Notice anything different about the Oasis website? We’ve obviously made some significant changes. Our new website is now “responsive”, meaning it plays well with phones and tablets – critical for ranking well with search engines like Google.
Navigating Connections is different as well. Here are some of the major changes:
· There is a Course Descriptions page that lists all of the current courses grouped by subject.
· Each course (or group of courses as in the case of Excel and Word) has its own page. Everything you need for a course including latest instructor information, downloadable resources, and manuals are all on that course page.
· Instructor guides are no more. All of the information is included on the course page. This will allow us to more easily update material with less duplication.
· Many course pages have a link to the blog for related blog posts. Check this prior to a class for information that isn’t yet in a manual but might be relevant to your class.
· There is a link to the complete course list and description printout and the current course list with publication dates on the Course Descriptions page.
Some old courses have been retired, some replaced with updated material. Here is a synopsis of changes over the last 6 months.
· Computer Survival Skills has been retired and replaced with Windows Performance & Maintenance. This course focuses on much of the same material (deleting unused files, defragmentation, etc.) but eliminates Windows XP material and now includes instructions for Windows 8.1.
· Safety First: Privacy & Safety Online is being updated and expanded to cover more types of fraud, monitoring and ordering your credit report, and more.
· Blogging with WordPress replaces the old blogging course with a fun and extensive look at creating a blog at wordpress.com.
· Introduction to Excel 2013 has been published. Intermediate Excel 2013 is in final edits. Please use these latest courses for any class you teach regardless of your version of Office. The material is largely the same but teaching from the 2013 versions future-proofs your students.
· The iPhone iOS 8 course has been updated to include new apps including Health, Apple Pay, Touch ID, and more.
· The iPad iOS 8 course was written as one large manual and covers all of the native apps in iOS 8. Instructors are welcome to break up the class as they see fit, but the manual is very comprehensive.
· Introduction to Email was refreshed with new screenshots.
· Wellness on the Web was rewritten to cover government and nonprofit resources, blogs, mobile apps, YouTube, and much more.
· Exploring Google is new. Google eliminated many of the apps in our old course. The new course focuses on Calendar, Drive, and Maps.
· Facebook 1 and 2 were both updated to reflect recent changes and add more content.
· Skype was rewritten to reflect the major changes including group calls, sharing screens, text, and more.
We’ve heard from some of you and have already made or planned changes to accommodate your requests. We are trying hard to make things easier overall, with less duplication. Let us know what you think.
And finally, a few videos to help you navigate the new website:
