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One good way to circulate LTAs with
interdisciplinary appeal (e.g., how to use Google
spreadsheets to facilitate small breakout sessions; how to
use the comments feature in MS Word to help grade papers) is
via emails to interested faculty. (We use "email" here in
its broadest sense, including not only traditional emails
but also RSS feeds, blogs, tweets, and the like).
Keys to making such a campaign work:
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Writing easy-to-triage
communications. Remember that the recipient is
unlikely to be able to use any particular LTA that is
sent: it won't be appropriate, it will be something the
recipient already knows, or the timing will be bad. So
the challenge is to write emails that are so easy to
skim (almost within a blink, to use Gladwell's term)
that the recipient will continue to read them until
hitting an LTA that is just right for the need of the
moment. For example, with traditional email, the subject
header should provide a good clue to the reader about
whether to delete the email unopened.
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One aid for easy triage is
putting only a minimal amount of information in the
email -- enough for the faculty member to
decide whether to try the technique - along with links
to a) more information on the idea (e.g., eClip; email
address for the person who suggested the idea), and b)
other, related LTAs.
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Developing good mailing lists,
either by working to get faculty sign up, or beginning
with a mailing to all faculty with an option that allows
them to stop the mailings, or restart them, at any time.
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Takoma Park, Maryland 20913
Phone:
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To talk about our work
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contact: Sally Gilbert |
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