Want to gain confidence, skill, or proficiency with technology? ATS offers instructor-focused workshops that cover broad themes/topics across teaching practices, as well as student-focused in-class instructional sessions and supporting guides specific to course topics or goals.
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We offer several instructor-focused workshops that cover broad themes/topics across teaching practices, and also more modular workshops focused on deeper technical engagements.
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Bring Your Syllabus to Life
Explore the relationship between intentional syllabus design and intentional use of GLOW. Practice ways to translate the guiding principles, values, and objectives of your course into practice in GLOW, specifically with the Home Page, Gradebook, Assignments, Quizzes, and Discussions.
Teach Your Way with Academic Technology: Your Williams Toolkit
Meet some of the academic technology team and become acquainted with some of the tools, such as GLOW, Panopto, and Google Workspace, that may support your pedagogical approaches.
Leveraging GLOW for Teaching Flexibility
In partnership with the Rice Center for Teaching, this workshop for instructors focuses on student accessibility and accommodation through the design of flexible course components using GLOW. Instructors are encouraged to rethink their past/current course designs and to engage critically and constructively with peers and staff.
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Tech-niques Supporting Williams Firsts
In recognition of National First Gen Week, and Williams faculty’s commitment to student learning, Academic Technology Services offers some “tech”-niques you can use (both as you’re preparing for the next semester, and just-in-time at any point during the semester) to illuminate the hidden curriculum, and build self-efficacy, for the Williams Firsts students in your courses. Preparing for your Students before the Semester Starts. When you’re reflecting and planning, here are some structural practices that can have meaningful impact for the Williams Firsts you’ll have next semester and beyond: Restyle a GLOW course using modules, to promote structure.
What Does Equity Have to do with Tech?
Discover specific techniques to express your teaching values through your tech choices, across the Williams technology ecosystem. Includes examples in GLOW, Google, Panopto and more.
Supporting Meaningful Student Group Work
This workshop will introduce instructors to some best practices and tools for gaging student backgrounds/interests and creating project groups, as well as best practices for framing expectations for students in terms of fair distributions of labor and accountability, managing project scholarship, and group presentations.
Extending the Classroom
This workshop and tour will introduce instructors to the various physical spaces on campus available for expanding student experiences in ways that relate to instructor course topics or teaching goals. These highly specialized spaces and resources include pedagogical technologies such as digital multimedia, virtual reality, tactile ‘maker’ experiences, and creative production environments.
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The Life Cycle of an Assignment in GLOW: Creation to Gradebook
Using GLOW Assignments is a practice that can leverage homework submission, online grading, the gradebook, and the calendar. Get a sense of what is possible and how you can use GLOW Assignments in your teaching, from video assignments to quizzes to graded discussions and more.
All About Quizzes
This in-depth technical workshop will introduce instructors to the various configuration options available in GLOW Quizzes in preparation for mid-term and final exams. Topics covered include question-answer options and design, inclusion of media and equations, in-exam comments and feedback, and student accommodations.
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Data Design & Methods
Research design is an intrinsically iterative process and the design of research data itself can radically affect data collection, integrity, analysis, findings, visualization, and reproducibility. This workshop is focused on helping instructors to develop simple technical guides to supplement what they already provide to their students (e.g. in coursework, research assistance, or advising). As a framework, the workshop will start with principles of database schema, data types, and the nuances of both quantitative (e.g. aggregation/disaggregation) and qualitative (e.g. taxonomies) data value relationships. Some emphasis will be given to the value of metadata as critical to supporting research. To the degree possible, a given workshop may cover some specific topics germane to attendee knowledge domains (e.g. Economics, Biology, Political Science, History, etc.).
Spatial Modeling & Analysis (GIS)
In support of course designs and student advising, this workshop for instructors provides a broad overview of the theories, methods, and tools of spatial science that are not currently integrated in the curriculum. To be clear, this is not a workshop that teaches spatial modeling or GIS (this scholarship takes years to learn!), but instead is framed by questions around what is reasonable for students to learn within a single class period, course term, or outside the curriculum. Several examples of 'lite' exercises (one class or assignment) are offered as templates for introducing students to critical spatial thinking and then applying that thinking through simple technical practices (e.g. create a map or story map). To the degree possible, a given workshop may cover some specific topics germane to attendee knowledge domains (e.g. Economics, Biology, Political Science, History, etc.). Upon request by a department, custom editions of this workshop may be developed that focus on specific disciplines and their methods (qualitative or quantitative).
Planning for Transcription
This workshop provides an overview of best practices and tools available to support instructors and their students in undertaking transcription. For the purposes of this workshop, transcription is inclusive of both textual and visual conversions, analog and digital, and manual and automated. Upon request by a department, editions of this workshop may be developed that focus on specific disciplines and their methods.
Hands-On GenAI Workshop
Test multiple current generative AI tools for text, audio, images, and more, including subscription-only features (like Voice and Data Analysis features). As you’re working to shape students’ learning in context of this emerging tech, take the opportunity to develop your own deep, first-hand experience with it, to inform your pedagogy.
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Please let us know if you'd like us to offer any of the past workshops below.
January, 2022
Where: ATS Drop-In Room on Zoom.
When: 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
(Note: Your ATS Liaisons are still operating the virtual Drop-In Support Room. Stop by when you can to have your questions answered. Please check this page for the up-to-date hours.)Topics:
- Monday, 1/24 @ 11a, Navigating Tech Resources & Services, Q&A on Navigating Tech resources & Services: classrooms, software, computing resources, classroom & research projects.
- Monday, 1/24, All about Assignment and Quiz Tool in GLOW, Let's take a look at the Glow Assignments and Quizzing tools and explore all the options you have to make assessment more objective and effective.
- Tuesday, 1/25, Audio and Video Course Materials in Glow, Learn how to incorporate video and audio content into your Glow course. You can have Library videos or your own videos uploaded to Glow. You can create a narrated Google Slides or PowerPoint slideshow. You can use video in discussion posts. We can help you with all of these topics in our one-hour workshop.
- Wednesday, 1/26, Sign ups & Calendars in GLOW, Q&A on Sign Ups & Calendars in GLOW, including Google appointment.
- Thursday, 1/27, Syllabus Options in GLOW, Q&A on Syllabus Options in GLOW, like Front Page, Modules, or Syllabus tool.
- Friday, 1/28, All about GLOW Gradebook, Let's look at the every single feature of the GLOW Gradebook together. We will try to answer any questions that you may have about it.
Fall Semester, 2021
Q&A Drop-in, Tuesday Sept. 7 – Friday Sept. 10
Where: ATS Drop-In Room on Zoom.
When: 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
(Note: Your ATS Liaisons are still operating the Drop In Support Room (Zoom), weekdays, 11am-2pm. Stop by when you can to have your questions answered.)Topics:
- Tuesday, 9/7, Sign Ups & Calendars in GLOW, including Google appointment slots.
- Wednesday, 9/8, Syllabus Options in GLOW, like Front Page, Modules, or Syllabus tool.
- Thursday, 9/9, Anything Video/Audio in GLOW, like reusing last year’s recordings this year, Panopto, streaming, student submissions, etc.
- Friday, 9/10, Navigating Tech Resources & Services: Who do I talk to for classroom support, software availability, computing resources, special classroom or research projects, or any of your Williams Technology questions?
August, 2021 - Getting Ready for the Fall Semester
Your RSVP is appreciated but not required.Your RSVP is appreciated but not required.Your RSVP is appreciated but not required.
Title & Description Leveraging Zoom & Meet with Engaging Content and Structure: As we look forward to “normal” classroom environments for fall we are maintaining two powerful tools, Zoom & Meet, that provide unique opportunities for pedagogically engaging interactions.
Please join this interactive virtual workshop held in the ATS Drop-In room.
Audio and Video Course Materials in Glow: Learn how to incorporate video and audio content into your Glow course. You can have Library videos or your own videos uploaded to Glow. You can create a narrated Google Slides or PowerPoint slideshow. You can use video in discussion posts. We can help you with all of these topics in our one-hour workshop.
Please join this interactive virtual workshop held in the ATS Drop-In room.
Communicating with Your Students: This mini-workshop will explore online tools that can help you communicate with your students more effectively. Scenarios include setting course expectations, structuring course activities, and scheduling office hours. Tools to be covered include: - Glow Course Mail
- Glow Announcements
- Google Calendar
- Glow Calendar (Appointment Group)
- Glow Syllabus
- More ...
Please join this interactive virtual workshop held in the ATS Drop-In room.
Preparing to Teach Remotely, Summer 2020
In response to shifting teaching scenarios and also faculty requests ATS is adding shorter, tool and topic based workshops to complement our ongoing Summer Series based on the Remote Teaching Readiness Quiz.
Remote Teaching Communication Strategies Using GLOW Announcements, Discussions and Video Messaging: In this online demo and discussion we will explore communication strategies and tools for communicating effectively with your students while avoiding email fatigue. We will also consider the importance of transparency (in content organization) and building community with your students, using some of the techniques outlined in Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby (Free, online read for Williams through Sawyer Library). It’s All About Assignment: How will you provide homework, midterm or final exams? How will you evaluate term papers and provide feedback? This workshop will help you to answer these questions and many more as we first demonstrate Glow's Assignment/Quizzes and Grades/Speedgrader tools, and then explore and discuss their use in "giving out" assignments, "getting back" submissions and providing feedback for students. Creating Pre-recorded Lectures with Panopto Demo: There are a variety of reasons to create videos for your class. You might present new content, respond to student questions and provide feedback, make an announcement, reflect on assignments or teaching goals, or address a topic that is giving students trouble. The video might be a screen capture, narrated slideshow, or a video of a familiar face. In this class we look at how these videos are created, and how they can be uploaded and shared with students.
Our Summer workshops are organized in three major categories:
- Establishing Effective Communications with My Students
- Putting My Course Materials Online
- Assessing My Students' Progress Online
The Remote Teaching Readiness Quiz can help decide which workshop(s) to sign up for. You can also use the Glow Orientation course for a self-paced introduction to Glow's most frequently used tools.
1. Establishing Effective Communications with My Students
This track explores and demonstrates the various communication tools available to the Williams community. We will discuss the pros and cons of each tool, and help you choose the right one for your goals.
Title & Description Track 1-1. GLOW – Announcements, Discussions and Video Messaging: In this online demo and discussion we will explore communication strategies and tools for communicating effectively with your students while avoiding email fatigue. We will also consider the importance of transparency (in content organization) and building community with your students, using some of the techniques outlined in Small Teaching Online by Flower Darby (Free, online read for Williams through Sawyer Library). Track 1-2. Leveraging Google Apps to Enhance Communication: In this online demo and discussion we will explore Google Chat/Groups, Calendar and Drive and discover ways they can augment the functionality of GLOW and enhance content organization. Track 1-3. Synchronous Online Options: In this demo and discussion we will compare three platforms for connecting synchronously online with your students: Google Meet, Zoom, and GLOW Conferences. We will evaluate the pros and cons of each platform and learn how they can sync with other tools and support synchronous elements of your curriculum. 2. Putting My Course Materials Online
Workshops in this track demonstrate the creation and sharing of pre-recorded lectures with your students. We will also cover how to distribute course materials effectively in GLOW on this track. (Also, check our GLOW Course Prep for Remote Teaching Checklist.)
Title & Description Track 2-1. Creating Pre-recorded Lectures: There are a variety of reasons to create videos for your class. You might present new content, respond to student questions and provide feedback, make an announcement, reflect on assignments or teaching goals, or address a topic that is giving students trouble. The video might be a screen capture, narrated slideshow, or a video of a familiar face. In this class we look at how these videos are created, and how they can be uploaded and shared with students. Track 2-2. Distributing Course Materials (GLOW's Modules & Course Media Gallery): This workshop will discuss how to build your GLOW course using Modules. Instructors have some control over how materials are organized and presented to students in our course management system. Learn how to format your presentation of information to best fit the content for your students - including images, videos, readings, and files. We will also provide information on the Course Media Gallery as a way to distribute and manage your video and audio files. Track 2-3. Organizing Course Content using GLOW's Syllabus Page: The syllabus format in Glow gives you both a text area for details about the course and a listing of all assigned tasks students must complete. While it does take time to enter in all assignments for your course, the students have the assignments in their calendar and can easily track their progress. These assignments are connected to the gradebook so that feedback can be shared with students. The syllabus format can be ideal for a course with many assignments or readings, or for first year students who might benefit from the extra organization and feedback. 3. Assess My Students' Progress Online
This track explores and demonstrates the tools in Glow that help you evaluate, monitor, and manage your students’ progress toward the learning goals for your course.
Title & Description Track 3-1: Glow's Assignment Tool: In this workshop, we will demonstrate and discuss how to use the Assignment tool to shape specific learning objectives, to differentiate assignments by availability and due date, to determine how students may submit their responses, and finally to use Assignment Groups to weight the cumulative grades of a group as a percentage of a total course grade. Track 3-2: Glow's Quiz Tool: In this workshop, we will demonstrate how to use the Quiz tool to design, implement and administer a variety of question/answer configurations, and to differentiate assignments by availability and due date. We'll also explore both the Gradebook and SpeedGrader tools to assign grades as well as to provide feedback for students to review afterward. Track 3-3: Mastery Path: The Mastery Path is an advanced tool in Glow. In this workshop, we will discuss how the configuration of Mastery Paths can be used to better organize your course content in a progressive learning experience. Specifically, we will demonstrate how Mastery Paths work in tandem with course Modules, as well as the use of graded Discussions, Assignments, and Quizzes in shaping both linear and conditional learning pathways.
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We offer several student-focused in-class instructional sessions and supporting guides specific to course topics or instructor goals. The core or foundation of instructional sessions is to help students build skills and confidence with technology-adjacent projects (e.g. ethnographies, visualizations, etc.) or in undertaking digital scholarship as an alternative to the written paper or exam. Often these sessions support the inclusion of digital literacy as a part of the student learning experience, but students are also encouraged to explore and take risks.
Similar to the Libraries LibGuides, many of these sessions are available as Module templates in GLOW (these modules can be imported into your course!). However, ATS-led instructional sessions are almost always custom to the course being taught and the class time available. To explore technology uses in scholarship, please reach out to your department/office liaison to discuss the following:
- custom goals and course materials
- scheduling and format of in-class sessions
- scaffolding considerations (i.e. out of class assignments/exercises)
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Digital Footprints: Security & Privacy
This student focused session covers the fundamentals of digital identity, the digital traces each of us accumulates through our lived experiences, and how information about us is collected across a constellation of technologies. Through example scenarios and discussions, students are encouraged to think critically about their own digital footprints and to take steps to make their digital lives safe and fulfilling.
Technology, Equity, & Ethics
This session introduces students to questions of ethics and equity in technology design, use, access, and accessibility. Technology is broadly defined to include analog and digital, devices and built environments, and techniques and practices. Students are encouraged to critically reflect on their personal experiences prior to arriving at Williams as well as their residential campus life, and how technology may enable or constrain different people or groups and their sense of agency.
Beyond the Curriculum Vitae: Managing Your Scholarship Through Matriculation
This student focused session covers the fundamentals and best practices of managing all of the scholarship and experiences accumulated over 4yrs at Williams that inform a curriculum vitae or resume (e.g. papers, media, data, etc.). For example, graduate programs or employers may want to see examples of your scholarship and may even want to validate your work. Topics covered include principles of project management, data design, backups, privacy, and retaining scholarship beyond Williams. Some attention will also be given to the reproducibility of scholarship (i.e. can another research review your resources/methods and come to the same conclusions). Students will create (or update) their c.v. or resume, explore ways to meaningfully organize their scholarship in relation to their c.v. or resume, and optionally may seek constructive criticism from the instructor or their peers.
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Qualitative Techniques
This instructional session provides an overview of best practices and resources available to support students in undertaking ethnographic research. Depending on an instructor's course topic or goals, this may include videography, podcasting, or other narrative media, as well as research design, field preparation, transcription, taxonomy design, and encoding.
Building Your Research Field Kit
Scholarship involving the creation of original data is easier said than done. This instructional session provides an overview of best practices and resources available to support students in preparing for and undertaking data collection in the field. Depending on an instructor's course topic or goals, this may include research design, data design, and specific methods. Attention will be paid to the logistical and conditional challenges of field work, the use of technology in data creation, and the planning and preparation essential to success.
Data Visualization
How data can be visualized (and analyzed) largely depends on the type of data itself. This instructional session provides an overview of best practices and resources available to support students in visualizing their scholarship. Depending on an instructor's course topic or goals, this may include either qualitative or quantitative data, the many forms that data may take, and its quality (i.e. the strengths and weaknesses of available data for a particular research question or communication strategy). Strong emphasis will be given to the value of metadata as well as principles of visual communication (e.g. knowing your audience).
Videography
We have a 90 minute in person workshop and handout around using DaVinci Resolve to edit videos. DaVinci Resolve is installed on lab machines and there is a free version of DaVinci Resolve that can be downloaded by students on their own personal computers. The first part of the workshop is about project planning as a good plan prevents a great deal of struggle to create an inferior finished video. This workshop then covers adding media, adding content to the timeline, editing audio levels, adding text and transitions, and finally exporting a finished video. The workshop can be modified to meet the needs of a course assignment.
Podcasts
We have two workshops on podcasting that focus on recording and editing audio in Audacity. Audacity is on the computer lab image and can also be downloaded onto student devices for free. One workshop assumes students want to record and edit audio for a podcast with spoken dialog. The second workshop is more about sound design and recording sounds. This second workshop makes heavy use of audio effects. An alternative approach to an assignment that uses podcasts is to make use of Studio 275 in Sawyer Library where students can just record the audio in one take if they have rehearsed before their appointment.
Graphic Novels (comix to zines)
Graphic novel and comic workshops are possible and can be arranged on a case by case basis. Common topics include storyboarding , comic inking, and telling stories in other languages. We can also put together workshops around self publication and zines.
Story Maps
This instructional session for students focuses on the use of story maps to construct interactive narratives using an online multimedia and cartographic platform. Starting with a critical discussion space, place, identity, and representation, the workshop is framed by storymap examples and the narratives they contain (i.e. what stories are told, what stories are untold, etc.). Finally, depending on an instructor's course topic or goals, students will explore the technicals of telling their own stories through a story map and the value of this medium for digital scholarship.
NOTE: Student work may not persist beyond a course term or their matriculation.
Curated Map Galleries
This instructional session for students focuses on a critical engagement with the history of space, place, identity, and representation as conveyed through maps or story maps. This session is an essential component for those courses that do not already include some introduction to spatial thinking and its relation to scholarship and the lived experience.
NOTE: ATS will consult with instructors on the compilation of their own collection of map or story map examples and its presentation in an exploratory gallery.
Critical Geography
This instructional session for students focuses on a critical engagement with the history of space, place, identity, and representation in the built environment. Drawing from several theories in human/cultural geography and spatial science, and depending on an instructor's course topic or goals, students will be led through thought experiments concerning perceptions of space, how those perceptions are expressed across a landscape, and how landscape conditions can shape individual and social behavior.
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Automata to AI: Ancient Ethical Assumptions Implicit in Our Current Attitudes toward genAI
Why do we automatically refer to generative AI as a tool? Why does it feel natural to discuss its social impacts from a perspective of labor? Why do stories of sentient tech prompt certain visceral reactions? While LLMs are new, our moral imaginations have had millennia of history developing robust theories about artificial beings’ place in human relations. We will interrogate original texts from antiquity (as well as contemporary scholarship) which explore ethical concerns relevant to artificial entities: agency, control, sentience, language, creativity, soul, and more. Through critical reading, discussion and weekly writing, as well as guided encounters with generative AI, students will situate our current cultural conversations within the long philosophical traditions which tacitly shape them.
DIY Publications
Like most western institutions, the field of traditional publishing has been, and continues to be deeply shaped by power dynamics that more often than not leave out the voices of the most marginalized members of society. Zines, chapbooks, artist books, blogs, and other “do-it-yourself” (D.I.Y.) forms of publication have served as mechanisms of communication, expression, and community building that give voice to marginalized creators. Through engagement with readings, discussion, local field trips, and items in the libraries’ collection, this course will explore the historical and social dynamics that have shaped the current landscape of D.I.Y. publishing. At the same time, this course will provide space and resources for students of all skill levels and backgrounds to develop their own practical publishing skills, from content generation to production and distribution. As a culminating project, students will complete one or more D.I.Y. publications of their own design.