Theme V: Incorporating Technology With Teaching

With apologies to Saint Matthew, what shall it profit a unit if it offers quantities of excellent programs but no one knows about them? In 1999/2000 AIT began a more aggressive public relations campaign for its faculty development opportunities.

The Faculty Bulletin

At the start of each semester the president chairs the stated meeting of the faculty. AIT staff use this excellent opportunity to distribute copies of that term’s “Faculty Bulletin,” a publication that announces AIT’s workshops and services. A sample of topics from the Fall 2000 edition includes: “New Faces in AIT,” “The Morton and Angela Topfer Library Café,” “Brooklyn College Introduces Blackboard CourseInfo,” “The Faculty Training and Development Lab,” “Faculty Lab FAQs,” “Individualized, One-on-One Training,” “Technology Workshops,” “Library Research Workshops for Faculty,” “E-Mail,” “Course Web Pages,” “CUNY+,” “Software,” “The Faculty Guide to Computing at Brooklyn College,” “Electronic Resources,” and “Multimedia Classrooms.”

Meetings with Academic Departments

Each month on department-meeting Wednesday, staff from AIT and members of the Advisory Committee on Academic Computing visit departments and make presentations about AIT services.

Redesign of the AIT Website
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/ait/

The AIT website is the unit’s public face, and the staff is strongly committed to putting its best face forward. To this end, in the fall 2000 Academic Information Technologies redesigned the AIT site to make it more appealing, informative, and navigable. Decisions are presently being made about its final form, and we expect the official release to occur early in 2001. New services include the ability to register for workshops from the AIT site. Web developer Jim Cai is the linchpin for this effort.