Instructional Technology & Research Support (ITRS) offers professional development opportunities to faculty, students, and staff throughout the year. Join us for a variety of stimulating and timely topics. Please note most sessions require advanced registration.

Build your own professional development itinerary and earn digital badges!

ITRS Pathways provide flexible opportunities for learning throughout the year. An ongoing schedule of live, interactive sessions is now available. Our debut series spotlights Sakai Assessment Tools: Assignments, Tests & Quizzes, Rubrics, and Gradebook. You can register for a single session or complete all four sessions to earn a Sakai Assessment Tools digital badge (3 contact hours). ITRS issues digital badges through Credly, providing many ways to share your badge to popular destinations such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Sakai Communication Tools Series

This interactive professional development series provides you with tips and effective practices for facilitating communication in online and technology-enhanced courses. We will explore the Announcements, Email, Messages, Chat, Discussions, and Conversations tools to help devise a comprehensive student communication strategy. Although this is a sequential series, individual sessions can be attended without committing to the entire schedule.

Announcements and Calendar: This session is to introduce users to the Announcements and Calendar tools. This session will teach users how to properly use the Announcement tools to communicate with the entire class or select groups in a timely manner. It will also go over how to effectively use the Calendar tool to help the user organize their coursework over the semester. (45 minutes)

Tuesday, February 14th, 1:00pm CT
Registration Link

Friday, February 27th, 10:00am CT
Registration Link

Email, Chat, and Messages: This session is designed for new Sakai users and those looking to revise their student communication strategies. This session will describe the differences between the Email, Email Archive, and Messages tools, and will include h practice of using Email, Email Archive, Messages, and Chat. Prior to engaging in this session, participants should be comfortable with basic Sakai navigation (e.g., logging in, accessing course and project sites, and using the Tool Menu). (45 minutes)

Thursday, March 16th, 10:00am CT
Registration Link

Friday, March 31st, 2:00pm CT
Registration Link

Discussions: The Discussions tool allows you to facilitate asynchronous discussion in your Sakai course. Learn how to create forums and topics, customize the different settings in forums/topics, grade student contributions, and strategies for using Discussions to promote collaborative learning. (45 minutes)

Tuesday, April 11th, 10:00am CT
Registration Link

Wednesday, April 26, 3:00pm CT
Registration Link

Conversations: The newly released Conversations tool facilitates conversation with short-answer questions or longer discussions, along with tagging conversations. This session will overview how to use the features of Conversations, as well as provide opportunities to design activities for Conversations. (45 minutes)

Monday, May 6th, 2:00pm CT
Registration Link

Tuesday, May 16th, 10:00am CT
Registration Link

Coming Soon... ITRS will be launching three additional series where you can earn digital badges. Successfully complete all four series to earn a Sakai Master Tools digital badge (12 contact hours).

• Sakai Communication Tools Series, February 2023
• Sakai Course Development Series, April 2023
• Sakai Integrated Tools Series, June 2023

Tech Topics is designed to keep you updated on new and emerging technologies at Loyola. These offerings vary throughout the year and require advanced registration. If you have a suggested Tech Topic, please contact us at itrs@luc.edu.

Overview of Learning Analytics at Loyola

Thursday, March 2nd, 12:00pm CT
Register Now

Gradescope Basics for Faculty

Monday, February 13th, 1:00pm CT
Register Now

Labster Basics for Faculty

Tuesday, June 6th, 2:00pm
Register Now

Past Recordings

Get Ready to Ramble: Student Orientation to Learning Technologies
Recorded on Thursday, July 21, 2022 at 11:00am CT

Sakai Essentials for Faculty
Recorded on Tuesday, August 2, 2022 at 2:00pm CT

What's New in Sakai 22? (Faculty)
Recorded on Thursday, January 5, 2023 at 10:00am CT

What's New in Sakai 22? (Student)
Recorded on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 1:00pm CT