Technology Tips of the Week

Technology Tips of the Week - October 24, 2005

"Nudging" Objects in PowerPoint

Here's a neat trick if you want to move an object on a PowerPoint slide just a tiny bit. Click on the object to select it, hold your CTRL key down and click on one of the arrow keys on the arrow keypad depending on the direction you wish to move. This will work with a graphic, drawing object, or text box.

Sending E-Mail to Students in a Course

Pipeline provides a quick and easy way to send a single e-mail message to all students in a course simultaneously. You can even add an attachment to the message - like a handout, syllabus, assignment, etc. All students' e-mail addresses are automatically included in a course when they are registered.

To watch a demonstration video of this process go to: http://it.ccri.edu/camtasia_tutorials/Email/PipelineEmail.swf
Note that there is an audio explanation with the video, so don't forget to turn on your speakers!

To print out quick and easy directions along with screen shots, go to http://it.ccri.edu/Documentation/pipeline/Course_Email.shtml

Bonus: If you have several sections of the same course, you can use the Course Consolidator function to join them into a single course. This also adds all students from all sections into that one consolidated course and gives you the same tools. This means that you will have the option to send an e-mail to all students in all sections at once by following the same procedure as a single course. For more information on course consolidator see instructions at: http://it.ccri.edu/Documentation/pipeline/Course_consolidator.shtml

Article of the Week

All of us have noticed that today's students seem to be learning quite differently than those of 10 years ago. Marc Prensky, an internationally known speaker, writer and designer of educational materials has written a thought-provoking article comparing the learning styles of those who have grown up with technology with those who have not. See his Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article at: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf.

Feel free to share your thoughts on this article in the Teaching Forum message board.

These tips are provided by the Department of Information Technology. 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.