• Calendar | News | People | A to Z | Home

Instructional Technologies

IIT offers many different services and technology resources for your use in and out of the classroom. Below are the most commonly used resources.

E-Mail Mailing Lists
Moodle
Class Folders
Chat Room
Web Site
Feedback Form Creator
Workshops and Seminars
Classroom Carts and Technology Installations

E-Mail Mailing Lists

Each term, an e-mail mailing list is automatically setup for your use in your courses. This tool is, by far, the most widely used technology on campus. Course mailing lists take the form of <deptname or abbreviation>-<course number><course section>. For example, the mailing list for Math 124 B would be math-124b@stolaf.edu. Course mailing lists should be used only with the authorization of the faculty member teaching the course.

Course mailing lists include every registered member of a class — both students and auditors — and are updated nightly from information from the Registrar's Office. Faculty teaching the course are also included based on Registrar's Office data. TA's are not automatically included. A faculty member may request TA inclusion by sending e-mail to root@stolaf.edu.

Current Term Courses

Mailing lists exist for current courses and are in effect according to the following schedule:

Term	Valid Dates
Semester 1	Sepember 1 through December 31
Interim	January 1 through January 31
Semester 2	February 1 through May 31
Summer Session 1	June 1 through July 15
Summer Session 2	July 16 through August 31

View the list of current course mailing lists.

Past and Future Term Courses

Course mailing lists exist for future terms -- once registration has occurred for that term -- and for the past two terms. For example, semester 1 mailing lists can be used through Interim and second semester. Semester 2 mailing lists can be used through the end of summer session II.

In order to use past or future term mailing lists, you must use the "fully qualified" course mailing list name. In general, this "fully qualified" list name is of the form:

year - term - course @stolaf.edu

where year is like "2004-05" and term is one of the following: semester1, interim, semester2, summersession1, summersession2. The course is the familiar name like "classics-129" or "math-112."

Lists of students enrolled in courses from past or future terms is available through the Student Information System.

 

Moodle

Moodle is St. Olaf's course management system (sometimes called a Virtual Learning Environment). Moodle is a powerful, but easy to use web application that was used by over 140 courses last year. The St. Olaf Moodle server is located at http://moodle.stolaf.edu/

A Moodle course can include forums for discussion, live chat rooms, online class materials (called resources), a calendar of events, quizzes, a grade book, assignments, journals, and more. A single course could have all of these features or only a subset, depending on which tools are selected for use.

Classes in Moodle are automatically generated from the Registrar's data and students registered for a class are automatically registered for the corresponding Moodle online class. Faculty members are added as Professors in their Moodle classes automatically. Photos are also added to the list of participants in a class based on their college ID photos.

Access to a Moodle course is typically restricted to people with St. Olaf usernames and passwords, but can also be granted to anonymous guests, depending on settings set by the faculty member(s) teaching the course.

Moodle is an easy-to-learn, easy-to-use system and both faculty and students can be up and running with it in a matter of minutes. Moodle has excellent online documentation available as well as a Teacher's Manual.

Many faculty have questions about whether they should use Moodle or use a combinations of the other tools mentioned above. The answer depends on the person teaching and what kinds of features they need or want. If you need assistance in determining which route would be best, contact contact your IIT Department Representative.

 

Class Folders

Each term, class folders are automatically created for each class section on the server classes.stolaf.edu. Students are automatically granted access to those classes for which they are registered. Likewise, when faculty are granted access to those classes they are teaching. Faculty may request TA's be added to their course mailing lists (see above) and they will be granted access to the corresponding class directory.

Access to the class folders is on the same schedule printed above for the e-mail mailing lists. Faculty wishing to prepare class directories for upcoming semesters can request the class folders for their class sections be created ahead of time. Such requests can be made via e-mail to root@stolaf.edu and should include the department, course number(s), and section letter(s) for the needed folders.

Each class directory has a disk quota of 50MB. Faculty can request disk quota increases for class directories via e-mail to root@stolaf.edu.

On Macs, the class folders can be found on the Classes volume which is accessible from the server classes.stolaf.edu. When mounted on your desktop, you will see an icon labeled 'CLASSES'. Within CLASSES you will see any class directories to which you have access.

On PCs, class folders appear on the L: drive.

If you need assistance in connecting to classes.stolaf.edu, please contact the IIT HelpDesk at x3830 or via e-mail at helpdesk@stolaf.edu.

Class folders are usually accessed directly from classes.stolaf.edu, but are also accessible via the web, so even off-campus users can gain access to class materials, including faculty wishing to post materials to the class folders. Web access to the materials is available via the web server Axel. For full details, please review the information at http://www.stolaf.edu/services/iit/documentation/remotefiles/.

Explanation of the folders within a class folder

Each class folder is automatically created with the following folder structure:

Class Materials
The Class Materials folder is used to store materials used by the class, such as a syllabus, papers, etc. Students can only read the files in this folder, they cannot make changes. Faculty have full read and write access.

DropBox
The DropBox folder is used by students to submit assignments. Students can only write to this folder; they cannot see its contents. When students submit a file to the DropBox, they may want to add their name to the name of the file so that it can be identified as their submission. Faculty have full read and write access to the DropBox folder.

Professor
The Professor folder is only used by faculty and TA's to store private information about the class, such as class lists, grades, etc. This folder is hidden from students so they can neither see nor make changes to the files. Faculty and TA's have full read and write access to this folder.

Student Shared
The Student Shared folder is a place where groups of students can collaborate on documents. Both students and faculty have read and write access to the files in this folder. Faculty should remind students of the ideas of academic integrity and to not delete or change other students' work.

Library Materials
The Library Materials folder is used by the Library to put "e-reserves" or documents that you have placed on reserve and which they have scanned and created electronic versions of. Students and faculty can only read the files in this folder; they cannot make changes.

 

Chat Room

Another service that faculty members can use in their courses is real-time chat rooms. Chat rooms can be used for many purposes from class discussions in foreign languages (a popular option in the Norwegian department, in particular) to virtual offices hours to debates between class members.

A demonstration chat room can be seen at http://www.stolaf.edu/chat/demo.html. If you are interested in using a chat room in your, e-mail a request to beach@stolaf.edu with the department and course number for which you would like a chat room.

 

Web Site

Some faculty prefer to put course materials on the web in addition to, or instead of, using the class folders mentioned previously. Links to online course materials for the current term can be found at http://www.stolaf.edu/courses/. Faculty wishing to put course materials on the St. Olaf web site can request a web space via the form at http://www.stolaf.edu/courses/course-request.html. Course web sites can be open to the world, restricted to on-campus viewers, or password protected.

Creating web sites can be a little tricky at times, depending on what you wish to put online and what kinds of features you want to include in your course web site. Documentation on creating web pages can be found at http://www.stolaf.edu/services/iit/documentation/webpage/.

 

Feedback Form Creator

The Feedback Form Creator, found at http://www.stolaf.edu/formcreator/ is a web-based survey system designed for course feedback and evaluations. It can be used at anytime during the term to gather feedback about course content, student comprehension, or general feedback. It can also be used for surveys outside of courses. More detailed information and instructions are available from the system once you have logged in.

 

Workshops and Seminars

Each semester, IIT offers a variety of computing seminars for faculty and staff to help you learn new skills or brush up on forgotten ones. Topics range from creating images to developing web sites to working with databases and spreadsheets. The schedule of seminars is available via the LEARN system at http://www.stolaf.edu/apps/learn/

IIT can also assist you arrange for specialized workshops for your classes. IIT staff can come to your class to teach web design, using the servers, creating presentations with PowerPoint, and many other topics. If you would like assistance in scheduling a workshop for your class(es), contact your IIT Department Representative.

 

Classroom Technology Installations

Many classrooms are equipped with various levels of technology. Nearly 80% of the St. Olaf classrooms are equipped with computers and projectors. The full list of equipped rooms, along with instructions on using the technology available in each room, can be found at http://www.stolaf.edu/services/iit/classrooms/. You can also search for rooms with particular features and read up on classroom technology pedagogy from the various links provided.