Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Do You Diigo?

In our first OIT webinar we provided a broad overview of three collaborative, i.e. 'cloud' technologies: Diigo, Dropbox and Evernote. This month's 30-minute session focused upon Dropbox (recording available on our Academic Computing Professional Development page) and on Friday, December 9th, we will focus upon Evernote (contact cgu.learning@cgu.com to register). Our 2012 schedule has not been established yet. In the meantime, there are a few valuable resources that might entice you to use Diigo as a collaborative technology to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom or share resources with your coworkers, family and/or friends. Diigo provides a way to build a life-long professional library that is accessible from any mobile device. It is easy to use and has many valuable features including the ability to highlight and create private groups. As with the other web-based technologies (cloud) they are flexible and available beyond your time at CGU. 


Educause Quarterly "Classroom Collaboration Using Social Bookmarking Service Diigo"


The Chronicle ProfHacker "Annotating the Web with Diigo on the iPad"


...and to get you started "Diigo Introduction"



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Microsoft Office for iOS coming

A report from The Daily claims sources have confirmed Microsoft has an iPad version of its Office app in the works alongside a new Lion compatible version of the desktop suite.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

How to secure your PC in 10 easy steps

Making your PC secure is something everyone should be doing. Please read the following article on how to secure your home PC.

Read how to here

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Dropbox Basics

Our next cloud technology webinar will be held on Tuesday, November 29th. This will be a 30-minute presentation featuring Dropbox Basics. Dropbox is widely used and provides many features to assist you with accessing and sharing your files as well as backing them up in case of problems with your hard drive. For faculty and students, Dropbox enables submission of assignments and projects while minimizing unnecessary emails. For staff Dropbox allows sharing of departmental or group documents and files. Files are seamlessly synced to insure all users have the most recent version. To register for this webinar, write cgu.learning@cgu.edu. For additional ideas and information regarding Dropbox and file sharing in the cloud, see the following articles:

The New York Times "Dropbox Will Simplify Your Life"

Educause 7 Things You Should Know About..."Organizing Files in the Cloud"

The Chronicle of Higher Education ProfHacker "Dropbox.edu"


Thursday, November 3, 2011

CGU WiFi Upgrade:

Tired of spotty wireless coverage on campus and of having to login each time your device goes into standby or when you arrive on campus?

You may have noticed a new wireless network being broadcast on campus--Claremont-WPA. This summer we installed over 130 Cisco 802.11a/g/n access points in all CGU buildings and many outdoor areas with the latest wireless technology and WPA2 encryption to increase security for mobile users. Claremont-WPA is the preferred wireless network for CGU students, faculty and staff.  Another benefit of the new Claremont-WPA wireless network, is that once you register your device you will only need to log in again when your password expires.

For more information on how to connect to the new wireless network please visit: http://www.cgu.edu/wifi. If you suspect an area still needs more wireless coverage, please email helpdesk@cgu.edu with the location.

Please note: Claremont-WPA is also broadcast at Honnold Library and at the other 5C campuses so you can have the same auto-connect functionality at those locations. If you experience wireless issues when visiting other campuses, please contact the respective campus IT department to report the problem.


Campus Wireless Coverage

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

How to update your Android Device



1 Turn on your Android device and press the “Home” button.


2 Press the “Menu” button (represented by four horizontal lines, the word “Menu” or four small squares) and select “Settings.”


3 Scroll down and select “About Phone.”


4 Tap on “System Updates” and your phone automatically checks for new software. If there’s no new software to be downloaded, you’ll see a message confirming you are “Up to Date.”


5 Press “Install Now” if there is new software available. The update will download and your phone will restart.

Blogs as a Collaborative Tool

The OIT October webinar focused upon blogs and wikis as cloud technologies. For those who could not attend, the recording is located on the OIT Academic Professional Development Opportunities page. In the blogging portion of this presentation, we suggested several ideas for using blogs as both a professional development tool by following experts and organizations in your field as well as a collaborative classroom tool with students. We also described how OIT is using CGU Tech Buzz for "tech news, alerts, opportunities and recommendations". As a graduate institution, using a variety of strategies to focus and model the development of writing skills is yet another reason to encourage blogging as a collaborative tool inside and outside the classroom.


This morning, my alma mater's Facebook page (the University of Illinois Urbana Campus) noted a 'refresh' on the website that included a new blog created by the Chancellor. This provides yet another excellent example of how blogs are used in higher ed - as collaborative communication tools in the broader academic community. As noted by Chancellor Wise, her blog is an opportunity to gather feedback and thoughts from U of I faculty, staff and students about what the campus does well and what it could do better.


There are so many ways blogs can be used effectively and strategically to connect, collaborative, communicate and co-create knowledge. Please consider how you might use them to enhance your teaching, collaboration, and communication! For assistance with creating your blog, please email CGU.Learning@cgu.edu.