Graduate Students - Technology Tools webinar

Hello everyone. Welcome to today's presentation. My name is Brandon Shadle. I'm the Graduate Enrollment Coordinator here at Walla Walla University. And today we'll be talking about some of the technology tools you will use as a graduate student at WWU.

Anytime during the presentation, if you have a question, you can type it in the chat box. We'll try to get to all the questions near the end of the presentation. It should take about 2025 minutes or so for us to run through these slides. As I move through the slides, you'll be able to see all the past ones as well. If you'd like to download the slides or re access this session, it will be sent to you via a link.

That should come within the next couple days after we're finished today.

So without further ado, let's get started and jump into, uh, next our first task here. So we're going to be talking about my WWU.

And I'll send a link in the chat section as well. So hopefully that's coming through for you guys to be able to see it. You can expand, of course, this box with the square in the upper right hand corner at any point, and you should see the chat box as well.

So let's talk about my WWU or Mywoo as we call it internally. Uh, we've covered in the previous, uh, webinar for preparing for fall. You can access that recording if you're registered, umm, and it should be available on our website or YouTube channel soon. You've probably already had some interaction with this, but it's very important. My WWU is our student portal. That's what you'll be utilizing as a student here to log in and see.

Umm.

To your your account balance, your grades, information about financial aid access all important applications or tech tools as a graduate student, and a record of account transactions will be shown there when you log in.

This is also where you begin the financial clearance process, register for classes and where you will, uh, complete registration finalization too. Right now, most important thing for you to do is to check your To Do List.

Which would be. You'd be able to access that by sending into Mywoo and going and clicking on PeopleSoft Student Center Classic from the Applications menu.

And that will list everything that you have left to do before the year begins. At certain times, especially as we get closer to your term beginning, uh, more things will populate on here. More information will display about next items for you to complete.

So if you click on the items under To Do List, it's being somewhere on maybe the right hand corner of your screen. It might say To Do List. You can click on the different tasks to learn a little bit more information about them.

Maybe how to complete them and maybe it's a form or a waiver to fill out and then who's responsible should have some type of contact or information there or department that you could inquire For more information, which I'm sure exactly what's needed. Most of you will probably have information on here from our Student Financial Services or SFS department for a lot of those tasks to complete right now.

As soon as you are admitted or accepted, uh, you should receive login instructions, umm, at least within 24 hours or so. Umm, for my Wu to set up your student account or my Woo account as part of an automated e-mail asking you to choose a password. And if you've never logged in before, you'll find it's easy for the most part. Your username is gonna be your first dot last name.

Andthenitswfirst.lastname@wallwallet.edu for your e-mail and you'll sign in with whatever password you chose. If you can't remember your password, never remember picking one. Uh, you can try signing in and clicking forgot password, which is usually a blue link at the bottom. And typically the recovery e-mail would be the e-mail, umm, usually your personal e-mail you use to create your application account with us.

If you continue to have problems logging in trouble, contact Computer Help desk, umm, by phone or e-mail their numbers listed there on the screen. They're a great resource, they can help get it sorted out for you.

When you do send, if you send them an e-mail, make sure to include your name and if you can your WWW ID number to make sure they can identify you and if.

And your phone number in case they do need to call you back.

If we have any younger students joining us right now.

Or people with very helpful spouses.

Just a reminder, computer support will only be able to talk to and help change information for the student themselves. So.

Students will be need to be the ones to call if need assistance.

All students are given wawaemailaddress.edu e-mail address accessible through Office 365. But the same uh signing you use here for Mywoo you use to access Office 365, your e-mail and all other applications that's needed to sign in at the university.

And it would be important as well. This next step after setting up my woo is to start checking your, umm, e-mail while, while e-mail address, uh, frequently as you begin classes in this course. Once you begin classes, check that frequently as that's where a lot of correspondence will come from the university as well as your professors.

Again, I'm going to cover a few reminders before we jump into the tech tools of some tasks, just to remind everyone in case, especially in case you missed the the Preparing Fall webinar. So we're going to go over a few things you should have completed right now. You should sign up for classes.

If you've just been admitted, make sure to try and meet with your advisor. Set up my woo log in there, see the do list that you might need to do, and then rush her for classes. You should contact advisor, finalize any academic plan if needed. Once that plan is finalized, you'll register through PeopleSoft or through High Point. Accessed from the IWW if you are accepted in the graduate program with courses still in progress.

And have graduated or you're accepted provisionally with just a unofficial transcript, make sure to send us your official final transcripts as soon as possible. Uh, without this, you might have difficulty with financial clearance. Umm, your loan disbursement, uh, could be affected as well. If you're planning to utilize those. If you'd like an ID card, umm, the process is handled through IT department. We're planning that you'll be able to submit a photo for review. And if that's accepted, it allows to print a card, uh, using this applied photo and could be delivered to.

You if you're coming to main campus, our IT department is in the basement of Rigby Hall and you can stop in there or e-mail them to schedule an appointment to get your ID card.

Set up.

Uh, Montana's students, umm, for Billings campus, uh, you'll have to wait for ID cards. Usually they'll be mailed to your campus with some photos taken that the first week of classes, uh, but the main processing machine comes through Washington. Your WID card, uh, can be used at the cafeteria.

At the bookstore, it can be used at the express. These are all kind of local items to the main campus.

The UH gym or Whack Winter Educational complex and then the library on the college based campus and it's important to access UH buildings allowed to during certain hours. Some of you will be on a fully online program so won't have to worry too much about accessing it. Cards to buildings for us, but you can still get your student ID.

And they might be able to be used at local businesses for student discount if needed.

All right, so let's jump into the first kind of main technology tool you'll be utilizing as a graduate student.

Beyond my Wu is Microsoft Teams. Teams is our video conferencing tool chat based workspace in Office 365. It will allow you to connect with peers and engage in classes. Good news, Microsoft Teams app is downloadable and your favorite Apple or Android App Store. And you can of course access it through web browser by signing in with your my WWU e-mail and password that you set up.

And you can do so at teams.microsoft.com.

You can also download the desktop version, I usually prefer to use that with laptop, just ease of navigation and have it have it separate taking place. It's easier to access chat and switch between tasks as well while you're in your meeting or a class that's taking place. So it's available for Mac OS, Windows 8.1, later some Linux systems too.

But you'll be utilizing that quite a bit. So here's a little bit of screenshot of what the main classes will look like. Your courses will be loaded into teams or teams channels that we refer to. And this is where any online or synchronous sessions will take place as well. Blows kind of an example screenshot of what they could look like as you load in, these will typically be populated.

Sunday before classes begin. So September 28th, they should be populated, but definitely, uh, some of you might still be going through the system, finalizing a few things, maybe finalizing registration. So, uh, alert your professor as soon as possible if you are going to be a little bit delayed in, in finalizing some things. So that way they can make sure that you are added manually to the roster. But otherwise, if you're taking care of everything ahead of time and are fully cleared, they should be loaded by September 28th or the morning of the 29th.

All right, so live sessions should be listed on your syllabus. If any synchronized session is taking place, that should be in your syllabus and as a calendar item within teams when you where you can Click to join at the appropriate time. You can see an example on the left. You can chat with fellow classmates, professors.

As well, umm, you can share your screen as you prepare for presentations, umm, and easily share files for members of the teams. If you're working on any collaboration of documents, many of you might have utilized this for workplace as well. So all this might be, uh, information you already know, but for those of you new, here's some helpful tips.

You can also view or download a lot of information to and easily share those files. The right is an example of what it may look like when you're in a live session. You can toggle a camera on off, microphone on off. It's good to practice to keep yourself on mute, but remember to unmute yourself to speak.

Especially if you're listening to the professor or someone else talk for a little bit just in case there might be some background noise. You can click on the three dots or ellipses to open a menu for more options where you can switch microphones if needed. If you maybe plug one in or connect to Bluetooth midway through and doesn't automatically switch, or if you want to apply nice photo for background check background effects, you can do so through that.

Again, I recommend downloading the app on your smartphone, laptop or desktop. Umm, that you'll be using, uh, very soon for classes.

All right, the next one we'll be talking about is where you'll be accessing courses, where syllabus is housed, a few other items. This is called dwell Brightspace. So Brightspace is whether you're learning in person or online, where you'll be use our learning management system, Brightspace. This is accessible from my WVU homepage under Applications or at class.wallawalla.edu.

Brightspace lists your classroom assignments.

Excuse me?

Course progress and content.

And you will upload your assignments here and access course syllabus. So let's try and show you an extremely helpful video that one of our instructional designers put together, Alex Harris.

And again you can access this through class.wallawalla.edu.

All right. Hopefully that was very helpful video from Alex.

One of our instructional designers next I want to talk to you about after you've registered for classes, kind of gotten some of those To Do List done, you should be planning on how you'll order or get your textbooks for the upcoming quarter.

To do that, you'll want to go to uhwallawalla.slingshotedu.com. It's our bookstore home page. Uh, you can log in or you can click on books and then enter manually the courses registered for. If you're registered for classes though, umm already, then your courses should appear if you log in along with any required materials. Some courses do not have any materials. Umm, at this point, all of them should be, uh, set and put there. So if they're showing no materials.

You don't need to worry about ordering any materials for that class. Umm. All students are opted into Slingshot when they start their program with a preference for rental books. Set as default and you'll stay opted in for future terms unless you choose to opt out. Any student can opt out or return unneeded books. Uh, but we can't guarantee we'll have books for students that are opted out. Materials will ship to your home or campus address on file unless you specify to Slingshot to send them to a new location.

Umm, our bookstore is easy option I would say uh, you can call them with any help uh that you might need.

I also recommend, though, checking libraries or if there's a book assigned to discuss over the quarter, Also check audiobook apps. Umm, there's a lot of great resources out there to help kind of find different ways if you're trying to fit within a certain budget. So those are great ways to help ease that.

I'll go ahead and chat and send the link to our bookstore page. You might want to start collecting these as favorites and bookmarks for all the things you you you'll use as a student. Umm.

So those are the most important topics we want to kind of cover today on screen. You'll see some helpful numbers, phone numbers in different departments that you may interact with or need to get in contact with. Feel free to copy some of those down if you want to now.

They are listed on our website. You can search on the website for department or person and it should bring up their contact information for you. You can find a full list of steps to enroll at wallawalla.edu/new Steps if you're just curious about the overall picture and general timelines for different things that should take place as a graduate student.

And you can select if you're an international student or another student type that will provide a structured kind of summary of everything we covered today and give instructions for completing remaining tasks. But if you have been admitted and then you should be getting soon if you haven't already instructions to set up my Wu, make sure to check the to to list there and complete those in a timely manner.

And you're always welcome to contact me with any questions. Also, graduate studies office.

Especially if you're having trouble with registration or your advisor may be, uh, you know, gone or out of the office right now and you're wanting to kind of take care of registration. Graduate Studies office can assist with that. So you can e-mail grad.studies@wallawalla.edu or give them a call and they can help clear that and get you restored for the courses you need if you're having issues.

Hopefully we answered everything that you might have questions on right now. Probably a lot of information from some of you as well, but if you do have questions, feel free to to put that in the questions or or chat box and be happy to answer those as they come through.

And so I will say I'm going to give the link to past webinars, so if you wanted to.

Take a look at past ones that have taken place such as preparing for fall. Maybe you are coming here to campus and you want to understand a little bit better in depth the financial clearance process or village housing.

And Student Life, there are some webinar videos on those as well that you can feel free to explore at the link I sent to you forward slash webinars from our website.

All right. So we have a question from somebody that was wondering what was the name of the?

Software you use for classes.

So that was Microsoft Teams, which you can access from teams.microsoft.com.

You will sign in with your Walla Walla username and password to log in there. So you will need a working webcam and microphone. That's pretty much required. Usually it's built into your smart device.

Or or laptops as well. Classes were listed as arr for some of you.

And maybe even hybrid programs that means online, that they meet online but there's just not set time and date. So pay close attention to the syllabus. Any posts by your instructor.

Always check your syllabus. That's a good tip first. First week classes kind of go through there, organize, see when important due dates are. If it does list weights of different activities such as maybe homework papers, discussion board posts, et cetera. Take a note of those so you can know how to plan, uh, to have a successful quarter.

And again, any synchronized sessions will also be listed in the syllabus if that happens to apply to you.

All right, another question that I will post here for everyone kind of see in case you're curious, what other digital resources do students typically use like text to speech apps E readers? Yes, some some students do utilize those There's a variety of them. I would also mention if you.

May have a, you know, disability or need a certain additional time, uh, you know, if English isn't the first language as well, sometimes you can get additional time if there are happen to be any time tests within your program. And you can do that, uh, by visiting our, uh, disability support services.

Office that's through our career Development center.

So you can get in contact with them and they can get get approved. So everything through like D2L or wherever those quizzes or things might be taking place and timed, you can make sure that you get the appropriate accommodations as needed. But students take notes on a variety of things. Most of them are utilizing either a tablet or computer for taking notes, but.

Good old pen and paper works just as well. So whatever may work best for you, go with. Maybe try a couple different ones out and see how it works. Certainly for some online sessions you can be using, you know, AI assisted readers and note takers too so.

There's a wide variety of options and it's pretty much what fits best with the student. Professors may have some.

Requirements are things that they may work around, but of course if it's anything that you you need for your learning, we can work with you or work through the disability support services as needed.

That's a great question.

Uh, yes, uh, another great question as well. Is there a map where, uh, we may see where classes and buildings, uh, are at for the courses you'll be taking? So if you are coming for in person classes that will be listed in the classes you register for.

So it should list down there an abbreviation of the building name and then the room number that's in.

And there is a campus map that you can access. I'll see if I can find the link here.

If you didn't get a chance to do a virtual tour or in person tour and kind of get a little bit of orientation there if you remember from this far out.

Then looking on our website for a campus map would be helpful.

A lot of you, you know, like if your biology, most of you will be in Rigby building.

Your social work, umm, on.

Building the campus, it's pretty easy.

You walk in.

I go to the right there, usually from the main back entrance by the parking lot and classes are there usually greeted as well. For college place, campus, in person social work, you'd be at the winter educational complex off of 4th St. for us.

And that's where your classes would take place.

So when you register for the classes or you search up. So you should be able to log into Mywoo, go to PeopleSoft Student Center Classic and see the courses registered for. If you have questions let me know. I can walk you through that later. Umm, but that'll list a short abbreviation of the.

Building name and then the room number and then you can look at that from our our campus map.

To see what buildings match that.

If you're you're uncertain advisor department, umm, call the department or contact myself or graduate studies and we can help you out.

For those of you in College Place campus.

I did send you a link to the map that you should be able to download. It brings you to kind of just populate. It's like a Google map essentially for you to see there. But if you click the download it then you can get a printed PDF version of it.

So just one day, uh, reiterate a little bit what we covered before. You can still ask questions in the chat or questions box. Uh, we'll get to those. Umm, So in the past for the different workshops or webinars we covered were financial clearance, residential housing in depth and then preparing for fall quarter specific as a graduate student. So I can send you the link to access that if you're curious. A lot of that was the Mywoo.

D2L in ordering textbooks also touched on financial clearance throughout that process.

And then today's session, everyone will get a recording access to to this. Or if you want to replay that video on Brightspace several times, you'll be able to get that via link that will go out to you in a few days.

But if you missed any other presentations, you can go to forward slash webinars or forward slash workshops as shown on the screen to see some of those.

We'd love your feedback about the presentation. If you want to leave questions, suggestions for next time, you of course just e-mail them directly to me, but you can also go to.

Wallawalla.edu/grad Dash comment.

And you can leave feedback there. I'll send that link in the chat too. We'd love to know what you thought and any tips to make it better for next time. If you think of something you forgot to ask, you can always give a call to our Graduate Studies office at 509-527-2421.

Or you can e-mail at Grad Studies at Walla Walla Edu.

And I'll put that in the chat as well.

But thank you so much for everyone that attended. If your questions were answered, feel free to to log off. If you're curious about a few additional things, you can go ahead and put those questions through and ask them. I'd be happy to take a look at them and.

If I can't answer it, I'll get you connected to Ken.

But thank you everyone for joining the presentation. Hope you have a wonderful and successful upcoming quarter here at Walla Walla University as you begin your graduate studies career.

And I'm here to assist along the way. If you ever have a question, feel free to reach out.

I'm going to put back up the slide here as I wait to see if there's a few additional questions before you sign off. Uh, some of the departments and phone numbers. Uh, you can also go back through the slides that I shared for those of you that have access.

Yes, thanks Chris great question. Are you able to rewatch this down the road? Yes, a lot of the information will be covered. Maybe 2-3. What are we three weeks or so out uh from school beginning, uh, is a little too soon. So yes, I'll send the link. You'll have that to re access. If as our lives get super busy, you do forget that link or that e-mail, you can't find it, just message me. I'll send you back over the link.

Uh, you might even be able to just save the web address wrap, but I'm pretty sure you have to get the link once it's finishes downloading. Umm, and kind of encoding it to then share it so you'll get an e-mail with an access link. Go back to this webinar.

Can we watch it as much as you want down the road? Pause it, close it out, come back to it, Skip around a different sections as well. You should be able to view all the slides that are shown throughout this presentation as well, including the the link to the video that Alex did.

If you have any other questions you're thinking of, feel free to chat.

Those and we'll answer them.

If you did have all the questions answered.

You're wanting to sign off, get back to your evening. You can also do that as well.

I'll hang on here for a few more minutes and, and see I just as a reminder for all of you, those of you that might be listening to this, if you're, uh, coming for fall.

Classes, those begin the last Monday in September, so that would be September 29th for this year.

For fall classes.

If you happen to be listening to this, uh, did send it to a few of you that were for winter in case you wanted to jump start on things. Uh, winter quarter, uh, for us begins in January and so that would be I believe January 5th of 26.

Other than that, make sure to register for classes, go through financial clearance, go through a registration finalization, make sure you check if any textbooks are needed. Of course, you could probably just wait for them to automatically send you those those rentals if needed, but I'd go ahead and take a look through there and see if.

I'm going to return any or opt out of some if you're able to find the Meadow more affordable location.

All right, it looks like all the questions have stopped, so I'm going to close out this session and then you'll be on the lookout. Probably in about two days, you'll get an e-mail with a little bit more information and access to this link to rewatch everything. So thank you everyone for joining. Have a successful quarter at Walla Walla University, and thank you for joining Graduate Studies.

Bye bye.