Hey Guys,

With finals coming up and projects looming ahead I’ll bet many of you are suddenly having some frustration with your flash drives.  Not enough space, not enough convenience, not enough reliability; not even worth it.

A resource that students have that they usually don’t realize, is your google account. I’m not talking about your personal gmail, but one provided to you by the school.

To get to it, you simply login to google with just your school email and click sign in. After you do this, it will take you to a separate login page through the school, where you type in your UW-W login information.

Once you have done that it will take you to your school controlled google home page. It looks eerily similar to the normal google homepage, but it has your school email in the top right corner.

Click on the tiny collection of squares that’s next to your email. It will give you a couple of different options that you can use. Google Search, Drive, Sites, and Groups.

We are going to focus on Drive right now, so click on the green, yellow and blue triangle.

This will take you to your drive homepage. Here people can share documents with you, and you can store some of your own.

You have over 30 GB of storage available to you on here, so you can forget that annoying old external hard drive or your weathered and worn flash drive. Move to digital storage through the safety of the school and Google Drive.

That’s all I have for today!

Thanks for your time,

Elaina

Hey guys!

Welcome back from break! Most of you must be feeling the same sense of all consuming dread that the end of the semester is just 5 short weeks away? No? Just me then.

Well as a treat to help you guys hop back into the semester (and ever closer towards the oncoming storm of finals…), today we are going to talk about Lynda.com and your shiny new access to it!

Many of you have probably at least heard about Lynda.com, if you are not already a frequenter of the site. It is a place to help you with many of your digital needs. It has helpful teaching videos that will guide you step by step through a program.  Its knowledgebase includes, but is not limited to tutorials in 3D; Audio; Business; CAD or Computer-Aided Design; Design; Developer; Photography; Video; and Web.

I realize this is not necessarily useful for every major on a daily basis; but would it not be amazing to tell your future employer that you have experience with creative editing software? The answer is yes, it would. Plus you can learn how to operate different parts of the creative suite and immortalize all of those Spring Break pictures and memories!

Here’s how to begin! Just visit: http://go.uww.edu/lynda

There you will be directed to the University login page, where let’s be honest, you already know what to do.

Once you have entered in the proper information, you will have free range of all that Lynda has to offer! So relax! Stay awhile! Enjoy all that that charming gal Lynda has to offer!

That’s all I have for you today!

Thanks for your time and attention,

Elaina

Hey guys!

As a blog for student tips and tricks, you should know that we highly value student feedback! That is why this week we thought that we would try something different and ask about what you would like to see!

Is there something that you haven’t seen yet, but would like to?  Something you do not quite understand?  Something you want to know more about? We want all of your questions and suggestions! (See what I did there?)

Write a comment with your questions and ideas and we will do our best to respond! You may even get a whole post written on it!  We want to make this blog all that you, the students want it to be!

Thanks for your time and attention,

Elaina

Hey guys!

Today I want to talk to you about the D2L calendar tool. First, to access your calendar, go to the D2L homepage.

There is a ‘Tools’ button on the course navigation bar on the far right side underneath your name.

If you click on it a drop down menu will appear, click on the ‘Calender’ link.

This will take you to the calendar homepage.  Here you can see what you have due in each of your classes within the month.

Anything that your professor has chosen to give an opening or closing date to will appear on the calendar and any changes that he or she makes will be automatically updated on your own calendar. This is convenient because you don’t have to worry or waste time going in and making manual changes when your instructor messes with the syllabus.

You can switch to different views of your upcoming events by clicking on the different options at the top; Agenda, Day, Week, Month, and List.

My personal favorite view is the Month view because I can see what weeks will be busier than others and plan my course of action ahead of time.

Your calendar could potentially contain content from every class that you are currently enrolled in as well as other things like ongoing jobs and general Whitewater content.

You could manage what you see on the calendar by going to ‘All Calendars’. There it shows all the calendars that you are subscribed to. You can add and remove any calendar that you want. This means you can add on your work times or club activities if you wanted.  The display colors are also fully customizable if such things matter to you like they do to me.

The last and maybe most important aspect of the calender, is the fact that you can add your own tasks and reminders to it. You can do that by typing them in the bar on the right hand side of the page.

That’s all I have for now! That was the calender tool and if you have any more questions or concerns feel free to contact UW-W Desire2Learn Support.

Thanks for your time,

Elaina