Everyone knows that fall is a busy time for students. You are busy finding your classes, friends that you haven’t seen since spring, and an open seat in the all too crowded dinning hall or downtown Starbucks, not to mention finding last night’s homework (potentially buried somewhere beneath the clothes you’ve been procrastinating on washing on your dorm room floor).
With so many things that you are already worried about locating, finding the technology resources you need to succeed in school should never have to be one of them. This is why ITS Training Services wants to make it as easy as possible for you to find the technology help you need to complete course work, learn skills to put on your resume, or just fulfill your own technological curiosity.
We believe that when it comes to using the technologies you need for class, it should be easy for you to get the help you need, when you need it. As such, we’ve created this guide to technology training resources for students that will tell you everything you need to know about the resources you have at your fingertips – from where to find them to when to use them.
Tech Tutors
The Tech Tutors provide students at University Park with free, one-on-one personalized training on the technologies they need. The Tech Tutors are located in the Knowledge Commons (in Pattee Library) and in Pollock Computer Lab (above the Testing Center) and have walk-in hours from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. This means that you don’t need to make an appointment; you can walk right in! The Tech Tutors can help with Excel, Word, Photoshop, coding, building a website with Sites at Penn State, and more. Stop by and let them help you create an ePortfolio or walk you through building a Pivot Table in Excel!
lynda.com
Imagine having thousands of free, top-quality video tutorials on hundreds of software topics at your finger tips 24/7. This is exactly what you get with lynda.com! Lynda.com is a service that is free for all Penn State students and is one of the best technology resources around. Each tutorial is taught by an industry expert and is broken up into short segments that are easy to navigate. You can find tutorials on everything from Excel, Word, Photoshop, and WordPress to more complex software topics such as CAD programs and Agile Project Management software. So whether you need to learn a technology for a class assignment or want to learn a software skill to put on your resume, http://lynda.psu.edu/ is the place to go.
Microsoft IT Academy
Are you interested in Windows Server or SQL? Are you an IST student who wants to learn more about configuring, deploying, and administering Microsoft software? If so, check out Microsoft IT Academy. This service gives you free access to Microsoft eLearning courses that Microsoft has specifically developed to train people in using and administering their software products. You can search through the Learning Catalog made up of over 1,800 courses and customize your own My Learning page to focus on the topics that interest you the most. Visit http://msitacademy.psu.edu/ (or click the link above), read the Login Instructions, and sign in with your Penn State Access Account ID and Password to get started.
Workshops
Students have technology training workshops available to them every semester, on topics including Sites at Penn State, ANGEL, Office and Adobe products, and even cool topics like iPad image editing apps. These workshops are held both face-to-face (usually in Willard building at University Park) and online to make it as easy as possible for students to attend. They are almost always free, with an occasional class having a very low cost associated with it. Many of the workshops are hands-on and allow you to walk through the technologies for yourself as you follow along with the instructor and ask any questions that you may have. If you learn best in a classroom setting, these workshops are perfect for you. You can register by clicking the link above or by going to http://its.psu.edu/training/ and clicking on Register for Training.
Handouts
If you don’t have time to attend a workshop, or you prefer having something that you can print out, you can access one of ITS Training Services many handouts and Quick Start Guides on Penn State tools at http://its.psu.edu/training/handouts/. You can easily find, download, and print instructions on using ANGEL, Sites at Penn State, and more.