Tapped In Newsletter: February 2004
...On the Tapis
February 2004
Issue 75
In This Issue
[1] News Nuggets
[2] Tips and Comments From the Experts
[3] Tapped In Technology Tip
[4] New Online Elementary Reading/Spelling Game!
[5] About ...On the Tapis
Quote of the Month - "Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave." Henry Peter Brougham, Baron
[1] News Nuggets
Let your voice be heard! Tapped In encourages its members to comment on the National Education Technology Plan. Link to NETP from the banner at the bottom of the Tapped In homepage or go to http://www.nationaledtechplan.org. The deadline to post comments and documents, or add to a blog is March 12, 2004. Don't forget to tell them you're a Tapped In member!
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Tapped In members Glen Bull, Gina Bull, and Sara Kajder have an article about Tapped In in the February issue of Learning and Leading with Technology. You can link to the article from the Tapped In papers page.
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Gail Hoskins, Tapped In member and ENC Senior Outreach Coordinator, reports that on page 18 of the Oct-Nov 2003 Bimonthly report from the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education to the US Department of Education, the Arts and Literacy discussion about the ENC Focus article on Math and Literacy was included.
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Tapped In member Diane McGrath has the project based learning article "Strengthening Collaborative Work" in the February issue of Learning and Leading with Technology.
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Tapped In member Craig Roland did a web review on My Place in Asia Australia for the February issue of School Arts Magazine.
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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.
[2] Tips and Comments from the Experts
The Louisiana Center for Educational Technology (LCET), a division of the Louisiana State Department of Education, is piloting two online professional development courses based upon the ISTE NETS-T standards. The leadership courses were designed by Dr. Adrianne Hunt, Tapped In member, who included TI as a major component in both courses. For the past two months eight instructors, who were chosen via a rigorous selection process to teach the first cohorts in the state, have been pilot participants, led through the course sessions by Adrianne. They have joined TI, gotten offices, written on whiteboards, posted files, created passageways, and practiced chatting skills. In February they'll be leading the four teacher cohorts in the state, bringing them all online to learn about the TI environment and to attend ASO meetings.
The pioneering instructors are Marge Arnold, Beverly Barquet, Begona Perez-Mira, Terrie McCallister, Kim Leblanc, Patsy Whitlow, Dianne Gauthier, and Margaret Henderson. Expert technology users all, this group has been excited to learn how to use the tools and resources provided by TI and look forward to introducing it to the professional education community in Louisiana.
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Brian Minklein, an English/Language Arts teacher and a student in Tapped In member Linda Ullah's Foothills College class, made the following comment after participating in the ENC Math discussion:
". . .well, after a short talk with BJ, she dragged me into the Math meeting. What an amazing meeting, the presenter talked about this site: www.enc.org. If you're looking for great math and/or science stuff check this site out. Especially take a look at the calendar and the Lessons page! All grade levels are represented and great tools for everything and everyone! I'm not even a math person, in fact I am VERY not a math person, but this meeting was very useful and entertaining!"
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Another of Linda's students, Audra Schallberger, an elementary teacher, also had some interesting comments about her experience with an Arts and Literacy discussion:
"I "Tapped In" to Arts and Literacy: Empowering Arts into the Curriculum. I found this discussion to be very interesting. We were referred to a couple of different web sites that provided us with many resources. I was able to gather information that could easily be incorporated into my curriculum.
Personally, this area is very important and one that I struggle with and that is incorporating art into the classroom. . . .Although the state standards do encompass a Visual and Performing Arts area, it sometimes proves challenging in finding the time to get it in. I thought this "discussion" may give me tips on that---it didn't necessarily do that but it did provide other useful information. I was also able to meet someone who teaches in my district but at another school site. She shared her experiences and what she does to bring arts into the classroom. The discussion also focused on readers' theatre which I have used in the past but have not done so this year. Quilt making was another area of discussion...I try to bring in art which is educational and can be an experience rather than the "canned" version. Perhaps more of the 'experience' of art will come through a longer experience of teaching....."
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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.
[3] Tapped In Technology Tip
Projecting Web Pages
Good news for those of you who liked the webpage projection feature in the old Tapped In! A text command has been added to the new Tapped In chat interface. When a webpage address (URL) is projected, a new window automatically pops open for everyone who is in the same room. As you can imagine, this can be pretty shocking to new users, so please let everyone know what you plan on doing before trying out this very cool feature.
The text command is /project (url). This also works in private chat windows, or you can project to just an individual user (without opening a private chat first) with /projectuser (user) (url). Please let others know that you are going to project a webpage either in the main chat window or the private chat window or to an individual user before you type the /project command. If you think the participants will be uncomfortable with webpage projections, the URL will still be hyperlinked for individual access if you enter it as text in the main chat or private chat window.
[4] New Online Elementary Reading/Spelling Game!
Researchers at Brandeis University have developed SpellBee, a FREE web-based game designed to motivate student attention to reading, listening, and spelling. They invite elementary teachers and their students to play the game.
The game runs on any PC or Mac with a Java-enabled browser and soundcard. Headphones are recommended. It is very simple to play. Students select words for their partner to spell. The partner receives an audio and visual cue to spell. Students get points for correctly typing their word and for appropriately challenging their partner.
To get more details and try it out, you and a colleague can go to http://www.spellbee.org. If you like it, let your students sign up and play!
[5] About ...On the Tapis
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