I have unlocked a Pandora's box and am considering opening it. I have set up an IM account and have installed it on my computer. I have started to test it out in a personal setting (not with studetnts or colleagues) in an effort to evaluate its usefulness for teaching, advising and other work-related activities.
As with weblogs, IM has potential and I know other faculty who use it successfully (however one defines success). Students seem disinclined to phone me and don't email me much. But this generation is the IM generation. This is a technology that most, if not all, of my students have already mastered. Allowing students to IM me could open the floodgates and erase any free time I have now to get work done.
Faculty and staff, on the other hand, will be completely in the dark with IMing unless they are not technophobes and have children who have reached their teens in the last few years. It would probably be most useful for quick questions, such as I often have for the registrar's office, that need a quicker response than email generates. But the phone has always worked quite nicely. Hmmm....
About Me
- Oberazzi
- Both of my blogs, Oberazzi and Large Print Ideas, have been merged into my website! Find new posts at tim o'brien photos! Not much too say, except that I talk a lot. I am legally blind, having Stargardt Disease , which has affected the shape of my life in some strange ways. I love photography, as you can see in my photoblog, and I love to tinker with my computer to make it more accessible, as you can see in my Large Print Ideas blog.