Tapped In Newsletter: January 2003
...ON THE TAPIS
January 2003
Issue 62
In This Issue
[1] Nice to see you here :-)
[2] Member Perspective: Paul Allison
[3] Technology Tips
[4] TAPPED IN News Nuggets
[5] About ...On the TAPIS
Quote of the Month - "Teaching is the discipline of hope; the refusal to accept limits on what your students can learn or on what you, as a teacher can do to facilitate learning." - Herbert Kohl, The Discipline of Hope
[1] Nice to see you here :-)
We're always happy to see guests as well as old and new members "land" in reception so that we have the opportunity to meet the members of the TAPPED IN community. Logging in to TAPPED IN can be a bit overwhelming to a newbie because there is so much to look at. Sometimes, all it takes to make a newbie feel more comfortable is a friendly greeting from a TAPPED IN member. If you're logged in and have 10 or 15 minutes to spare, please spend that time in reception. You do not need to be an "official" helpdesk volunteer or have any special training to offer a "hi, welcome to TAPPED IN" human greeting that lets people know that they have entered a warm and friendly place. You never know when you'll be the one to make that first visit a positive experience! If you're interested in learning more about becoming an "official" HelpDesk Volunteer or you would like to be a mentor to a new volunteer, contact BJ at bjb @ tappedin.org.
[2] Member Perspective: Paul Allison
Paul is a high school writing teacher who has evolved over the past several years into a technology teacher, although his students say that he's a "wanna be humanities teacher." Paul has worked in alternative schools in New York City for over 15 years. He taught interdisciplinary classes with a focus on writing and the humanities at University Heights High School (UHHS), a small (450 students) secondary school in the one of the poorest sections of the Bronx for a dozen years. Then he taught students who were recent immigrants at The International High School (IHS) in Queens. After three years of working with these English Language Learners, Paul returned to a small, high school in a poor neighborhood, this time on the East Side of Manhattan, at the East Side Community High School (ESCHS).
Paul's Perspective
I began experimenting with TAPPED IN about a year ago, trying different types of forums with some of my students at IHS. To get some idea of what this looked like, see my Chatting in a Virtual World transcript. In addition to teaching secondary school students, I'm also the Technology Liaison for the New York City Writing Project. This summer I introduced TAPPED IN to the 15 teachers who were participating in a 3-week "Technology and Language" workshop that I co-facilitated at the New York City Writing Project, Lehman College, CUNY. And I've expanded my TAPPED IN adventures with the students at ESCHS this year.
See all our member perspectives.
[3] Technology Tips
Changing your email address
If your email address changes, make sure you don't stop receiving your calendar, newsletter and posts to the TAPPED IN email groups to which you are registered (like MEET ME). Send us an email with your name, old email address and new email address. Include a list of all email groups you belong to.
Advanced Tech Tip of the Month: Spoofing - An Internet Con Game
Spoofing is when one person sends a message that looks like it's from another person. We at TAPPED IN get spoofed messages from members (they usually are viruses or spam) and sometimes we get them from ourselves - messages we KNOW we didn't send ourselves.
People should look out for spoofed messages especially if you are ever asked for your password or other types of personal information. The best way to protect yourself against spoofed messages is to use PGP when you send email, but PGP tends to not be common, and can be difficult to install and use with ISPs. PGP will become more common in the next few years when it is incorporated into email clients by everyone. Right now, just be careful with the email you receive...look at the extended headers...and if you receive something from TAPPED IN that you think is spoofed, let us know!
[4] TAPPED IN News Nugget
Teresa Almeida d'Eca's second book, O E-mail na Sala de Aula (Email in the Classroom) has just been published (Dec.02) by Porto Editora. It is targeted at elementary and secondary school teachers. You can get a view of both covers and text in the back cover at http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/email/o-email-capa-e-contracapa.htm. Teresa's first book, published 4 years ago by the same publisher, can be viewed at http://www.portoeditora.pt/ficha.asp?id=34048.
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Teresa is a busy lady who also made a detailed reference to TAPPED IN in her most recent paper "To chat or not to chat in the EFL classroom, that is the question!" given at an international conference. The paper is available at http://www.malhatlantica.pt/teresadeca/papers/evora2002/chat-and-efl.htm.
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A chapter TAPPED IN member Dafne Gonzalez wrote with a colleague has been published, in the TESOL Case Studies Series: "Content Based Instructions in Higher Education Settings." You can take a look at the book content here: http://www.tesol.org/pubs/catalog/previews/018.html. The chapter is number 7 in part I: Content-Based English for Specific Purposes Course Design: The Case of English for Architecture.
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TAPPED IN member Diane Mcgrath has a Project Based Learning article, "Launching a PBL Project," in the December/January 2002-03 issue of Learning and Leading with Technology.
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Thanks to Susanne Nyrop for pointing out that TAPPED IN member Gary Cziko and Sujung Park, (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) compared and evaluated six free programs that enable users to engage in synchronous audio and video communication on the Internet. Read the full article online: Gary A. Cziko and Sujung Park: Internet Audio Communication For Second Language Learning: A Comparative Review Of Six Programs; http://llt.msu.edu Language Learning & Technology Vol. 7, No. 1, January 2003, edited by Mark Warschauer, University of Hawaii.
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TAPPED IN member and discussion leader Kim Foley has an article in the January/February issue of TAPPED IN member, discussion leader and editor Ferdi Serim's MultiMedia School magazine titled, "A Virtual Field Trip into Real Technology Standards." If you are interested in virtual field trips in the classroom, this may be of interest to you.
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TAPPED IN member Jeff Cooper was interviewed for "MIT's Open Window - Putting course materials online", a December 6, 2002 article for The Daily Report in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Information Technology.
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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.
[5] About ...On the TAPIS
Postings of all ...ON THE TAPIS issues are available on the TAPPED IN website. Contact us if you have any questions about your subscription, password or user name, or if you have any news items that you want to share with the community for ...ON THE TAPIS.