General IT Training
Where do I go from here? Help for new users of MS Office 2007/2010
Have you recently upgraded from MS Office 2003 to Office 2007 or 2010? Are you left wondering why you ever upgraded in the first place? Can't find any of your favourite commands? Does it take you an hour to do something that used to take you 15 minutes, tops?
If any of these problems sound familiar, ITS Training Services can help!
We offer a variety of classes from Access to Word, whether you just need a refresher or want to start learning an application from scratch, we have a class that will suit your needs!
ITS also offers at hand custom training for those who have specific training needs!
Time to Learn Some HTML
HTML, Hyper Text Markup Language, is a simple computer mark-up language that powers many of the pages on the internet. If you are building pages for the web with templates, blogs, BlackBoard Learn, Dreamweaver or any other web application software, find out what goes on behind the scenes. Training Services has a 3 hour workshop designed to provide you with some basic familiarity with the HTML language and to dispel the apprehensiveness people have when approaching "raw" HTML code. It will provide you with some troubleshooting skills and tools you can use when tackling problems in web pages generated with commercial HTML editors.
See our website offering for more information. Best of all, it is FREE for U of S faculty, staff and students!
Help Yourself
Help Yourself to anyone of our videos. These are available on YouTube by searching for ITSTraining. Videos on Wikis, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Course Tools are listed so sit back, and watch. All of our Training Courses listed on the Training Website contain the top ten resources our instructors find useful. Simply select a course name, and the list is visible within the course description area. We are continually adding to and updating each course so check back there often.
Help Yourself
Help Yourself to anyone of our videos. These are available on YouTube by searching for ITSTraining. Videos on Wikis, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Course Tools are listed so sit back, and watch. All of our Training Courses listed on the Training Website contain the top ten resources our instructors find useful. Simply select a course name, and the list is visible within the course description area. We are continually adding to and updating each course so check back there often.
Sharepoint
It's almost here! Announcing SharePoint 2010, the industry standard for collaborative enterprises - coming to the U of S this fall. Be the first to discover just what SharePoint can do for you! Check out our ITS Training site under "Office Applications" for the SharePoint Introduction and click Notify Me. Offering dates will be posted soon.
Outlook: Sorting and Grouping Tips
There is a lot you can do with the sorting feature in Outlook. You probably already know that you can sort your Inbox or another message folder in a multitude of ways by clicking on the appropriate header, such as Received or From. This can be so helpful when you are looking for a message from a particular sender, or if you want to keep your inbox in order by the dates you received the emails. You can sort your contacts, tasks and other Outlook items as well.
PowerPoint - Sharing Specific Slides with Others
When completing a slide show you might have to show your slides to several reviewers for selected slides. Very few people need to see all the slides ahead of the presentation, so here is a way to share specific slides. More ...
Boost Your Productivity in 2010
It is a new year, a fresh start and time to brush up on your skills. Training Services can help!
Many software users know how to use a program, but most do not know how to use it efficiently. Providing expertise over a broad range of software applications, the staff at Training Services can help you maximize your time spent in an application.
Starting with introductory courses and working in the advanced, participants can choose the appropriate level at which to start.
Visit the Training Services website for a list of current course offerings:
http://training.usask.ca
Learn something before Christmas!
As the first semester draws to a close, Training Services continues to offer a wide variety of classes. If your brain has any room left, we would be more than happy to have you register for additional classes.
Check out our website for a complete listing of classes. Offerings for the new year are already being added!
https://taurus.usask.ca/courses/currentofferings.cfm
Specifically for students, IT4U workshops will still be available for the next few weeks. If you have some time between exams, check out our schedule. Current software workshops cover topics ranging from PowerPoint presentations to Holiday Cards in Photoshop. It's guaranteed to be fun and informative! Oh yes, it's a FREE service.
https://taurus.usask.ca/courses/currentofferings.cfm
Happy Holidays and good luck on your exams!!
Questions??
its_training@usask.ca
Ushering in 2009
As of January 5, regular session classes have resumed. With that, Training Services has also started 2009 offerings.
The training schedule for the next few months is taking shape and many classes are filling with participants. If you are interested in course offerings, or to find out more about Training Services, please visit our website at: http://training.usask.ca
A special thank you to all those who supported and attended training in 2008. We look forward to continually serving your training needs in the upcoming year.
What's in the Lab? - MS Office 2007
ITS Training Services and our training lab (Arts 110A) have made the transition from Microsoft Office 2003 to Office 2007. Please be aware of the change and be prepared to work within the Office 2007 environment when enrolled in Office training.
In Office 2007, many familiar toolbars and menus have been replaced – giving the program a new look and feel. Learning to use the Microsoft Office’s Button, Ribbon and Contextual Tabs may take some practice. Fortunately, instructor-led training and online resources are available to aid in the transition. Training Services’ MS Office 2007 - "What's New" seminar explores the navigational changes.
If you require training within the Office 2003 platform, custom sessions are available by contacting ITS Training Services.
Visit our website for the Training Schedule.
ITS Training Welcomes Back the Students
Regular session has resumed for the 2008-2009 academic year and the ITS Friday afternoon workshops are back in full-swing. If you are seeking some additional information about Microsoft Office or other applications, these sessions may be for you. The sessions are free for students and staff.
This Friday's topic is PowerPoint: Master and Template Design.
In addition, all of the regularly scheduled training is available in an ongoing basis. Please refer to our website for course information and availability.
http://taurus.usask.ca/courses/currentofferings.cfm
Summer Training
Please visit our website at training.usask.ca to see our latest course schedule.
If you are interested in CUSTOM Training - just for you or a group, let us know and we will put together a package that suits your needs! Find out how to find those menu items in Office 2007. Contact us today (966-4866).
How Are We Doing - Your Evaluation Comments
Here are some of the evaluation comments of our clients who attended ITS Training courses:
“This Dreamweaver class is very important since most of the future for most jobs on campus now require web design and creation as part of the duties. It is therefore important that classes for basic HTML and Dreamweaver classes continue. Thank you to your work teams and instructors for continuing our basic computer learning needs, you are all doing a terrific job, and I appreciate every aspect of your education.”
“This was a very fun class . . . way more so than I would have expected.”
“Keep up the great modeling of how to learn new technology!”
“I love all the little tricks that we learn...”
“It is a great course for instructors to effectively use PAWS for courses they teach.”
“One of the best things about this course was the number of students. Because it was limited to 5 students, the instructor was easily able to respond to all of our individual needs and questions. She was able to hear when we had missed a point, and kept everyone at the same level. This is one of the best tech courses that I have taken.”
Friday Afternoon Workshops: PowerPoint and Word
It’s the New Year and once again ITS Training Services would like to remind you of our advanced workshops in MS Word and PowerPoint. Now, for your convenience these free sessions (U of S members only) are being offered from 1:30 to 3:00 on Friday afternoons. Learn how to work with long document features such as styles, outlines and automated TOC’s. The time you save in MS Word can then be used to spice up last year’s presentations with graphics, multimedia or attention grabbing animation covered in the PowerPoint tutorials.
Watch our website for workshop information. Register now or place your name on the Notification List (Notify Me!) for future notification of workshops as they are scheduled.
Currently Scheduled offerings:
PowerPoint:
January 11 Integrating Word & Excel
January 18 Preparing for Web Display
February 1 Customizing the PowerPoint Environment
February 15 Master Template Design
February 22 Transitions and Animations
Word:
January 25 Styles, Outlining and TOC’s
February 8 Footnotes, Figure & Master Documents
What can you do, if a student needs an extension for an assignment within your BlackBoard course?
If the assignment availability and cutoff dates have already passed, but you have or more students that need an extension you can do the
following:
1) Change the availability dates within the assignment
a. Select the Action Link and choose Edit Properties
b. Within the Assignment Properties, edit the Dates section to reflect the new due date and cutoff dates for the extension
c. save the changes
2) Set the Release Criteria for the assignment to add a "Member Criteria" and set the Member Criteria to be the NSID of the student who needs the extension
a. again, use the Action Link, choose Set Release Criteria
b. choose the Add Member Criteria option
c. Select the User ID of student(s) needing an extension using the checkbox
d. Save the changes
Playing with iLife '08 - Tech Week - Nov 7 9 - noon
iLife '08 for the Mac includes major upgrades from previous versions. The iLife suite built for MacOSX includes iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, GarageBand, iTunes and iDVD. This integrated digital lifestyle suite makes it easy to create your own tunes, play them back, add them to your own newly created movies, create a photo-book or build a DVD.
Come to the workshop in Agriculture 3D85 and play with Garage Band, iPhoto and iMovie. You will get a chance to build your own song, edit images and build your own iMovie. In the second part of the workshop, you will build a DVD from your movie, complete with themes, chapters and titles.
So, sign up at and come out and play with iLife '08.
Visit http://www.usask.ca/technologyweek/ for information on technology week and to sign up for this workshop. At the end of the week, come for cake at the Birthday Bash, Friday, November 9th. See you there!
Microsoft Publisher Training offered!
Microsoft Publisher is a tool for creating newsletters, brochures, business cards, postcards, flyers, among others for publication in print, email, and the Web.
ITS-Training Services offers a class in Microsoft Publisher that prepares you to create, revise and distribute publications. The next available offering is scheduled on November 1st. Please view a description of the Microsoft Publisher course. You can register for Nov 1st class or request to be notified of future offerings.
Call To Training...All SiRIUS Users!
As you probably know, the new and improved Banner 7 implementation is scheduled for November roll out. You are hereby invited to demo and training sessions starting the week of October 8th. Though overall functionality has not changed, the incorporation of tabbed navigation and multiple color screen displays makes the new version intuitive and attractive. Comprehensive modifications have been made to the General Student and General Person modules making attendance in these specific sessions a must! Watch for additional details posted in the Student Information Users Group or sign up now through the ITS Training Website
Fall Photos
If you’ve been putting off using that new digital camera, now is the time to throw it into your knapsack and take a walk along the riverbank. Here are a couple of hints for capturing the autumn colors:
- Late afternoon sunlight provides maximum color potential and even lighting.
- When photographing at midday, the lighting can create harsh, unflattering shadows so try to have the sun over your shoulder. The sky appears bluest when the sun is in this position.
If you are still using the Auto setting to take all of your pictures, try using
- the Portrait mode to capture a close up of foliage against a blurred background, or
- the Macro mode (typically represented by a tulip icon) to take detailed close ups of leaves and flowers.
And the best tips: always have your camera handy and take tons of pictures, even a millisecond between shots can capture a subject differently.
Banner 7 Navigation Tutorial is Now Available!
In November of 2007 Banner 6 Student Information System- SiRIUS and Financial System - UniFi will be upgraded to Banner 7 version. A web-based navigation tutorial for Banner 7 is now available.
This tutorial is meant to familiarize you with basic navigation in the Banner 7 system, how to find the records you want and how to move among forms, fields, and views of the data. Please note that it is not specific to the way that U of S uses "Banner", so the actual data on the forms in the CBT may vary, and some forms presented may not even be used at U of S. Actual use of Banner at U of S is handled in SiRIUS and UniFi in-person training sessions.
We recommend that all current and new users of SiRIUS take the “Banner 7 Navigation Tutorial” prior to attending any training sessions in the fall. If you have any questions or encounter any problems please contact Sis support
for assistance.
PowerPoint Workshop Consolidation
As of July 1st, 2007, all existing PowerPoint workshops will be phased out. The workshop topics are now consolidated into two, 6 hour Intermediate course offerings:
PowerPoint Intermediate – Customizing and Integrating
PowerPoint Intermediate – Getting to Your Audience
Customizing and Integrating will address modifying the PowerPoint environment for your personal requirements, creating masters and templates and importing/exporting data to and from other Microsoft applications.
Getting to Your Audience covers all graphics and multimedia related topics, applying transitions and animations as well as packaging a presentation for distribution to diverse audiences and platforms.
PAWS Training Manuals Now Online!
PAWS training manuals can now be accessed online:
On the PAWS login page, under Help & Information, you can now find a PAWS Training link that will take you to the place on the ITS website where you can access following manuals:
- PAWS Introduction
- PAWS Intermediate
- PAWS Calendar
- PAWS Groups
- PAWS My Courses
The same information can also be found under the Help screen inside PAWS.
New Course Offered - Updating & Maintaining an Existing Website
ITS Training Services are offering a new class - Updating & Maintaining an Existing Website, for those have been given the task of updating and maintaining a website that has already been created.
The focus of the workshop includes website planning, understanding the current file structure, file management, file transfer, and working with programming files that may exist in the file structure.
For more information about the course please see ITS Training website.
Adobe Acrobat 8
With so many applications available on so many platforms, it is becoming increasingly necessary to mix and mingle multi formatted resource documents into a single, accessible, and portable unit. Most of you have heard of a “PDF” but you might not know how this file type can be of service in your computing environment. Adobe Acrobat version 8.0 provides the ability to combine documents of varying types into a portable format, accessible from web, email or internet. It also has some great features for the “review process” that may be added post source. If you have been struggling with how to create a professional looking document from a multitude of sources or concerned with distribution issues such as version or platform compatibility, the Adobe Acrobat Introductory course can help you out. Sign up now as this course is filling up quickly!
Training, training, training...
At ITS Training Services, we offer over 100 courses! Whether you’re learning how to navigate a computer operating system, GPS or Digital Camera, we can help you.
Discover the exciting worlds of Desktop Publishing, Web Authoring or Media and Graphic Design… or maybe you simply want to fine tune your knowledge of the basic Microsoft Applications; we can answer all your questions.
For those of you with specialized requirements, we offer a variety of application specific classes such as Database Management, Project Management,Statistical Software,and state of the art Teaching Technologies.
…and here at the U of S you can learn more about Research Grant Applications, PAWS, UniFi and Si! Systems.
If you are a CUPE member, and thinking of taking a computer course for the first time in your life, you might consider registering in on of the CUPE offerings which are geared to the novice.
Whatever your experience or desire, you can probably find it among or course listing, and if you can’t just give us a call; we offer customized support as well.
TeachUS-IT
If you are a self-paced learner eager to try online courses and would like to learn Microsoft Office applications at your own pace, and on your own time, visit TeachUS-IT web page and register for this service.
TeachUS-IT is provided free of charge to students, faculty and staff at our university.
Please sign in with your NSID and password.
Welcome to the Training Services blog!
We invite you to come back regularly for current training schedules, course highlights and information about our various activities.
Please feel free to provide us with any feedback, and we hope we will see you soon in one of our instructor lead or online classes.
University of Saskatchewan Training Services.