During its first official Digital Friday event in Visser Hall last week, the Instruction Technology Design Student Association (ITSA) provided students an opportunity to learn the correct way to do research citations.

This first workshop was about “Zotero”, which is “a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources and lives right where do your work – in the web browser itself,” according to Zotero.org.

“Since there is a lot of paperwork for the IDT students to do, they have to make sure they use APA citation when they cite for sources,” said E-Lu Chen, instructor in Instructional Design and Technology, who presented the first workshop. “In our department, we have been working very hard to try to allow students to find the correct way to cite information properly. Zotero is a great tool.”

Focusing on a variety of technologies, Digital Fridays will offer attendees a broad view of integrating different technologies into students’ classes and will help students from any major acquire the latest knowledge of new technologies.

Aiming to provide training and some extra information for students around Kansas, these workshops are open not only for students, but also anyone who needs it.

Qing Zhang, graduate IDT major who also helps organize Digital Fridays, said that all the presenters are from ITSA, and some of them are either instructors or graduate teaching assistants who have worked with instructional design for several years.

“We picked the workshops based on our experience of providing the most useful tools for both students and instructors,” Zhang said.

Having been in the graphic web design field for over 15 years, Tod Estest, graduate IDT major, came back to school to study more skills, although he had already been in e-commerce and built large catalogs.

“I thought that all my skills, like the graphic, professional, educational and mental health skills, along with my 15 years of graphic web design, all the skills together would be combined in an IDT environment,” Estest said.

Additionally, the staff from IDT department taped the event, which will be published for those with interests in learning these technologies and those who were not available to attend the workshop.

“I think this workshop was really helpful,” said Abdullah Alotaibi, graduate IDT major. He also said that some information taught in the classroom moved too fast, so he did not have enough time to understand it, which can be difficult for international students like himself. These workshops are designed for them to learn the programs by themselves after class.

In the next few weeks, ITSA will still have new workshops introducing skills about Web Design, Graphic Design, Adobe Suite, etc.

“There are no special requirements for the students. All the workshops are free and just come with your laptops, or use the laptops provided at the workshops,” Zhang said. “The only thing the students need to do is to catch up with the instructor at each step.”

Digital Fridays are from 3-5 p.m. in Visser Hall room 122.