Post date: Aug 5, 2011 5:37:11 AM
New Communication Site Owners:
There is a new class and lots of new owners and potential owners of this site. Ask for an owner, or follow the instructions at HowToEditThisSite to get your permissions set to owner (with this setting, you can do anything you want, change the images, pictures, invite others, anything.) Editing is *REALLY* easy. If you can edit a google document, you can edit this wiki. (What is a wiki? ) If you are uncertain of how to do it.. start you own google isite with your gmail address, and see if you can break it, in order to learn it. :-)
Setting Permissions
If someone is from the SIT.edu diaspora, and have a gmail, they should be granted *owner access*
If someone is from the SIT.edu diaspora and they have an non gmail account -- they should be given the highest level of access google allows.
But the short of it is that its your site -- own it!
The Yammer Initiative
We have also begun to kick off the SIT Student Yammer (and adjacent community sites) You can enter in, through Yammer.com and enter your School Email Address (student.lastname@mail.sit.edu) and respond to the confirmation email. Yammers behaves a but like an internal "twitter or facebook" short bursts of information, links, etc, with the additional functionality of being able to attach files, images, polls, ask questions and get answers, and it has mobile and desktops apps and integrates with Twitter.
Why Yammer?
Yammer was designed because students do not have a way to speak to each other unilaterally without being face to face. There are little groups of facebook friends, or Linkedin Connections, and there was an email list in the past, but it was overwhelming.
The communication committee beta tested this last year for rolling out this year, to help new students (and old students) Learn form each other, ask questions, answer questions, share documents and polls (and everything else!)
The primary cool thing
Yammer allows those with a mail.sit.edu (students, and some select faculty/staff) to create "internal groups" the mail.sit.edu group, but also with groups that have a strong connection to folks with mail.sit.edu email addresses, (like SITSA, communication committee, people who like the Chipmunks, Janeway dorm, etc)
It also has the functionality to create "External groups" which are comprised of groups that we collaborate with. For example, CABA, or Transitions Putney, SIT-Graduate Alumni, or various World Learning's programs or the Brattleboro activist community... No mail.sit.edu email required
This site also only sends out one digest message per day. You can log in and see the most current stuff, but you won't get inundated by thousands of messages.