Link to Assistive Technology (AT) Tools: Text-to-speech on mobile
Blackboard Housekeeping over Fall Break
Faculty, please note that courses and enrollments for all regular SPRING 2008 academic courses in Banner will begin to appear on your Blackboard course lists after break. As usual, these sites will be available to you as instructor but unavailable to students until you activate them (Control Panel > Settings > Course Availability.) Meanwhile, regular academic courses from SPRING 2006, and Honors courses from FALL 2005 will be archived and removed from Blackboard. SPRING 2006 Honors courses will remain an additional semester to ensure their availability to seniors studying for Honors exams. An archive of each course will be formed … Continue reading Blackboard Housekeeping over Fall Break
Brief Late Night Network/Phone Outages
A number of short, late night network maintenance activities will occur in conjunction with Fall break. On Friday, October 5 at 11:30 PM there will be a 10-20 minute outage of network, phones and wireless in the following buildings: Robinson House, Lang Music and Dana. On Friday, October 12 at 11:30 PM there will be a 10-20 minute outage of network, phones and wireless in the following buildings: Parrish, Ben West and Beardsley. Also on the 12th, there will be a few 5-10 minute Internet outages between 10 PM and Midnight effecting all buildings. VPN service will also be unavailable … Continue reading Brief Late Night Network/Phone Outages
Media Services now recording video in HD
When Media Services Technicians Mike Bednarz and Dave Neal shoot video of Dance, Theater, and College events, they’re now using high definition (HD) video cameras. The change in format allows Media Services to create better quality video that will keep up with changes in expectations from viewers in the future. Media Services has two Sony mini-DV video cameras that record in HD. High definition television (HDTV) has a resolution of 1080 or 720 lines. In contrast, the resolution of regular digital television is only 486 lines. The additional HD video makes images more vibrant and detailed, with a greater sense … Continue reading Media Services now recording video in HD
New and Updated Equipment and Software in the Faculty Resource Room
Academic Computing has recently updated most of the software and equipment in the Faculty Resource Room. Last year we introduced new Mac Pro workstations for video editing with 30 inch Cinema Displays, dual DVD writing drives and Final Cut Pro Suite, all connected to almost 7 Terabytes of storage via high speed Fibre-channel connections (faster than attached hard drives). This year, we’ve upgraded the video editing software to Final Cut Pro Suite 2, and we’ve upgraded the rest of the equipment in the room. We now have a new 24inch Intel iMac attached to the slide and large (12″x18″) flatbed … Continue reading New and Updated Equipment and Software in the Faculty Resource Room
Communications & ITS launch new Campus Calendar
Over the summer, Communications and ITS worked together to create a web-based Campus Calendar for publicizing campus events. See this recent article in The Phoenix for details. Continue reading Communications & ITS launch new Campus Calendar
Classrooms get brighter video projectors
Over the summer, Media Services worked with contractor Total Video Products to install new video projectors in various classrooms around campus. The new Sony projectors are 15% brighter than the model they replace. With brighter projectors, instructors will be better able to project video images on the screen while keeping a greater number of lights on in the classroom as well as having the option of opening more window shades. Swarthmore College now has 70 smart classrooms and seminar rooms around campus. Smart classrooms have audio and video components that can be controlled from a single interactive touch panel in … Continue reading Classrooms get brighter video projectors