Academic Tech Tips

Sakai 20 is coming to Loyola on Monday, December 21^st, 2020! On 12/21 from 7am to 12pm, Sakai will be unavailable. 

Once the upgrade is complete, the following new and improved features will be available: 

• Sakai Grader with a document preview for the Assignments tool 
• A date manager that allows instructors to quickly modify all due dates in the Site Info tool 
• An auto-groups wizard that takes the guesswork out of creating groups 
• A brand-new Rubrics tool that integrates with Assignments, Forums, and Tests & Quizzes 
• Gradebook enhancements, including the ability to equally weight items within a Gradebook category 
• Rich text editor templates to easily create stylized Lessons pages 
• And more! For a full list of new features, see the Sakai LMS blog. 

Faculty, staff, and students who would like to learn more about the changes coming to Sakai are invited to attend a “What’s New in Sakai 20?” info-session or a Q&A open forum with ITRS staff. For dates and registration information, see Sakai 20 Upgrade. 

Sakai 11 is finally here! With the upgrade complete, you may be struggling to locate your course sites, update your Lesson page to the new design, and enter grades. Below is a quick, eight-minute video that highlights a few of the new enhancements, including an interface with a new clean, modern design. The Lessons tool provides a simplified menu bar that includes the functionality for pages to incorporate section breaks, section titles, collapsible sections, and column breaks. The new Gradebook tool includes a spreadsheet-style grade entry with automatic saving and scoring validation

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On May 12^th, Loyola’s learning management system will be upgrading to Sakai 11. Per this upgrade, you will discover a few changes within Sakai. Some of these changes include:

• A new Gradebook tool
• Anonymous forum discussions
• More customization options for lessons
• A new Hot Spot question type within exams

We will be introducing the new Gradebook tool this Summer. During the Summer semester, you will still have access to both the current Gradebook (Gradebook Classic) and the new Gradebook. We encourage everyone to begin familiarizing themselves with the new Gradebook tool, since we will be removing Gradebook Classic from Sakai by the Fall semester. When using the new Gradebook this Summer, keep in mind that any changes you make to one of the Gradebook tools will reflect automatically in the other Gradebook tool, so you won’t need to make any changes twice.

You can begin working with our Sakai 11 development site to explore some of these changes on your own at https://lucdev.longsight.com/. Please note that this is an early development site and should only be used for testing purposes. Any courses you are building should be created in our current instance of Sakai 10. When Loyola makes the switch to Sakai 11 in May, your courses and course materials will transfer over accordingly.

If you would like to learn more about the Sakai 11 changes, please register for one of our training sessions or come to one of our Open Forum Discussions held on Fridays. If you are unable to make it to either one, feel free to contact us at ITRS@luc.edu so that we may schedule another time to introduce you to these new features in Sakai 11.

For more information please visit http://luc.edu/itrs/sakai/sakai11upgrade/.

Instructional Technology & Research Support (ITRS) assists faculty with the integration of technology into teaching, learning, and research. You can review our training opportunities and calendar of sessions offered on our new Technology Training webpage: http://www.luc.edu/itrs/resources/technologytraining/

 
Topics for training include Adobe Connect web conferencing, Atomic Learning online tutorials, Panopto lecture capture, Sakai learning management system, VoiceThread for online collaboration, and more!  When you are ready to register for a session, view our registration marketplace.

 
Space is limited, but we are adding more sessions each term, so be sure to check back often! You may also follow our ITRS training calendar under the University Calendar and then filter for “Instructional Technology and Research Support”.

Come learn about the various instructional technologies available at Loyola, and collaborate with faculty peers for new ideas about teaching with technology. Need more one-on-one support? Don’t forget, you are always welcome to stop by a drop-in location for additional guidance… just be sure to check the schedule on our website at: http://www.luc.edu/itrs/resources/Dropin.shtml

Atomic Learning is an online, on demand, training site that offers over 50,000 short tutorial videos on over 250 technology applications, including Microsoft and Adobe. Instructors can pull Atomic Learning videos directly into their Sakai courses. To find a tutorial on a particular subject, use keywords and optionally add filters for application, topic and category.

Try Atomic Learning by logging in at https://www.atomiclearning.com/login/luc using your Loyola credentials, and type your keywords into the Search box – or check out the featured Training & Resources, like Outlook 2013 or Computer Literacy Basics.

There is a free Atomic Learning app for iPad® available in the App Store. To log into the app, use your Loyola UVID and password, and type in “luc” under Advanced.

For a video introduction to Atomic Learning, visit https://connect.luc.edu/p6obwzxiy1e/.