Over the course of the month we’ll be sharing a range of different online resources and running weekly workshops for all staff at SHU. Whether you are a total technophobe, curious but cautious, a digital expert, or something in between, we hope that there will be thing to interest and inspire you and that you’ll be able to increase your understanding of some of the ways that technology can help you, as well as share ways that it already has.

There’ll be a variety of ways to take part, including online resources and articles, hands-on workshops and drop-in surgeries. So, during July:

• follow SHU Academic Development (@SHU_AcDev) on Twitter and the #SpotlightOnDigital hashtag for daily discussion and updates
• visit this blog (TEL@SHU) for daily articles and resources.
• .. or better still, subscribe to it to receive updates in your inbox
• pay close attention to the digital screens throughout the University
• and sign-up to these face-to-face lunchtime workshops..

Exploring your own Digital Practice, Friday 6th July, 12:00-13:00, Charles Street 15.5.01

This workshop will be an opportunity to investigate your current digital activity, share your practice with colleagues and find out how you could harness technology to assist you in your work. Book your place

Give it a Go: Experiencing Digital Collaboration, Friday 13th July, 12:00-13:00, Norfolk 504

This workshop will give you a chance to try out a few of the different online collaboration tools that SHU provides for staff and students, such as Google Drive, Office365, and Blackboard Collaborate, and think about how they might be used in your work to reduce administrative activities and boost communication. Book your place

Give it a Go: Finding and Using Digital Resources, Friday 20th July, 12:00-13:00, Charles Street 12.3.10

Whether you are preparing a lecture for your students, putting together a presentation or report for a committee or preparing promotional materials, it is important to use strong and appropriate images and media to help you get your point across. However, it is also important to make sure that you don’t fall foul of copyright law while doing so. This workshop will help you to better understand the value of using engaging visuals, introduce you to sources of legally reusable media and help you to identify what you can and can’t do with specific images and other media from the internet. Book your place

Give it a Go: Creating Engaging Video Presentations, Friday 27 July, 12:00-13:00, Norfolk 504

The internet can be a huge distraction, with countless different sites and people vying for everyone’s interest and attention. This workshop will show you how Adobe Spark can be used to easily create online video presentations that are attractive and demand attention and give you the opportunity to try out the tool to create your own videos. Book your place

Spaces for these workshops are very limited and we will confirm your booking as quickly as we can, however we may operate a waiting list for particularly popular sessions or run additional sessions as necessary.