating, Sharing and Contributing
Wednesday, March 2, 1:15 – 2:15 PM
Visualization Wall, Technology Commons, Shain Library
WordPress is an easy-to-use, yet robust, blogging and website development platform. The College now hosts WordPress, giving you and your students the ability to create professional-looking websites that reach well beyond the classroom. If you have ever wondered  how your students could create blogs or websites, or how you might do these things yourself, join us at the Visualization Wall where we will hear from faculty who have used WordPress in the classroom and view examples of websites and blogs created at Connecticut College and other institutions.

Free Textbooks?! Using Open Educational Resources
Friday, February 19, 9:15 – 10:15 AM
Advanced Technology Lab, Shain Library, Lower Level
Back by popular demand! Open Educational Resources (OER) are shared teaching, learning, and research resources that are free for anyone to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. Using high-quality, peer-reviewed OER instead of costly textbooks has several advantages, including: equitable access to learning materials, increased student achievement, and complete flexibility. In this workshop we will hear from faculty who are using OER and explore high quality examples. You will leave with strategies for finding, evaluating, and integrating OER in your courses!

Get out of your inbox! Gmail Productivity
Tuesday, February 9, 12:00-1:00 PM
Neff Lab, Second Floor, Shain Library
Spending too much time in your inbox? In this session you will learn quick tips to make email work for you. Tools include Boomerang, canned responses, calendar integration, and Google Groups. We will also cover methods of organizing your email for maximum efficiency.

Back to Class Essentials: A Virtual Workshop
Tuesday, January 19, 1:00 -2:00 PM
Are you ready for classes? Tie up loose ends from the comfort of your home or office. In this virtual workshop we will cover essential elements of preparing for your classes, including: getting Moodle sites set up, scheduling lab and library research sessions, making course material more accessible, and whatever else is on your mind. There will be time for open questions with librarians and instructional technologists.

Reading Group: Astra Taylor’s The People’s Platform
New London Hall, Room 200
February 8,  March 7, April 4
Mondays, 12:00-1:00 PM
Whereas in the Fall we read Minds Online: Teaching  Effectively with Technology by Professor of Psychology, Michelle D. Miller, from Northern Arizona University, we have selected something a bit more colorful for the Spring Reading Group: The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age by Astra Taylor, a cultural critic and the director of the documentaries Zizek! and Examined Life.

Judging by reviews in The Nation, The New York Times, Harper’s, and The Guardian, we should be in for a dose of creative criticism on the democratic offerings of the internet, some insight into the gender inequality that lurks in its architecture and the creation of its content, and some much needed perspective on the beneficence of Internet giants Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.

Free Textbooks?! Using Open Educational Resources
Wednesday, November 11, 10:30-11:30
Haines Room, Shain Library
Do your students complain about textbook costs? Are you frustrated by the format, content, or examples in your textbook? Open Educational Resources (OER) are shared teaching, learning, and research resources that are free for anyone to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute. Using high-quality, peer-reviewed OER instead of costly textbooks has several advantages, including: equitable access to learning materials, increased student achievement, and complete flexibility. In this workshop we will hear from faculty who are using OER and explore high quality examples. You will leave with strategies for finding, evaluating, and integrating OER in your spring courses!
Related Post

Teaching with Technology Reading Group: Minds Online
Mondays 12-1pm, September 21, October 26, November 16
New London Hall 200
Join members of the Instructional Technology team as we read Minds Online: Teaching Effectively with Technology. Published in the Fall of 2014, Minds Online is “an outstanding new book…for truly effective teaching with technology” (Lang, Chronicle of Higher Education). Informal book discussions will take place over lunch. Those interested should plan to attend all three meetings. Participation is limited to 10, and participants will receive a copy of the book.

Intro to Data Visualization Tools
Tuesday, October 13, 3-4pm
PC Classroom, Lower Level, Shain Library
Research and instruction are increasingly data-driven with the proliferation of both digitized research materials and the digital publication and presentation of research outcomes. Digital visualizations have become a valuable lens through which to make sense of that data. In this hands-on workshop, we will build dynamic story maps, timelines, and graphs, using several open-source tools that can enhance existing assignments and presentation formats in your courses.
Related Post

Working with Data Across the Curriculum
Monday, October 12, 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Davis Classroom, Main Floor, Shain Library
Want to work with data but don’t know how? Build an exercise in quantitative literacy into your course, no matter your departmental affiliation. The ICPSR database is a one-stop wonder of analysis-ready data collections spanning the social sciences. Take advantage of ready-made learning guides, exercise sets, and connect data directly with the associated scholarly literature. Download data files to be analyzed with SPSS or STATA, or use built-in online data analysis tools without downloading anything and without any specialized knowledge of statistical software. Participants will practice using the ICPSR database and explore opportunities for including it in your teaching. This is a brown bag lunch event, which means you should bring your own, but cupcakes and coffee will be served for dessert.
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A Workshop on the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement
Wednesday, October 7, 2015, 10:30am – 4:00pm
DiMenna-Nyselius Library, Fairfield University – Fairfield, Connecticut.
Interested in cutting textbook costs for students or using high-quality and flexible online material to deliver content to students? Open to faculty, librarians, administrators, education technologists, and students, the goals of this day-long workshop are to promote, plan, use and develop open, searchable, indexed and collaborative online pools of teaching/learning materials.

The workshop will be led by Nicole Allen, Director of Open Education at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). Additional presenters include Kevin Corcoran, Executive Director of the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium (CTDLC) and faculty from CT universities and colleges.

Twitter for Teaching
Friday, September 18, 1:15-2:30
Haines Room, Shain Library
This session will focus on classroom applications of Twitter, the social media platform that lets users share news, opinions, and information in 140-character tweets. Faculty across disciplines can leverage Twitter’s real-time, real-world immediacy to connect their students to each other, to other institutions, to trending events, and to experts around the globe. In this workshop we will hear from three faculty who are getting their feet wet with Twitter this semester. They will describe assignments, share sample tweets, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using this medium for communication, research, and engagement.
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Previous Workshops, 2014-2015

Workshop Your Technology Assignments
Thursday, September 10, 10:30-11:30
Haines Room, Shain Library
Do your assignments require students to use technology? Whether your students are tweeting, mapping, creating videos or podcasts, technology requires extra considerations when designing an assignment. Bring your assignments and use this opportunity to hear feedback from your colleagues in a friendly, informal environment. We hope you will leave excited to implement your technology-infused assignments!

Weatherproofing Your Class
Rescheduled due to snow! Tuesday, February 3, 2015 2:30-3:30pm
Alice Johnson Room, Cro
Can’t get to campus because of the weather (or other surprises)? Learn to employ technology creatively so you don’t have to cancel class! During this workshop we will discuss tools and strategies for modifying your class in response to last minute events. You will leave with hands-on experience using communication and collaboration technologies, such as Moodle discussion boards, Google hangouts and Skype, and screencasting and recording tools, that will help you achieve your learning goals despite the snow. Bring your own device. With Diane Creede, Laura Little and Jessica McCullough.
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Students as Digital Content Creators: Benefits and Pitfalls of Multimedia Assignments
Tuesday, February 10, 2015 1:30-2:30 pm
Blaustein 203
If you are curious about, considering, or have experiences with multimedia assignments (video, online exhibitions, blogs, etc.), please join us! Karen Gonzalez Rice and Suzuko Knott, both Technology Fellows, will give informative and frank presentations about their past and current experiences with multimedia assignments. We will have plenty of time for discussion and questions. Co-led with Lyndsay Bratton and Jessica McCullough.
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Streaming Media
Thursday, February 19, 2015 2:30-3:30pm
Crozier, Alice Johnson Room
Music, audio, video! The options for streaming video are expanding, along with the possibilities for utilizing these materials in your teaching and research. At this workshop, Kathy Gehring, Ashley Hanson, and Fred Folmer will discuss the streaming tools that are available and show you some ways to find and use them.
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What’s New in the Library!
Friday, March 27, 2015 2:30-3:30 pm
Thursday, April 2, 2015 9:30-10:30
Davis Room, Main Floor, Shain Library
Faculty, please join Chris Penniman, Carrie Kent and Information Services staff for refreshments and a tour of Shain Library. The library will have many new exciting spaces, technologies and services available to you and to your students. We will focus how the renovated library can best serve you in your research and teaching endeavors.

Introducing the Visualization Wall
Wednesday, April 8, 2015 11:30am -1:00pm
Location: The Visualization Wall, Technology Commons, Lower Level Shain Library
Join us at the brand new Diane Y. Williams ‘59 Visualization Wall for a demonstration of some of its exciting capabilities, including a visually dazzling high-resolution display, touch-enabled interactivity, and simultaneous display of up to five computers or devices. Bring your laptop or mobile devices to experiment with connecting to the wall. We will answer questions, demonstrate various uses, and discuss ideas for projects and events, as well as future capabilities we hope to explore. Organized by Lyndsay Bratton and Mike Dreimiller; lunch will be provided.

DELI for Lunch
Thursday, December 11, 2014 11:30am – 1:00pm
Hood Dining Room, Blaustein
Take a break on this reading day and enjoy lunch while learning about the Digitally Enhanced Learning Initiative, DELI, an instructional technology program that provides digital devices for courses to enhance learning outcomes and increase student engagement. This informal lunch will provide faculty with an opportunity to hear from DELI faculty and student participants and to see examples of syllabi and assignments. Instructional Technology staff will be available to answer questions about the program and application process.

Technology Fellows Curricular Innovations
Wednesday, October 29, 2014 9:30 – 11:00 AM
Hood Dining Room, Blaustein
Members from the first cohort of Technology Fellows will present their plans for technology-infused assignments. Each member will discuss his or her pedagogical goals, process of technology selection, previous successes and challenges, and anticipated outcomes. There will be time for open discussion and questions. Refreshments will be served.
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Expand Your Classroom through Inter-Campus Collaborations
Thursday, October 2, 2014 3:00 – 4:00 PM
Olin 107
Invite experts into your classroom, expose students to a classroom in a different culture or language, broaden your course offerings. Come and learn from faculty who have used technology to teach virtually with colleagues around the world. We will discuss the benefits and challenges of inter-campus collaborations and describe the technologies currently available.
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Instant Feedback: Technology for In-Class Engagement
Wednesday, September 24, 2014 2:45-4:00 PM
Blaustein 203
Looking ways to assess students’ understanding, survey opinions on controversial topics, or engage students during a lecture? Student response systems, such as Poll Everywhere, Socrative, and clickers, allow you to create planned or spontaneous surveys and immediately visualize student responses. During this workshop, Joe Schroeder, Jenny Fredericks, and Page Owen will discuss their use of student response systems and we will provide hands-on demonstration of various products. Dessert, coffee and tea will be served.
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Previous Workshops, 2013-2014

Freshman Research Skills
Thursday, September 12, 2013 9:00-10:00 AM
Haines Room, Shain Library
Enjoy breakfast while learning more about your freshmen students and their approach to the research process.  For the past five years the library has been administering a survey to incoming freshmen to collect information on students’ research experiences and assess their research skills.  During this workshop we will share some of the interesting results and trends we’ve seen, discuss our efforts to incorporate these findings into our work with students, and how you might use this information to construct assignments that help them grow as researchers.
Summary

Students as Creators: Incorporating Video Projects
Tuesday, September 24, 2013 2:30-3:30 PM
Haines Room, Shain Library
Well-designed video assignments provide a rich learning environment and require students to fully engage with course material, apply it by creating something new – all while strengthening communication skills in multiple media. This workshop will focus on the benefits and drawbacks of video assignments, how to design them, and will outline the technology support available to students and faculty. Sample projects will be presented, and there will be ample time for discussion and questions.  Coffee, tea, and dessert will be served.
Summary

Productivity Tools to Make Work and Life Easier
Thursday, October 17, 2013 2:30-3:30 PM
PC Classroom, Shain Library
Tired of emailing files to yourself or figuring out which version is the latest one? Wondering where to keep all your notes and ideas? Looking for a way to better organize your time? This workshop will demonstrate cloud-based tools, like Evernote, that will keep you up-to-date and on top of your projects without having to lug your laptop around. Time for hands-on practice and personalized instruction included. Coffee, tea, and dessert will be served.
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Reading Day Recap
Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:30-1:00 PM
Haines Room, Shain Library
Need a break? Unwind in a collegial atmosphere while we exchange insights, strategies, challenges, and successes related to integrating technology into the curriculum. Leave with new ideas and inspiration for the upcoming semester. Feel free to come late or leave early as your schedule allows. Lunch and dessert will be provided.
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Got an iPad.  Now what? Research Apps
Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:30 – 11:30 am
Haines Room with Kathy Gehring and Jessica McCullough
We will spend this hour exploring ways to use your iPad for your research. All faculty are encouraged to come – whether you own a tablet or not. If you do, bring it with you and you can install the apps as we discuss them.
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Got an iPad.  Now What? Teaching with iPads
Friday, February 7, 2014 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Haines Room with Laura Little and Jessica McCullough
This hour will be dedicated to ways you can use your iPad in the classroom. We will focus on apps that help you display content, integrate media, and create interactive learning activities. All faculty are encouraged to come -whether you own a tablet or not.
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The Flipped Class: Recording Your Lectures
Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Haines Room with Diane Creede, Jessica McCullough and Steve Loomis
This hour will focus on recording lectures and making them available to students outside of class. We will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, share best practices, and briefly demonstrate Camtasia, a software tool that allows you record lectures. Steve Loomis will share his experience with flipping the classroom. This session will be discussion-based, so bring your questions and ideas.
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“Remember Everything” Evernote for Productivity and Teaching
Thursday, February 27, 2014 3:00 – 4:00 pm
PC Classroom with Laura Little & Jessica McCullough, Karen Gonzalez Rice, Ariella Rotramel & Nadav Assor
You asked for it and we are delivering! This hour is devoted to Evernote. Participants will create accounts, understand how Evernote works, learn about and use features and add-ons. Faculty co-presenters will share strategies they employ to use Evernote for productivity and teaching.

Student Research in the First Year
Monday, April 21, 2014 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Haines Room with Kathy Gehring & Ashley Hanson
Teaching FYS or a 100-level course next year? Join us to gain insight into the research skills of first year students. We will present results from the 2013-14 Research Practices Survey along with peer data, followed by a discussion of strategies to support student research needs. This is a follow-up to the Freshman Research Skills workshop conducted in September.

Reading Day Recap
Friday, May 9, 2014 11:30 – 1:00
Haines Room with Chris Penniman and Jessica McCullough
Enjoy lunch while we relax and discuss technology in the classroom. Exchange insights, strategies, challenges and successes related to integrating technology into classes. Leave with new ideas and inspiration for the next year. Feel free to come late or leave early as your schedule allows. Lunch and dessert will be provided.