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Know Your Campus Tools and Resources

Wichita State provides many educational technologies and other useful tools and services to aid in instruction. If you have any questions about resources, OIR can help, and if we can't, we will get you to the right office or person to address your need.

Suggested Tools and Resources:

  • University Libraries provides a multitude of library guides to help you and your students. These guides are organized by subject, by course/workshop/student group, and by help topic. Don't see what you need on one of these lists? Reach out to your Subject Librarian for additional help.
  • Microsoft Office 365 has many tools you can use in conjunction with your classes to offer enrichment and to streamline your processes, but that only works if everyone has activated the software. Suggest or require your students to download Microsoft Office 365 (free to students), and make sure you have these Microsoft tools If you need help installing software on your work computer, reach out to the WSU Helpdesk.
  • Useful Microsoft Office 365 tools include: OneDrive for cloud storage and collaboration such as sharing of documents and videos, Sway for engaging presentations and interactive newsletters, PowerPoint for slides and video presentations, Stream for playing video files, Word for word processing and sharing document creation with others, Teams (especially Teams integration with Blackboard) for file sharing as well as chat and virtual meetings, Excel for data management and presentation. In addition, Microsoft 365 products such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook may soon have AI assistance through the new tool, Microsoft 365 Copilot. Need some training in these tools? Search for ITS training opportunities through MyTraining, and if you don't find what you need, LinkedIn Learning is a great option too. OIR is also here to help you find the training you need.
  • Snagit is provided to all university instructors, staff, and student employees, and it allows you to easily capture your screen for still images and video. Using Snagit in combination with Microsoft OneDrive allows instructors to create videos and store them in their own cloud-based OneDrive storage for easy retrieval.
  • Many instructors know Anthology Ally as the tool that puts the accessibility "dials" next to uploaded content. But did you know that Ally also allows students to download properly formatted documents (documents with green dials) in alternative ways that allow students to put the content on an e-reader or listen to an audio version of the document on an MP3 player? If you are not sure how this tool works, reach out to OIR@wichita.edu, and we can work with you on the content in your classes and provide you with instructions for your students.
  • Other Blackboard tools to consider include: the test tool (which can be used to build "worksheets" as well, journals, discussion boards, assignments, adaptive release (AKA "release conditions" in Ultra) for unlocking material as a student moves through a course, the announcements tool in conjunction with email, course messages. If you have questions about any Blackboard tools, we are here to help you at OIR@wichita.edu.
  • Panopto for video creation and storage if Microsoft solutions are not currently available to you. If you are just learning how to create and store video, OIR recommends you use Microsoft tools.
  • LinkedIn Learning is free for all WSU-associated people including employees and students. LinkedIn Learning courses also result in course completion certificates, which can serve as evidence of timely completion of the topic. Not only does this help prepare students to learn more in your course, it allows them to communicate their skills to potential employers.
  • Other useful software includes: Microsoft Azure for Engineering students, Windows 10, ArcGIS, SPSS, and EndNote.
  • Keep an eye on The Chronicle of Higher Education, which regularly provides tips and tricks for teaching any size course. As an instructor at Wichita State, you have free access to the Chron! Simply login to MyWSU, and on the Faculty/Staff tab, in the upper left corner (the "Tools" module) you can find a link to the Chronicle of Higher Education under the "Tools" heading. Some useful, recent articles/letters include: