Ambassadors helping students navigate the new FOL

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If you've checked your FanshaweOnline account in the past week or so, you may have noticed some big changes. Don't worry — scattered around the campus are FOL Ambassadors wearing bright red shirts, and it's their job to help you navigate through the new features of FOL.

Ambassadors will be near the Oasis and in F building outside the bookstore every weekday until January 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

"What we're trying to do is raise awareness and we're trying to give information to the students about how FOL can enhance their learning opportunities, as well as tools that they might not have been aware of previously," explained Katie Tregonning, an FOL Ambassador and Corporate Communications and Public Relations student. "With the new FOL being launched as well … things might be a little bit different from what they're used to, and (we want to) get them familiar with what's there."

According to Kyle Stewart, an Educational Technologist for Learning Systems Services in the College, these upgrades have been in the works for about six months. "There are a bunch of cool new features," he said. FOL is now going to send notifications to students' phones and email for events such as news messages, upcoming due dates for assignments and replies to your discussion board postings.

The calendar tool has also shifted quite a bit," Stewart continued. "It now allows you to pull the iCal from FanshaweOnline and import it into an external calendar — Outlook, Gmail, Hotmail — so that way you have your FOL calendar in an external source. And it updates, so if something changes, it will update in the external calendar."

Another update students will want to know about it is the new feature you can use to check your work for plagiarism. According to Tregonning, you must self-register for a free course called Turnitin Submissions Online Resource (to do so, click Self Registration on the FOL homepage and sign up for the course). Just drop your paper into the dropbox, and it will go through the turnitin.com system to check for similarities to other papers and published works. "I know a lot of students are really wary of turnitin. com, because they don't really understand how it works on the professor's end," she said. "What this does is it allows you to check it through the exact same program that your professors uses, and then make any changes that you feel like you need to (make before submitting it)."

A few other features on the site have also been revamped, and FOL Ambassadors will be happy to explain those as well.

And even if you're already feeling comfortable with FOL, Stewart said it may be worth your time to chat with an FOL Ambassador. "(If) you have suggestions or feedback that you want to offer, these Ambassadors are also a really good source for you to talk to another student about what you like or dislike about FOL." The Ambassadors will take the information and suggestions they receive from students and pass it along to Stewart.

After the program is over, you can turn to FOL's own Help feature, located in the top right corner of the website. As part of the upgrade, the Help section now features full videos to help guide you through any issue you may encounter. If that doesn't answer your question, Stewart and Tregonning suggested asking friends, instructors, contacting the Helpdesk (519-452-4430 ext. 4357, helpdesk@fanshawec.ca or room E2030) or asking the always-helpful Fanshawe Facebook page (facebook.com/FanshaweApplicants) for assistance.

This is the first time the Ambassador program has taken place, and Stewart said he plans to run it in the future for the first two to three weeks of each new Fall and Winter semester. If anyone is interested in becoming an FOL Ambassador volunteer for the first few weeks of school in September, contact Stewart at k_stewart28238@fanshawec.ca.