Author: Sarah Rusnak

Presentation resources

| Sarah Rusnak

Splash of rainbow colors of paint falling from above

WOW your audience with your next presentation

Here are the slides, resources, and references from my workshop on PowerPoint.

Learn practical and creative use of Microsoft 365 PowerPoint to create effective presentations that will grab your audience’s attention and meet accessibility standards.

Downloads

Branding and templates

  • brand.osu.edu for university templates, art, photography, fonts, and more

Images

Recording

PowerPoint tips and tricks

Additional trainings

Presentation skills

Digital Accessibility

References

Colorsplash

Meaningful links

| Sarah Rusnak

Have you ever read a document, come to a lengthy URL in the text, and skipped right over it? Including meaningful links in your writing allows for greater ease of reading and more importantly, improves the experience for people who use screen reader software to listen to text on webpages, documents, and any other digital content. Eliminating long URLs from your writing is an excellent start, and choosing your words carefully enables you to create meaningful links that convey the purpose of the link.

Avoid sentences such as: Click here for a list of additional keyboard shortcuts.

A screen reader would begin the above sentence by stating “Link: click here for a list…” which already does not convey to the listener why they may wish to click on the link.  And note, screen readers will indicate when a hyperlink in included with text so there’s no need to call it out with phrases like “click this link” or “click here”.

Instead, write sentences such as: Learn more Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts to help you save time.

Screen reader software would read this sentence by stating “Learn more link Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts…” which allows the listener to decide as they’re hearing the description of the link whether they want to click through to the resource or would rather continue listening to the words on the screen. Screen reader software also allows users skim through the hyperlinks on a page, just as a sighted user might do by looking for the underlined or color coded words. Imagine skipping ahead to a hyperlink and hearing only the words “click here”.  Why bother clicking on the link if you do not know what you’ll find at the destination?

Create a meaningful hyperlink using keyboard shortcuts

  1. Highlight the text that will be the link and press Ctrl + K on the keyboard.
  2. Paste (Ctrl + V) the URL in the dialogue box that appears.
  3. Click OK or press Enter.

Gif showing the steps to create a meaningul link in Microsoft Word. The text on the screen reads "Learn more Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts to help you save time." The animation shows the words "windows 10 keyboard shortcuts" are highlighted, and then the add hyperlink dialogue box appears. The URL is pasted into the dialogue box and the user clicks OK.

Note that these same steps also work in Outlook, PowerPoint, CarmenCanvas, Qualtrics, and just about any other software application or website that allows for adding text and hyperlinks. If you’re a Mac user, substitute the Cmd key in place of the Ctrl key and you’re all set.

Recommended resources

Shared calendars in Outlook

| Sarah Rusnak

When reserving spaces in Atwell Hall, it’s helpful to view the shared calendars to see when space is available. These calendars live on the medical center side of Office365, which means you’ll need to login to your medical center email account to view them.  If you do not typically use your med center email, start in your browser at mail365.osumc.edu

Adding a shared calendar via Outlook on the web

Adding a shared calendar via the Outlook desktop application

Calendars for spaces in Atwell

  • HRS Atwell ADL Lab
  • HRS Atwell FRS
  • HRS Atwell Lobby
  • HRS Atwell SIM Lab
  • HRS Conference Room 116
  • HRS Conference Room 123
  • HRS Conference Room 130
  • HRS MD Kitchen

Adding alternative text

| Sarah Rusnak

Alternative text or alt text is important to include so that learners who use screen readers can fully engage with content. There are several ways to add alt text, depending on what website you are using or content you are creating. In general, start with right clicking the image or graphic and look for the option to Edit Alt Text or to edit Properties. Here are specific guides:

The Web Accessibility Initiative provides an alt text decision tree if you need help deciding whether an image needs and description, and what to include.  Note also that in many programs it is possible to mark an image as decorative so that screen readers will skip the image.  Though, if an image does not convey any meaning to the learner, consider whether it should be included at all.

And if you’d like a master class in writing alt text that conveys meaning, check out We Rate Dogs (@dog_rates) on Twitter.

Top tips for students

| Sarah Rusnak

Collage of images meant to invoke studying- an open laptop with pen and notepad appears on the left. On the right there are smartphones, an iPad, and part of a keyboard and mouse. Overlaying the image are the words "tech tips"

Saving, organizing, and using citations

Literature searches and the libraries

Stay connected

  • The university is moving to a new wireless network called eduroam. Start at wireless.osu.edu on any personal device to configure the settings.

Creating digital media

Still have questions?  Check out peer tech tutoring, available to all students

ZoteroBib

| Sarah Rusnak

ZoteroBib is a free resource you can use to quickly and easily create accurate citations. There’s nothing to install, and very little to learn. You may have found other sites that offer similar features, but ZoteroBib stands apart for several very good reasons.  From their FAQ section:

We created ZoteroBib because we thought there should be a bibliography tool that was free, easier and faster to use, and much more accurate.

Unlike other tools, ZoteroBib doesn’t bombard you with ads or try to charge you (or your school) money for full functionality or additional citation styles. And since it’s built by the team behind Zotero and backed by the same open-source community, you can count on the same expertise and attention to detail that people rely on when they write dissertations and scholarly papers in Zotero.

Even though I’ve been using the full featured Zotero software for over a decade, I still find ZoteroBib handy for quickly formatting a few citations.

ZoteroBib

Too long; didn’t watch

  • ZoteroBib is a free, easy to use website for formatting citations
  • Be sure to export or copy/paste! This page will not save your citations after you close the browser.

Tech tutoring for students

| Sarah Rusnak
Students have access to a wealth of software and tools at Ohio State, though they may not know it, or may not know how to fully use these tools. Consider including the following in the instructions for your assignments:

Student mentors are available through the university’s Digital Flagship program. These are peers who can help with any of the following topics:

  • Building a presentation
  • Building a webpage or blog
  • Collaborating on projects
  • Getting started with technology
  • Managing notifications
  • Producing a podcast
  • Producing a video
  • Storing and sharing files
  • Taking notes and staying organized
  • Using CarmenCanvas

Schedule Tech Tutoring

To set up a tech tutoring session, log into OnCourse and click ‘Schedule Appointment.’​

  1. For type of appointment, select ‘Academic Discovery and Success’
  2. For type of assistance, select ‘Service’ and under the Tech Tutoring section, select the service you need help with.
  3. Pick a date (it can be today!)
  4. Select ‘Find Available Time’ to find a time that a Student Mentor is available to help you.

Your appointment will happen over CarmenZoom. You will get a Zoom link with your appointment confirmation email.

Extending time on quizzes and exams

| Sarah Rusnak

If you’ve received notice from the university’s Student Life Disabilities Service Office that one or more of your students requires extended time on quizzes and exams, there’s a function for that in CarmenCanvas. The ability to adjust the testing window per student is under Moderate Quiz, though that option only appears after you have published the quiz.

Before you publish the quiz, make sure the quiz has the Available From and Available Until dates that you want. By setting these dates, students cannot access the quiz early even though you’ve published it.

Screen shot of the bottom of the edit quiz page, showing the box for setting due dates, available from date, and available until date.

 

Once published, you’ll have the option to Moderate This Quiz appear on the far right when you select the quiz. Note, it is not under Edit, it’s just off to the side on the right.

Screen shot of a published quiz. The option to moderate the quiz appears on the far right side.

 

On the moderate page, you’ll see a list of all enrolled students. Select the pencil icon for the student who needs extra time, and add the additional time in the dialogue box that appears. Note, you just need to add the additional time. In this example all students get 25 minutes, so I’ll add 13 minutes for a 1.5x extension.

Dialogue box that appears when editing extensions for one student. The options are to add additional attempts or to add additional time.

One other note- if your restrict the quiz for all students to only be available from 8AM until 8:25AM on the same day, that restriction will override the extension you’re adding now, and that student will be shut out at 8:25AM without their extra time (ask me how I know 🙃).

Recommended resources

 

Accessibility checker in CarmenCanvas

| Sarah Rusnak

Too long; didn’t watch

Transcript

As you are editing or creating content in CarmenCanvas, there is a built in accessibility checker that can help you check for things like images that are missing alt text or color contrast that’s actually very hard to read. So this is the page that I’m going to work off of. And if I come in here and click on edit, you can see anywhere in Canvas, anywhere in CarmenCanvas that you have the rich content editor, or this up here which appears at the top of a page it appears at the top of an assignment, a discussion, a quiz. Anywhere you see this, you should also have the accessibility checker just below the content itself.

So there’s a two here which lets me know there are two issues on this page that need to be fixed. So if I click on the accessibility checker, it’s going to pop up and tell me what the issue is. It highlights the image in question and says, Hey, this image, the only alt text is the file name, which is not descriptive. So I can change that. I can come in here and I can, for the sake of time, choose the text that I already wrote and put in a description here. This has multiple uses by changing the alt text. Here’s another one that has the file name which doesn’t tell anyone using a screen reader why this image is here or what it’s telling them, or why it matters. So it helps those who are using screen readers, but it also helps those who are having trouble with their internet connection or the image doesn’t load for some reason.

And so now it says, great, no issues were detected. I get balloons and confetti, I can click save. There are no longer accessibility issues. And what’s tricky about this is you don’t see anything different. For a sighted user, the alt text does not appear and that’s fine. That’s as it should be. But for users of screen readers now, it would say “image: screenshot of the page that results from using the undelete function in CarmenCanvas”, which is better. I could probably do better than that, but that’s better than nothing. Or if someone has a really slow internet connection. Or if Canvas is only half working, or who knows what and the image just doesn’t appear, the alt text will display in its place and that tells a sighted user what was supposed to be there and the purpose that it served. So alt text actually helps everybody. In the case of the internet going out or even if it is working, it’s good to have. So good to know. The accessibility checker is there and it will guide you through the changes you need to make.

Revision history in Carmen Pages

| Sarah Rusnak

Too long; didn’t watch

  • Click the three dots to the right of Edit on any page to restore a previous version of a page.

Transcript

If ever you make a change to a page in CarmenCanvas and then decide that that is not what you meant to do, there is a revision history where you can go back and revert to a previous version of a page. To the best of my knowledge, this only works on Pages, not on Assignments or Quizzes or Discussions, which is regrettable, but at least it does exist on pages. So I actually want to revert this page. I did, I did another oops. So if you come up here to these three dots just to the right of the edit button, you’ll see View Page History. I’m going to say, you know what? I want to go back to what I did 20 minutes ago because that was better. And so I’ll click on that and I can see the difference in the page. You probably can’t tell, but I know what I did. And then click on Restore this version and it’ll say, “Are you sure?” Yeah, I am sure. And so now I’m back to an earlier version of the page. But notice if you change your mind again, I could switch it back to where it was 30 seconds ago. So it’s a great tool for basically having a version history or a save as of the page that you are building.