Student success is central to ETSU’s educational vision: Develop a world-class environment to enhance student success and improve the quality of life in the region and beyond.

Student success resources aren’t just a few things in one location on campus. Now, technology helps ETSU expand the reach of student success resources further than ever before. Student success, facilitated by dedicated faculty and staff, may include academic advisement, counseling, tutoring, career guidance, and academic coaching. Technology plays into nearly all student success resources. For example, academic coaching involves empowering students with tools and resources to be organized, thoughtful, and studious in their academic lives. Understanding how to access and use tech tools in the ETSU-provided Microsoft 365 applications prepares students with relevant skills (now and later!) for an increasingly digital world.

Using apps to work smarter, not harder, can help you with time management and pave the way to your success. ETSU’s Academic Technology Services (ATS) team supports faculty, staff, and students with online learning and technology needs. Below, an ETSU technology expert offers a firsthand perspective on how two of these tools can be used in everyday student life:

Contributed by: Travis Brooks, ATS Instructional Design Coordinator

If you want a central To Do list for everything related to your student life at ETSU, try the Microsoft Planner and To Do apps. With these apps, you can coordinate everything from your busy ETSU schedule in one digital list and a series of simple Plans that can be accessed on a computer, tablet, phone, or other device that can access Microsoft 365. ‍

Microsoft Planner  

Planner allows you to create one or more Plans and then build individual Tasks with associated due dates. Examples of Plans could be “Assignments for Classes”, “Club Responsibilities”, “Personal Tasks”, etc., to help sort and prioritize everything you need to do to be successful. In the app, you can:

  • Create Plans and tasks with due dates to organize anything associated with your busy life as a student.  
  • Use Planner for group projects, clubs, or any collaborative effort to assign tasks to anyone with an ETSU account.
  • Help relieve stress related to group projects while also allowing you to quickly double check any responsibilities you have to your teammates.

Microsoft To Do  

To Do provides you with a personal To Do list that lists any tasks assigned to you by yourself or anyone else in other Microsoft apps, such as Planner or Teams. This simplifies everything for you and assures that you will be able to find and sort your Tasks to keep you productive and motivated. In To Do, you can:

  • Have one centralized task list that brings together everything you need to do, whether the task was created by you or assigned through the groups and Teams you’re part of.
  • Prioritize tasks and deadlines to set realistic expectations and ensure you are not surprised by an assignment or due date that was overlooked.  

Often times in today’s incredibly busy world, the difference in success and failure is the ability to organize everything you need to keep from feeling overwhelmed.  

Putting it All Together

We’ve all been in groups where communication and unclear expectations caused strife and frustration, and Planner can help alleviate this through clear Tasks for each Team member tied with due dates for fair accountability within the group.  

All ETSU students have access to Planner through their Microsoft 365 licenses, and To Do is free for anyone to use! Planner and To Do are directly integrated with other Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, Teams, and Loop. Through this integration, you can harness useful techniques such as co-creating task lists and making plans based on meetings and conversations. Because Teams combines communication tools like Posts, Chats, and video calls with shared file storage, using Planner makes it simple to keep everyone organized, informed, and working efficiently together.