Technology Tip of the Week - February 13, 2006

Using the Out-of-Office Reply Feature in Pipeline

When you are going to be out of the office for a few days it's a good idea to set an auto reply (also known as an out-of-office reply) in your Pipeline mail account. This means that when anyone e-mails your account on the days you've specified they will get an automatic reply from your account stating that you are out of the office and not available to answer mail. This feature takes just minutes to set up but is greatly appreciated by others. To set up an auto reply in Pipeline:

Log in to your Pipeline account and click on the e-mail icon to open your mail account.

Click on the Options tab.

                                        

You will see the E-mail Options window, which allows you to set options for your e-mail application. Click the Auto Reply link. You should now see the Auto Reply window, which allows you to compose an auto reply message and specify the start and end dates for this message.

From the Start on options, select the month, day, year, and time that the auto reply should start.

From the End on options, select the month, day, year, and time that the auto reply should end.

In the data entry field, type the auto reply message that will be sent automatically during these dates. In addition to your information about being out of the office keep in mind that you can provide referral e-mail addresses and phone numbers to other people in your department that may be of help in your absence.

Don't forget to click the Enable Auto Reply checkbox. This feature allows you to preserve a standard auto reply message and re-enable it whenever you want.

You can add your current signature file to the auto reply by clicking the Attach Signature button.

That's it! Try this out the next time you take a few days off....for example, Spring break  :)

For more help with this feature, please contact one of the faculty mentors - Tony Basilico (abasilico@ccri.edu) or Luis Malaret (lmalaret@ccri.edu) or one of the IT Instructional Support team (Norm Grant, Gene Grande or Linda Beith).

Website of the Week

Creating Web Explorers with WebQuests

A WebQuest is an "inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model was developed in early 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge with Tom March." Their goal is to use the World Wide Web to provide an active learning approach that replaces the teacher feeding information to students with an activity that fosters student learning by discovery. As of September 2006, there is a new tool available at no cost for faculty to facilitate building a WebQuest called QuestGarden. QuestGarden is an online authoring tool, community and hosting service that is designed to make it easier and quicker to create a high quality WebQuest. No knowledge of web editing or uploading is required. Prompts, guides and examples are provided for each step of the process. Images, worksheets and other documents can easily be attached or embedded in the WebQuest, and users have complete control over the appearance of the final lesson. All you have to do is create your free account and then unleash your creativity! It's fun and effective. To learn more about WebQuests and see some examples, see their website at: http://webquest.sdsu.edu/

Feel free to post your thoughts or opinions of this site in the Teaching Forum message board. Would you be interested in exploring WebQuests as a discovery learning approach with your classes?

These tips are provided by the Department of Information Technology instructional support team. If you have any questions on these tips, or wish to offer your own, please feel free to contact Linda Beith at lbeith@ccri.edu or call 825-2487. View an archive of past technology tips at http://it.ccri.edu/Training/Tips/tip_week.shtml.