Brooklyn College, albeit its great scenic campus with a ton of facilities for students to utilize, some have no idea about them or no information in regards to the right departments to discuss about specific questions or queries they have. There is also sometimes a divide between freshman and more accomplished upperclassmen that they might have reservations about approaching on usual information for registration and to navigate this college and CUNY system labyrinth. New Media could definitely play a role in the improvement on these terms and other ideas that could help revive the tiring system or smooth out confusions with the old system.
For the scenic campus, we can utilize a Flickr page and photo and news feed on the Facebook website. Where everyday photographs that are taken by not only the professionals but students and faculties themselves can be uploaded to show what is the news, the latest fashion, the different weather days occurring, and different events happening and upcoming. This can help get information unavailable before out there and showcase a sort of nationalism to one's college and share thoughts of whats happening on campus and have an active conversation amongst peers and colleagues. This update to the Facebook page would take it from posting basic information to a more rich plethora of information and student interaction.
For the confusion that students like myself get when we need certain information like loans, student club meetings, Bursar information, the website is sort of detailed and vague at the same time. The old module of emailing gets one no where or phone calls, where one gets no one to one interaction and is faced with frustration and getting the "run around."What would be great is a few paid moderators of experienced students (This could be work-study) and faculty that would operate the college online message boards where students can ask any information they need to know and other students and faculty can come together and provide as much information as they can. To even go a step further, implementing Live Chat, where if one feels more comfortable chatting over the live chat module with someone from a certain department or operator to assess their needs and help get information that is sometimes hard to get. This way freshman and upperclassmen can interact more, share on these live chats about official information needed and on the message boards, talk about off-topic, general, pop culture, classes and professors, and official necessary information at the same time. It is all about integration and interaction, this is to address that unnecessary divide between students to students and students to faculty.
One can even take it a step further to improve other aspects of the college's system. For example, a professor can host online office hours by appointment for those who cant make it during a certain time or day. For security and safety purposes, it would be done in an official capacity on campus in the media centers like the library cafe, WEB, or library. Other new media technologies could be in the Cafeteria where there is a line up, and a touch screen at each food station that requires a cook or server already there to see your order and make it for you. Instead of one explaining what they want in detail or the cook telling you about what is available, the menu would have to display only whats available and the estimated waiting time to make it. You can pick your food based off of this and then wait for it. We can even upload the calorie information into the food choices and make suggested menus based on health conditions or what is complementary to each other, if one has a hard time deciding what they want.
Lastly, with the school newspaper, I do not see them around campus at all. Maybe if we could create an online website for it, and print the website on the back of the student IDs, so students can remember to go and read the news. Not only print it on the ID cards but at the same time on the library's homepage that students first see when they take out a computer in the library.
All of these suggestions go hand in hand with the advancements of the anywhere and everywhere notion that New Media brings to today's society. Making things hassle-free and more interactive is always the goal and the optimal choice for making everyone's life a bit easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment