Spring 2017 Academic Technology Workshops Announced

The Swarthmore Academic Technology Spring 2017 Lunchtime Workshop series is now available. We have a lineup of sessions available to the entire campus community. The first half of the workshops are focused on website and online portfolio development. This is a great chance to learn how to get your content online using modern web publishing tools. The second half of the series contains maker-related technology topics such as Arduinos, quadcopters, programming Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, and laser cutting. Come learn what resources are available for you to use or checkout from ITS. All the workshops are on Fridays from 12:30-1:30PM … Continue reading Spring 2017 Academic Technology Workshops Announced

white chromebook surrounded by Google app icons

Media Services Has New Chromebooks for Student Checkout!

Chromebook laptopMedia Services has new Chromebooks for students to checkout! They now have a limited number of Chromebooks designated for student use on a short term basis. This may be really helpful for someone whose laptop is under repair or needs a laptop on the fly. Continue reading “Media Services Has New Chromebooks for Student Checkout!”

Navigation Apps for visually impaired

I struck up a conversation with a fellow conference attendee at the AHEAD 2016 conference who happened to be blind.  We had an interesting conversation about getting around when you are visually impaired and he shared three apps he uses to navigate inside and outside buildings: overTHERE which uses a infrared technology developed more than 30 years ago to help with safer street crossing and recently adapted for mapping BlindSquare which can work with beacons to provide mapping inside buildings AllAccess which can access menus, logos,  and QR codes Continue reading Navigation Apps for visually impaired

Green Advisors to monitor energy usage in the Beardsley Media Center

ITS, Media Services and the Office of Sustainability’s Green Advisors Program are currently working on a project aimed at reducing computer energy usage across campus. The first stage of the project will be to monitor energy usage in the Beardsley Media Center. We will collect quantitative data on our electricity usage while implementing strategies to reduce the electricity demand from computers in the lab. We aim to create behavioral changes in how students interact with computers (i.e. ensuring students/staff turn off machines at the end of the night or leaving inactive machines in sleep mode). Additionally, we will explore potential … Continue reading Green Advisors to monitor energy usage in the Beardsley Media Center

3D Printing Data

red 3D printed triangles that make a pie chart
Photo by Jen Grayburn

Last month I attended The Humanities and Technology Camp also known as THAT Camp for the first time. THAT Camp Philly is an unconference where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot. I attended a very compelling workshop about critical making and the use of 3D Printed Data. Continue reading “3D Printing Data”