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“Communication, collaboration, and publishing” demos at technology showcase March 13

(Author’s note:  This is the fourth in a series about the faculty demonstrations scheduled for K-State’s technology showcase March 13. Information is excerpted from the complete list of faculty demonstrations on the ksushowcase.wordpress.com website.)  

The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Showcase is 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 13, in the K-State Student Union Ballroom. All faculty/staff are invited to attend free and see demos, visit with vendors, and win prizes. Pre-registration is required at ksushowcase.wordpress.com/registration and closes March 9.


Communication, collaboration, and publishing are more important than ever in the age of technology.  These faculty demonstrations March 13 will show tools, techniques, strategies and resources to enhance information sharing and publication.

Using Digital Media for Collaborative Learning — See examples of tools and techniques for bringing the world to the classroom and the classroom to the world. Topics include writing for a global audience, new media literacy, the impact of digital media upon traditional education and the workplace, and online digital ethnographic research.

Using Flexbooks to Supplement/Replace the Traditional Textbook — Open educational resources (OER) provide free or lower cost alternatives to textbooks, where prices are increasing and students are slower to buy. This demo will show K-State’s  Human Nutrition (HN 400) Flexbook (goo.gl/vOAnR) made in Google Docs. Learn what the flexbook is, how it was developed, students’ perceptions of it, and see this recent article.

Continue reading ““Communication, collaboration, and publishing” demos at technology showcase March 13″

QR codes (+ free tools): Quick access to all kinds of data

Image of QR code for K-State IT Help Desk URL
QR code for the website of the K-State IT Help Desk

K-Staters may have noticed some funny-looking images of black-pixeled boxes popping up around campus lately, notably in Hale Library. So, what are they used for and what can you do with them?

These are “QR codes” or Quick Response codes (also known as QR barcodes). This technology allows the public to access information fast through graphical links.

QR code readers

To access the information behind a QR code, you first need to download a free QR reader to your smartphone and then scan/capture (take a picture of) a QR code. (Some smartphones may come with a QR reader already installed.) Here are a few that seem to work well:

  • For the iPhone, RedLaser is a free, general purpose barcode reader app.
  • For Android smartphones, Barcode Scanner is a free app that has received positive feedback.

For more choices, do a Google search for “QR code reader”. Continue reading “QR codes (+ free tools): Quick access to all kinds of data”

Reminder: IT News email moves to K-State Today starting May 3

Today is the last time email from “K-State IT editor” will arrive in 6,000+ inboxes with the latest IT news headlines for subscribers on and off campus (including about 5,600 K-State employee addresses). K-Staters are reminded that the weekly email from the INFOTECHTUESDAY mailing list is being eliminated and, instead, a link to the IT newsletter will be posted in K-State Today, the university’s online publication for employees.

Students and non-K-Staters may ask to receive K-State Today’s daily email by sending a request to vpcm@k-state.edu, according to Erinn Barcomb-Peterson in Kansas State University Communications and Marketing.

Continue reading “Reminder: IT News email moves to K-State Today starting May 3”

Student planner now includes IT services

New K-State students can find IT resources more easily this year, thanks to two new pages in the 2010-2011 K-State Student Planner. Information technology resources (Pages 15-16) are being included in the student planner for the first time.

The IT list contains many of the no-charge services, facilities, equipment, and resources advertised in the K-State IT Resources 2010 (PDF) paper handout and also on the New to IT at K-State webpage.

Microcells: Improving cellphone service in your home

Some of you may have experienced dead spots for cell service in and around your home. Several cellphone companies are selling solutions to boost cell coverage in your home. These devices are known as microcells. The way they work is that they piggyback on your DSL or cable modem connection. You plug them into your home switch or router, and they send all of the phone call and data used from your cellphone through your DSL or cable modem connection.

There are two costs for this service. The first is that you need to buy the microcell from your cellphone provider, and the second is a possible monthly service fee for the service itself, depending on provider and options.

Continue reading “Microcells: Improving cellphone service in your home”

TechBytes Oct. 1: What is Twitter?

Elaine Edwards will present “What is Twitter?” at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 1, in 501 401B Hale Library. (Note the room change.) Attend this session to learn about the Twitter short-message service and how it is currently being used at K-State.

TechBytes seminars are free and open to the K-State community. The series is also video-streamed live for off-campus viewers and others who wish to view it from their desktop. Use the “View live video” link on the TechBytes homepage to watch the next live video as it’s being recorded.

Spotlight: AudioBoo, a verbal form of Twitter

AudioBoo (aka Audioboo, audioBoo) is a social media software launched in March that’s promoting verbal interactions on the Web. Located at audioboo.fm (think of “FM radio”), it allows users to post brief verbal comments called “boos” that can be followed by others. It’s already networking with other social media — including Facebook, FriendFeed, Tumblr, and even Twitter — and the first AudioBoo newsletter was e-mailed today.

“It’s like Twitter, but with audio snippets,” said Ben Ward, instructional designer in K-State’s Information Technology Assistance Center. He noted the primary way to publish AudioBoo content is through an iPhone (it’s an iPhone application, after all) but a computer interface is promised.

One of the most exciting aspects of AudioBoo is its ability to do audio-to-text conversion after SpinVox voice-to-text service was integrated. Continue reading “Spotlight: AudioBoo, a verbal form of Twitter”

Social bookmarking with Diigo

tagcloudSocial bookmarking is the process of users storing and organizing webpages and web content in an open and public fashion. The end result of this is something called a folksonomy. Where a taxonomy is a strict categorization of the formal structure of a given thing, a folksonomy is a categorization and organization of the structure of a given entity by the common people (“folks”) who choose to help organize the information.

This organizational schema is created by individual users “tagging” bookmarks with keywords that the user think can be attributed to the content (and is usually expressed using a “tag cloud” — see image above). Different from the concepts of folders, tagging allows any individual piece of information to be attributed with a countless number of keywords or “tags”.

More than a subtle shift, the development of social bookmarking — which helped reconceptualize organizing information through the use of tags instead of folders and resulted in the creation of a human-powered folksonomy — is one of the foundational elements to the current dynamic and ultra-networked Web (2.0).

Continue reading “Social bookmarking with Diigo”

New “Shutoffs” mailing list for campus service notifications

Currently, service-interruption notifications (such as electrical or steam outages) are communicated to the campus community through nearly 100 distribution lists created in WebMail.  Maintaining these lists is inefficient and cumbersome and with the migration of the campus to e-mail provided via Zimbra, this is an opportune time to rethink how Facilities communicates these types of outages to campus.

Therefore, effective May 26, service-interruption notifications will be communicated to all faculty/staff through a LISTSERV mailing list identified as “Shutoffs” with auto-updates on the list of subscribers. Continue reading “New “Shutoffs” mailing list for campus service notifications”

Enrollment questions simplified with online chart

During fall 2008 term, there was confusion surrounding access and enrollment in courses, especially if it was an evening or nonstandard course, or a course offered through the Division of Continuing Education. In efforts to recruit and retain students, the offices of the Registrar, Graduate School, Division of Continuing Education, and Information Technology Services are collaborating to simplify the process. The offices have created the Questions & Answers for Assisting Students with Enrollment chart (PDF) to help offices across campus know where to direct students when they call asking for assistance.