On Thursday, Feb. 15, International Students and Scholars sent an updated design of Talking Stick, a newsletter sent to international students informing them about upcoming events going on and important information regarding the University of Wyoming, so that they could have a better version.
“It’s a way that we communicate different announcements,” Office Associate at ISS Corriane Calder said.
Before, the Talking Stick was sent to the international students through Microsoft Presentation. However, they now use Microsoft Sway, a program that is part of Office 365 and provides various interactive templates.
“So, I was looking for different programs, we previously used publisher and that was ok,” Calder said. “But, I wanted to have a more interactive and an updated look for the Talking Stick and so I was looking at different programs and styles since this is one that was available at no additional cost. I decided to try it. We were using publisher before where we worked to convert the pages into jpeg images and insert[ed] them into the browser, so you could just scroll down.”
Compared to Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Sway comes with more interactive features. Before with publisher, the Talking Stick was sent as an image, which then forced the student to convert the pages of Publisher into jpeg images and then send it to the newsletter.
“One thing nice about it is there are different animations that are pretty easy to format so I can go through and add the boxes and then select the design view and then I can see how it will look in layout,” Calder said. “We wanted to make sure that students would actually read the information and so we are trying to figure out what would be the best format and most interesting.”
UW International Student Theodor Olsen said, “It looks way more attractive and interesting than it was before. I like the way how it has separated its events and announcements section.”
Talking Stick also includes announcements for international students that cover a wide range of topics from rent, career and job fairs to jury duty.
“It looks like a fantastic source and it makes way more sense now how a lot of my friends are up to date with everything that’s going on,” UW sophomore student Nicolay Hoven said.
The Talking Stick is an important part of ISS, as it carries important announcements such as the Social Security Bus Trip, where international students can sign up for a bus trip to Cheyenne in order to obtain a social security number. It also includes events for the international students such as the Optional Practical Training and Curricular Practical Training workshops.
