What’s New in Academic Technology for Fall 2015

ITS has spent the summer improving our core services and implementing new projects to help with your teaching and research. Today, we’d like to call your attention to some of the additions and changes that you might not have heard about. Classroom A/V Updates: Media Services has updated many rooms this summer. (19 classrooms even have wireless projection capability!) For the full list see the “What’s New in Classroom AV” blog post: https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/its/blog/2015/08/26/whats-new-in-classroom-av-fall-2015/. SensusAccess: Accessibility of course materials is essential to make sure that all students can participate fully in the academic program. SensusAccess is an online service which converts … Continue reading What’s New in Academic Technology for Fall 2015

Free Office 365 Education for Students

Office 365 Education for Students is available for free to students enrolled at Swarthmore College.  Install Office on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on other mobile devices, including Android, iPad®, and Windows tablets. To enroll, visit Microsoft’s Office 365 page and log in with your Swarthmore email address. www.office.com/getOffice365 Continue reading Free Office 365 Education for Students

ITS Recommendation for Windows 10

Microsoft released Windows 10 on July 29th, 2015 and is offering the operating system as a free upgrade to eligible Windows 7 and 8.1 installations for one year. ITS Recommendation Information Technology Services (ITS) will support personally-owned Windows 10 devices on our network and with supported College software.  ITS strongly recommends that College community members thinking of upgrading to Windows 10 adopt a “wait and see” approach, continuing to use earlier supported versions of Windows (Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8.1) until the initial bugs and compatibility issues in Windows 10 are identified and fixed. At this point … Continue reading ITS Recommendation for Windows 10

Windows 10 at Swarthmore

Microsoft will release Windows 10 on July 29th, 2015 and is offering the operating system as a free upgrade to existing Windows 7 and 8.1 installations for one year. ITS Recommendation ITS strongly recommends that College community members thinking of upgrading to Windows 10 adopt a “wait and see” approach, continuing to use earlier supported versions of Windows (Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows 8.1) until the initial bugs and compatibility issues in Windows 10 are identified and fixed. After the official release is tested, Swarthmore College’s full recommendation for Windows 10 will be posted to the ITS Blog. Information … Continue reading Windows 10 at Swarthmore

Introducing Zoom video conferencing

Over the past few years, Media Services has seen a boom in requests for support for web-based video and audio conferencing services (such as Skype, Google Hangouts, WebEx, and GoToMeeting.) While these tools are handy, we haven’t always been satisfied with their quality or ease of use. Starting immediately, all Swarthmore faculty, staff, and students have a basic Zoom account— just go to http://swarthmore.zoom.us. Sign in with your Swarthmore College username and password. You can use Zoom to have an audio or video chat with anybody else, but you can invite up to two dozen people into a meeting. The only limit to a … Continue reading Introducing Zoom video conferencing

Use Firefox for Banner INB

Google Chrome Version 42 was released in April 2015.  The latest release of the Chrome web browser blocks Oracle’s Java plugin by default. Swarthmore College’s Banner system requires Java.  Information Technology Services recommends using the Mozilla Firefox web browser to access Banner INB (Internet Native Banner). If you do not already have Firefox on your workstation, it can be downloaded from Mozilla’s website: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ If you have any questions, please contact the ITS Help Desk (help@swarthmore.edu). Continue reading Use Firefox for Banner INB