Tapped In Newsletter: August 2003
...On the Tapis
August 2003
Issue 69
In This Issue
[1] 2003 Tapped In Launch Festival Breaks Records!
[2] Become a member of the Helpdesk Central Group
[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts
[4] Tapped In Technology Tip
[5] News Nuggets
[6] About ...On the Tapis
Quote of the Month - As Nobel Peace Prize Laureate writer Baroness Bertha Von Suttner once explained, "After the verb 'to love,' the verb 'to help' is the most beautiful verb in the world."
[1] 2003 Tapped In Launch Festival Breaks Records!
The July 16, 2003 TI2 Launch Festival set records in every category. There were 355 sign-in forms (210 in 2002) and 72 Certificates of participation were awarded (47 in 2002). From 9am EDT through 11pm EDT there were 16 events with 589 total participants for an average of 39 participants per event. There are three very important groups that can take credit for the success of the Festival. The first group is the Event Presenters. They provided a wonderful variety of exciting topics and were patient and resilient under sometimes less than ideal circumstances. The second group is the Helpdesk Volunteers who, under the leadership of Dianne Allen (event volunteers), Keiko Schneider, Donna Hendry, and Marianne Handler (sign-in forms and certificates) made sure all participants got to the right rooms, introduced Event Presenters, kept the Festival flowing smoothly, and tabulated the statistics. The third group, and certainly the most important, is YOU - the Tapped In Community members and all the guests who enthusiastically participated in the events and provided constructive feedback so that the Tapped In team can continue to improve the events that are offered. Three cheers to you all!
[2] Become a member of the Helpdesk Central Group
As mentioned in the above article, the Helpdesk Volunteers were important contributors to the success of the 2003 Tapped In Launch Festival. What many people don't realize is that the Helpdesk Volunteers are in Tapped In to greet new members and guests and answer questions all year long. The Helpdesk Central Group is an international team of Tapped In members who volunteer for an hour or two a week when their schedules permit. The motivation for being a volunteer ranges from maintaining friendships and professional relationships to providing the human touch to offering reciprocity. All new volunteers are provided with a mentor and experienced volunteers support new volunteers until they are comfortable to be at the helpdesk on their own. The Helpdesk Central Group provides support and resources and an active discussion board that keeps them in contact with each other when questions or concerns arise. The larger the number of active volunteers, the smaller the amount of time that any individual volunteer needs to contribute.
The following are excerpts from articles written by volunteers on "Why I became a Helpdesk Volunteer." Look for more excerpts in future ...On the Tapis newsletters. Better yet, this is your invitation to become a member of the Helpdesk Central Group and submit your own article to BJ Berquist. Contact BJ at bjb@tappedin.org for more information.
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I have been involved with Tapped In since its' beginning. Over the years, jobs have changed, professional relationships have changed, but my contacts at Tapped In have remained intact and developed, where my old contacts have faded away. Jeff Cooper
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As a total newbie in the world of online synchronous communication, I soon became part of the helpfulness culture in the Helpdesk tradition here at TI, because BJ and a few other helpful people cared to answer all my more or less well defined questions and accept my ongoing curiosity about how things worked. Susanne Nyrop
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Probably the biggest reason [for becoming a helpdesk volunteer] was that we sort of all saw Tapped In as a great resource, but we had to basically learn it on our own. Remember, when we started, there wasn't a help desk at all. Fortunately for us, we were able to link with people early who DID know some things (Hulda, Mark, Judi, Terrie, and so forth). So, if we were going to promote TI as a great resource, we had to be ready to "put our money where our mouth was..." [thus was the concept of a Helpdesk born. BJB] Michael Hutchison
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What made me decide to be a Helpdesk volunteer? Reciprocity. I was helped to feel at home when I first arrived. I was helped to understand the medium and the communicative processes to be effective in the facility, and to recognize some of the potential of the scheduled seminars. (Helpers included the inimitable BJ, Keiko, SusanneN, and Kari in the first round.) Dianne Allen
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TI is a community of life long learners. I am anxious to lend my support as a helpdesk volunteer and welcome new members into the TI community just as I was once initiated into TI. A hearty thank you to all those who are helpdesk volunteers. They are the heart and soul of this community. Sue Roseman
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I've worked with several educational online environments and Tapped In is the only community where I've entered the cyberspace and been welcomed within nanoseconds. Volunteers at the Help Desk (in particular, BJ!) are what distinguish Tapped In from any other online communication -- the exceedingly rich and user-friendly interface wouldn't be worth much at all without the volunteers to help folks negotiate the online space. Sandy Shattuck, Helpdesk Trainee
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I am excited to be here and eager to start my volunteer duties! I read your post [on the Helpdesk Central discussion board] about the schedule for the helpdesk and thought of signing in. Ruth Veldkamp, Helpdesk Trainee
[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts
This month's column - tips and comments from the Real Experts: the new members of Tapped In, features a new member's reflections on participating in an After School Online discussion. [Quotations are from students in the Advanced Teaching with Technology class with Course Coordinator, Bernie Dodge, Ph.D.. The instructors for the class were Wendy Parcel, M.A.; Roberto DelBusto, M.A.; and Jim Julius, M.A.]
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I found the chat very informative and the projects very exciting. I am at heart an ESL teacher and think that online collaborative projects can greatly enhance second language acquisition. Even for collaborative same language groups the negotiation of meaning that occurs in synchronous and asynchronous chats can encourage and extend learning. Those differences in culture, language, and values become springboards for discussion instead of challenges. I also know from personal experience that chats can provide opportunities for shy students to excel. Asynchronous chats provide time for students to think issues through. Synchronous chats give quick thinkers to excel.
I think that too often teachers are isolated in their classrooms. The tradition has been that we close the door. Others are isolated geographically and don't have the professional development opportunities. With the financial constraints we are facing - cuts in funds for attendance at conferences - online opportunities for professional development will become even more important. Carol Boehm
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If you have a comment or experience to share with the Tapped In community, please submit the information to BJ Berquist at bjb@tappedin.org.
[4] Tapped In Technology Tip
Tips for Successful Meetings
As in physical settings, holding successful online meetings requires preparation, well-specified goals and expectations, interpersonal skill, responsibility, chemistry (the right mix of people), and experience. Unlike face-to-face meetings, online meetings lack the visual, auditory, and social cues (e.g., head nods for agreement; eye contact; gender) that we take for granted. The trick to holding successful meetings in Tapped In is to follow all the rules for successful face-to-face meetings, and to agree on conventions to simulate the missing cues. Our
Tips for Successful Meetings help guide contains tips and conventions that we have found useful in conducting meetings in Tapped In. Tapped In staff and the Help Desk are available to help you plan and facilitate your first meetings.
[5] News Nuggets
A MERLOT member has posted a link to Tapped In on MERLOT as a distinguished, high-quality source of learning material. MERLOT is an online community of faculty who are collaborating to increase the quantity of high quality web-based, interactive teaching and learning materials. Their primary audience is teachers and learners anywhere who are interested in using technology in higher education.
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On a related note, ArtsConnected's ArtCollector and The Artist's Toolkit (Tapped In member Kevan Nitzberg leads a monthly ArtsConnected tutorial) were added to the MERLOT Peer Review.
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A TESL-EJ On the Internet article by Tapped In member Vance Stevens focused on Tapped In member Yaodong Chen: A day in the life of an online language educator. See http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej23/int.html
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Tapped In member Teresa Almeida d'E?a, has an article on the use of chat in the ESL/EFL classroom in another issue of TESL-EJ On the Internet. See http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESL-EJ/ej25/int.html
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Congratulations to Tapped In member Arif Altun on his latest publication: Altun, A. (2003, July 1). Understanding hypertext in the context of reading on the web: Language learners' experience. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 6(12). See http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume6/number12/
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Global SchoolNet and Tapped In member Yvonne Marie Andres received a small grant from the AOL Time Warner Foundation this summer to work with kids. She thought you might like to see their finished (CyberFair: Youth Ambassador) project called "Life on the Streets." See http://www.globalschoolnet.org/programs/LifeontheStreets/index.htm
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Do you have a News Nugget about yourself or another member of the TAPPED IN Community? Send your News Nugget to BJ Berquist at bjb@tappedin.org.
[6] About ...On the Tapis
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