The Committee on Academic Technologies is pleased to introduce a new e-mail listserv, facultytalktech@vassar.edu, dedicated to faculty dialogue about technology and teaching. The listserv gives faculty a forum to ask questions, share information, and debate issues at all levels of technological savvy. It complements the college’s various blogs, events and staff that support more cutting-edge uses of technology, but it’s also intended for faculty with general or remedial issues who want to poll their colleagues about helpful software or similar predicaments. Additionally, we hope it will support discussion of broader questions of policy and practice in pedagogical technology.
As this peer-to-peer function suggests, we’ve subscribed all Vassar faculty to the facultytalktech listserv in order to comprise the broadest yet most relevant audience for college-specific conversations about technology. We don’t anticipate it to be a high-volume listserv, but recognizing that your inboxes are already full, we’ve set some guidelines to make the listserv more effective. Most importantly, it won’t duplicate official college announcements about technology-related news or events that would be conveyed through separate channels. (Only a few staff and administrators will be subscribed to the listserv.) We’ve also set up settings options that will allow subscribers to receive a digest of each day’s e-mails to the listserv, or to unsubscribe altogether.
To send a message to the list, address your e-mail to facultytalktech@vassar.edu. To change your subscription settings or unsubscribe, go to http://lists.vassar.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/facultytalktech.
The Committee on Academic Technologies will monitor the facultytalktech listserv as a one-year pilot. If it proves effective in letting faculty know what their colleagues are doing with teaching technology or how they address common issues, we’ll make the listserv a permanent forum.