The staff of Faculty Computing Services (FCS) continually searches for tools and techniques that instructors can use in their courses. Even the basics, such as Blackboard, Sympodiums and word processing software, can be used in many different ways to save you time, to help your students understand new ideas and learn new skills, and to accommodate different learning styles.

If you're new to using technology to enhance your classes, we recommend you start with the Blackboard Discussion Group Tool.

If you'd like to use technology to save yourself some time, we recommend you begin with an electronic grade book. Storing grades, or even just attendance records, in Excel can be quite a timesaver.

There are so many tools available at Hofstra that we're reluctant to swamp you with a list. Probably the best place to start is to drop by the Faculty Support Center in McEwen 215 and talk to one of our instructional technologists about options for your particular class or classes.

If you'd like to view a recent CTSE presentation given by our group on "Distance Learning, What's Right for Hofstra," it can be found by (clicking here). This link will bring you to the Hofstra Blackboard login page. Once logged in, you will be brought to the Hofstra All Faculty course. Click on CTSE and launch the presentation. You can even join in the online discussion after viewing the presentation!

We can steer you to specific software packages; classrooms with specific equipment in them; and services and training we offer that might get you started.

Bob Khatami maintains the list of academic software on campus. If you'd like to know if we have a particular software application you're interested in, or something that serves the same purpose, feel free to contact him directly.

Every spring and fall, we ask faculty to send in their software requests for the following semester's teaching. When that is online, you'll see a link to it here. It's a simple Web form – no printing and returning of forms is required.

Members of FCS are available to present to each department the resources that we think might be of interest to your specific field. Hopefully, we'll see you at an upcoming department meeting. The material we compile about field-specific technology tools will be posted here for everyone to use.

Two hot topics for academic 2005-2006 are podcasting and learning objects. Podcasting is really just a way of distributing digital audio to your classes. Duke University had some interesting results using iPods and podcasting with their students last year. We're investigating the possibilities for podcasting at Hofstra. Let us know if you're interested.

Learning objects generally are small digital objects incorporating text, motion and sound to help students understand complex concepts or learn new skills. Here's some sample learning objects faculty at Hofstra have built.

Please contact FCS if you would like to discuss any of these options, or any others you find interesting. We can help you find a resource catered to your specific discipline and/or courses.