Category: Information Technology

Outlook blues? It May Be Time to Reset Your Password!

In keeping with stricter security measures now in place at Middlebury College, you will sooner or later find that your Middlebury Exchange (network) password will expire, and Outlook will either not let you log in with your old password, or will suddenly ask you to re-enter your password to continue using your Exchange account (your old password will no longer work if this happens).

In order to continue using Exchange you will need to reset your Middlebury network password (not your BannerWeb or BannerINB password).  To do this go to the following web URL

https://bat.middlebury.edu/activate/

to Activate (reset) your Middlebury network account.

You will need to enter your BannerWeb ID (the one you use for timecards) and your BannerWeb PIN number to login to reset your network password.  Then, simply accept the terms on the following page, and you will be allowed to enter a new password for your Middlebury network account (keep in mind that currently this account is only used for Exchange, and is not tied to your MIIS network account for logging into your MIIS computer in the morning).

Remember that Middlebury uses much stricter standards for entering new passwords, so you will likely need to add at least one capital letter, one number, and one special character for your new password to be accepted.  Please write down your new password once it is accepted and store this in a safe place out of sight of passersby.   If you forget your Middlebury network password, you can come back to this same URL to reset it again.

If you have forgotten or don’t know your BannerWeb ID, you should contact HR here at MIIS to get this information.  Once you have your BannerWeb ID, you can contact the ITS Help Desk, here at MIIS (x6656) to get your BannerWeb PIN reset if necessary.

FYI:  Middlebury is working to include MIIS users in their automatic password reminder system, so in the future you may receive an email ahead of time, warning you that your Middlebury network password is about to expire, including instructions on how to reset this (as described above).

Thanks for your patience as we take advantage of this much more powerful email service offered to us by Middlebury College.

Google Search Now Live at MIIS!

Have you ever tried to find something on the MIIS website only to be given a PDF campus map as a search result?  You’re not alone and hopefully now those days are over!  The www.miis.edu website now has incorporated a google search function into the website.

Little known fact: MIIS actually is running 5 separate websites – the main site and one for each school.  With our old search function, you had to be on the right site to find what you needed.  Searching for language programs in the Fisher site would have produced less than ideal results.  Our old search function also seemed to give priority to PDFs and menu items rather than actual pages.  The google search function now covers all of our sites and has the google relevancy to help prioritize our search results.

Thanks to Chris Norris and his staff at Middlebury for sharing their Google Search Appliance with us, configuring it to index our sites, and writing the code to make it all run.

In a recent google webinar, it was reported that 50% of the duke.edu web users were using the search function in place of the menu navigation.  This new search function should allow our constituents the ability to find what they need more easily and tap into the google search habits of digital natives (aka most of our students).  The google search function also allows for all google search conventions and has an advanced search function where you can search by program, sort by date, or narrow your search.

This is part of a larger website redesign project that a dedicated group of MIIS staff and faculty members have been working on since November.  To see what we’ve been up to, check out our wiki space.

If you’re interested in giving more feedback about the website or joining our group, contact Lynn McDonald

Appropriate Use of MIIS Faculty and MIIS Staff Email Addresses

Now that we have the capability of posting email messages to all faculty and staff simultaneously through Exchange/Outlook, we would like to suggest some guidelines to make sure that this capability is used to greatest effect to convey those messages that are truly of community-wide interest and importance.

The following guidelines are adapted from those in use at Middlebury.  They have had this capability for some time, and these general guidelines are fairly well respected by all (or the sender usually gets swift feedback from colleagues).

* Messages should relate directly to Institute events and activities. Announcements of non-Institute events, fund-raisers, activities, etc. should be handled through other channels. MIIS@work is happy to publish such announcements, and we will continue to use the MIIS Faculty and MIIS Staff emails to publish the latest blog headlines.  This gives the reader the opportunity to choose items of interest, and reduces the number of separate email messages people receive in their already-crowded boxes.

* E-mail blasts should be avoided for Institute events already listed on-line or in publications, unless there is significant supplemental information or last-minute changes in location or time.

Why Wii?

The unveiling of the Wii in the Digital Media Commons last Friday added a dimension of hilarity, energy, and friendly competition to a successful Institutional Advancement and TLC sponsored event that was designed to blend learning with play and build community among MIIS staff.

It also raised questions for some: why are we buying toys when we need (you fill in the blank)…?

Here are some things to think about:

(1) Generally,  “play” unleashes creativity and enhances learning. To explore this idea, check out Tim Brown’s TED Talk.

(2) Specifically, the Wii controller makes possible a particular kind of activity that invokes our kinesthetic learning ability.  There is a great deal of interest in using this new tool to enhance learning in virtual spaces.  For example:

Lane Kuhlman, a graduate student at Ohio State, is studying gesture based interaction and its role in educational multimedia.  This kind of research could have major implications for the design of simulations for intercultural communication, negotiation, or conflict resolution.

MIT Research Fellow David Stone was featured in a recent Wired article for his work building Wiimote-controlled simulations in Second Life. To the already information-rich experiences available in this virtual world, one can now add the ability to take your hands off the keyboard and speak, gesture, and move naturally through virtual environments ranging from your favorite international city to an exhibition of the latest green building technologies.

The Educause Learning Initiative is encouraging its members to investigate the potential of the Wii. See their white paper, “7 Things You Should Know about Wii.”

Finally, in another TED talk, Johnny Lee demonstrates how he turned $40 Wii controllers into a multitouch display, and into a close approximation of a $2000 interactive whiteboard, increasing access to these technologies for schools and organizations with limited resources.

(3) We would like for MIIS be at the forefront of thinking about how people learn and experimenting with ways to enhance the quality of our education.  Our limited resources have, in the past, caused us to bypass many of the technologies that our peer institutions were adopting at great cost.  Now we are in a position of competitive advantage, in that we can leapfrog some of the less versatile earlier tools for learning, and focus on tools and strategies that match our pedagogical commitment through Monterey Way 2.0 to immersive learning, high performance thinking, and open architecture.

Agree? Disagree?  Join the conversation with your comments!

New Media Development Specialist Joins MIIS Staff

Please join us in welcoming Kristen Byers to the MIIS staff. Kristen will be working with TLC/DMC as a new media development specialist.  Her job is to help MIIS faculty, staff and students tell their stories using digital media. In keeping with the philosophy of TLC/DMC, her role is to work with members of the community to define a project and acquire the necessary skills and tools to achieve the desired outcomes.  She’ll be working closely with the admissions staff to help us make better use of community generated digital media in our marketing efforts.

Kristen graduated from Michigan State University with a BA in professional writing, minors in French and journalism, and specializations in editing and publishing, digital design & technical writing.  She has used her exceptional digital media and design skills in a variety of jobs involving web development, communications, marketing, and online learning.

Stop in at Kade, introduce yourself to Kristen, and bring her your project ideas!  After this week, she’ll be in her own office—Morse A105.

Mapping a Changing World

New tools for spatial thinking, and for analyzing and visualizing spatial data, are indispensible for 21st century professionals.  On November 10, TLC will host a presentation by Diana Stuart Sinton, Director of Spatial Curriculum and Research at the University of Redlands, on “New Ways to Map a Changing World.”  Diana headed a national initiative to integrate GIS and spatial thinking across the curriculum for 100 liberal arts colleges, and is an outstanding teacher/presenter on both Geographic Information Systems and lower threshold web-mapping tools such as Google Earth. Diana will do a strategy session for faculty interested in incorporating mapping and data visualization into their teaching, a public presentation on the latest trends in mapping, and a hands-on workshop using Google Earth.

Revised MIIS website

The Monterey Institute has a bit of a new look.  Anne Marie Steiger and Lynn McDonald have been working over the summer on making our website easier to navigate and a better experience for our prospective students.  This should be visually more pleasing but there have also been some changes made to help our web users find what they are looking for faster.

Main Changes:

New homepage design:

  • A flash file of revolving pictures with the five curricular focus areas of the Monterey Way 2.0 highlighted
  • Academics – where you can find everything to do with academics – faculty, library, calendar, course descriptions, Moodle, TLC, DMC, ect
  • Offices and Services – A place to find links to all the offices and services on campus, links go to homepages or just pages with contact information (please contact Anne Marie if you’d like your office to have its own page or be added to this list)
  • Language Programs & Language Teacher Education – these were once one button but now the degree programs have been separated from the language programs so that their site is easier to navigate and our language programs highlighted
  • Explore – this section is a place where we can highlight exciting things on our website.  These will change so start to build up your website and send Lynn McDonald an email if you’d like to be highlighted in the explore section.  We hope to showcase departments that are truly doing exciting things online.
  • Quick Links – some common links that people just need quickly like emergency contacts, directions, ESL, events
  • What’s New – A place to put news but also a place to highlight new programs or interesting events.  This should change regularly so please contact Lynn McDonald with any “What’s New” items.
  • Be The Solution – Our great new tagline!
  • Online Directory, site map and banner web can now be found in the footer.

Admissions:

  • New Organization – Six easy to navigate categories
  • Language Requirements – All the information on languages in the graduate programs can now be found here, rather than each school having its own language information.
  • Student Life – a section for the student voice to be highlighted.  This section will hopefully soon include more digital media

If you see any mistakes in the website, PLEASE let your departmental web editor know.  There are bound to be some mistakes so we’d love to take care of them quickly.  Also, double check any URLs that you send out in mass emails or letters – they may have changed with this re-organization.

Lynn and Anne Marie will soon be offering a web training for anyone who writes for the web (including workstudy students).  Please stay tuned for more information.

New Technology on Campus

The Simul2 interpretation lab now sports two new 32” Plasma screens, soon to be joined by a third unit in the Simul3 lab in the IIRC building.

In addition, each of the three Simul labs will soon receive a Sony SLV D380P – DVD/VCR combo unit, replacing the older VCRs to allow more digital content to be deployed in the interpretation booths.

A second IP-based videoconferencing site will also come on line soon. A new Polycom videoconferencing unit will generally reside in the board room, but is portable within McCone. This will complement the VC service now available in the Fletcher-Jones conference room in the Library.

How do you set up a VC?
1)    Ascertain that your videoconferencing partner has comparable equipment.
2)    Reserve the space. (Contact the President’s office for the Board Room or Ann Flower in the Library for the Fletcher Jones room, or consult with ITS about other possible locations in McCone).
3)    Make arrangements with ITS for VC support. This includes putting them in touch with a technologist at the other end for a test call.
4)    Sit down and talk with your colleague on the other side of the country—or the world.

— from Information Technology Services

A Whole New Outlook on E-mail

Tired of archiving your messages every few days?  Tired of choking on large attachments? Frustrated with size limitations on mailing lists?  Help has arrived!

All faculty and staff at the Monterey Institute now have accounts on Middlebury’s Exchange e-mail server.  The accounts are one gigabyte each – 20 times the size of the average FirstClass account.  Most staff and many faculty have already begun to use Outlook to access these accounts. (If you’re a Mac user, you’ll need to use Mac mail, Entourage, or the equivalent.) We hope to transition the remaining faculty and staff to their new email accounts as soon as possible, so we can begin the process of converting student accounts.

If you haven’t converted yet, ITS will seek you out, but if you would like to activate your new Exchange email account right away, please contact the ITS Help Desk (x6656) for an appointment.  Please leave your name, phone extension, and office number, plus a time when you would be available for an ITS staff member to visit your office, set up your mail client, and highlight some of its features for you.

– from the Information Technology Services Department

Technology Support Reorganizes to Provide Better Service

Over the summer several technology support centers around campus have been merged to make it easier for students, faculty and staff to find the support they need.

  • • The former Lab Support Center and Wireless Laptop Support Center have merged to become the new Student Technology Services area (located in CF448). Wen Lu supervises this are, providing one-stop technology services for all students on campus.
  • • Staff from the former Lab Support Center have merged with staff from the former AV Center to become the new Lab & Media Services area, which now works out of the former AV Center (Morse A100).  Norman Metcalfe supervises this new combined service area.  Lab & Media Services now provides extended service hours for classroom, lab and AV technology needs around campus.
  • • The Teaching and Learning Collaborative manages the new Digital Media Commons, both of which can be found in the Kade Technology building.   Supervising both areas is Bob Cole.  TLC provides assistance for faculty members seeking to use technological tools to facilitate student learning. DMC offers a well-equipped space staffed with mentors for faculty, staff and students working on digital media projects.
  • • The Information Technology Services department continues to work with all of the new areas above, and continues to provide technology services for faculty, staff and students from the ITS Help Desk.   Supervising this area is John Grunder, with help from Trinidad Gomez, Gustavo Carvalho, Norman Metcalfe, Wen Lu and AnneMarie Steiger.

Here’s a contact list for Fall 2008.  This list describes each area and provides telephone and email addresses to contact for services.

— from the Information Technology Services Department