Office of Academic Technology :: Spring Arbor University

OAT Trains in Kalamazoo

This past Friday, November 13, OAT staff traveled to the Kalamazoo site to train faculty on “Getting Started with Blackboard“.  Dave Goodrich joined Randy Meredith and Jason Archer to add an extra layer of support and ability.  This training was the third in a series of “OAT Roadtrips”, faculty training at regional sites.  The first [...]

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November OATmeal focuses on Grade Center

One of the major updates to that came along with the Blackboard 9 upgrade this summer included a transformation from what used to be called the Grade Book to what is now called the Grade Center. Director of Academic Technology at Spring Arbor University and Professor Randy Meredith has been teaching workshops, giving personal training [...]

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Podcasting Toolkit

Podcasting is the process of creating an audio show of some sort available in MP3 format via an RSS 2.0 feed that supports enclosures. Podcasts are designed to include talk shows, tutorials, music, or other audio content.  At SAU, we record audio files and upload them to iTunes U.  We then connect the files through [...]

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Faculty Tab Added to MySAU

The Office of Academic Technology in partnership with Technology Services software development team are pleased to unveil a new tab in MySAU.  Now all faculty will see a “Faculty” tab in the top navigation.  The faculty tab contains information from the Office of Academic Technology.  The page contains RSS feeds of OAT news and events [...]

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OAT Adds Library Consulting Hours

OAT staff will be available at White Library for walk-in consultations beginning this week.  The faculty development office, located across from the circulation desk, will be staffed Mondays and Tuesdays from 2-4pm.  The purpose of OAT staff in the library will be to provide more accessibility to faculty as well as on-demand training for new [...]

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October OATmeal Features Flips, Clickers, & Chat

The October 2009 OATmeal faculty buck lunch was jam packed with demos and introductions to new tools for faculty.  Dave Goodrich began the event with prayer and a general overview of the agenda.  Jason Archer provided a demo of OAT Live Chat, a chat service designed to provide a greater service to faculty and academic [...]

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Blackboard Update To Fix Some Issues

Technology Services recently completed testing and preparations for Blackboard’s latest upgrades. We will be taking the primary system offline to install these upgrades October 8, beginning at 2:30 AM Eastern time. The upgrade will last approximately three hours. As a result of the upgrade you can expect these improvements: Discussion forums can now be re-ordered by [...]

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Chat Service Released

The Office of Academic Technology is pleased to release a new service to SAU faculty:  OAT Live Chat.  OAT Live Chat is a Web-based chat service that instantly connects SAU faculty to OAT staff with no software, training, or installations.  It just works.  ”Many faculty, specifically regional site adjunct faculty, are many times traveling, speaking, [...]

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Faculty Training Stretches to Regional Sites

Last Friday, the Office of Academic Technology (OAT) stopped off on its second leg of regional site faculty training called “OAT Roadtrips”.  The purpose of the training sessions are to partner with the School of Graduate and Professional Studies to enhance faculty support and training for adjunct regional site faculty. Jason Archer began with a brief [...]

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OATmeal Recap: Blackboard 9 Basics & Bugs

Last week the Office of Academic Technology kicked off its third year with an overview of Blackboard 9. Held in the Ralph Carey Forum during lunch, the OAT team presented on a variety of changes in Blackboard 9.  Instructional Designer David Goodrich kicked off the presentations by providing an overview of the Assignment Tool [...]

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