Faculty Tools

Welcome to the Golemon Library Faculty Seminar Series, where your success in the classroom is our top priority! 📚

We understand your time is incredibly valuable, so we've designed each weekly session to be a concise yet powerful 15 to 20 minutes, packed with essential tools and clever tips that will genuinely make your teaching life easier.  We've ensured you can join us from anywhere with a convenient Zoom series, making your participation as effortless as possible.

Please don't hesitate to use the provided link to access these beneficial sessions.  Should you encounter any issues at all, simply let us know – we are here to help!  We are genuinely grateful you're dedicating a few moments of your precious time to visit with us. We are confident that the practical strategies you'll discover here will not only save you time but multiply it tenfold in your daily work. Our goal is to support your commitment to excellence!

August 27

Faculty appreciation reception

We are going to start off with an Ice Cream Social so we can get to know everyone.  There are not that many faculty on the Ranger Campus, but everyone is welcome in person or by Zoom.  We have been emailing with a lot of you for years, so it will be nice to put faces to names.  For those that can make it, we have an assortment of ice cream treats.

September 3

What can the library do to ease your workload?

This seminar will be a brief overview of all the tools the library offers that can lighten your workload.  We will look at how to use them as time goes by, but for now, we want to show you our website and how to access our tools.  We will also look at the faculty bookshelf, where we keep material to help you and provide ideas.

September 10

Faculty member of the month named

Each month we will name one faculty member who helps the library by encouraging student activities, letting the library know how we can be of help to them, or identifying tools we can incorporate into our toolbox.  We will look at specific new tools or techniques from our faculty.

September 17

Are students conducting adequate and appropriate research for your class?  What can the library do to help?

Are students conducting adequate and appropriate research for your class?  I was a History professor before I became your librarian and I know the answer to this question is NO.  Very often students don't know how to perform the tasks you are asking for.  We are working that on the student side, but it occurred to us that many of you might not know what is available to the students or how to incorporate it into your assignments.

September24

What can our databases do for you?

The databases available to Ranger College staff, faculty, and students are pretty extensive and easy to use.  We also have a curated collection of open-source sites that will meet the rigorous standards of peer-review and are suitable for use in college assignments.  This week we will explore them and show you how to access everything so you can assign them to your students.

October 1

A visit to the stacks.  What do we have that is helpful?  What can we get for you?  Have you seen our faculty collection?

We know the books are the least-used portion of the library, especially since we have so many terrific electronic resources.  Even so, using books occasionally is good for everyone.  We can get pretty much anything you would like.  This week we are going to look at how the stacks are laid out and point you toward the sections most related to your subject.  Let us know what is good, bad, or missing.

October 8

Faculty member of the month named

We expect so much terrific feedback and so many purchase requests from last week's walk through the stacks that it will be challenging to pick a Faculty Member of the Month.

October 15

What is accessibility and what does it mean to your workload

Accessibility is the term used to describe electronic disability services.  Examples are screen readers, large print keyboards, or color contrasting.  Meeting accessibility requirements can be a huge challenge, but it has been mandated by law and soon the school will be sending directives on changes to your assignments that will have to be met.  Start early and get an idea of what you will have to do by attending this short seminar.

October 22

Accessibility part 1:  Microsoft

This accessibility seminar will look specifically at ways to make your Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents meet accessibility requirements.  PDF is almost impossible to set up correctly and you will end up working in Microsoft to get it done.

October 29

Accessibility part 2:  Canvas

Canvas is the most commonly used tool for reaching students.  Every document, video, assignment, or quiz a student has access to must meet accessibility standards.  It may be pretty time-consuming to fix all the stuff you already have loaded, but it is not too horrible to create accessible material.

November 5

Faculty member of the month named

So many faculty, such hard choices.  This week we will name another Faculty Member of the Month and look at all the ways the library has helped may your workload easier.

November 12

AI in the classroom part 1

AI is an oncoming storm.  Most of you do not have time to explore the options and some have even just banned it entirely.  We know this response helps with your time management, but there is another way.  This week we are going to look at AIs that can actually be good for you and your students and show you some ways to incorporate them to make life easier for you and your students.

November 19

AI in the classroom part 2

In this second AI seminar, we are going to look at more general AI programs.  These are not all bad either.  In fact, I use Gemini almost every day and believe that my work is improved significantly by it.