Tapped In Newsletter: January 2004

...On the Tapis
January 2004
Issue 74

In This Issue

[1] Member Perspective: Glen Bull
[2] Preparing Students for Participation in Real-time Online Discussion
[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts
[4] Tapped In Technology Tip
[5] News Nuggets
[6] About ...On the Tapis

Quote of the Month - "Nothing makes me sadder than the peer pressure that enforces conformity and erases wonder. ...Countless others had the light of intellectual wonder extinguished because a thoughtless and swaggering fellow student called them nerds on the playground.... We must rage against the dying of the light - and although Dylan Thomas spoke of bodily death in his famous line, we may also apply his words to the extinction of wonder in the mind, by pressures of conformity in an anti-intellectual culture." - Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History. 1991

[1] Member Perspective: Glen Bull

Glen Bull is co-director of the Center for Technology and Teacher Education at the University of Virginia, and currently holds an endowed chair, serving as the Ward Professor of Education in the Curry School of Education. He is a founder and past president of the Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VSTE), receiving its highest recognition, "Honors of the Association," in 1994. He is a founder and past president of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE), and in 2000 was a recipient of the SITE Lifetime Achievement Award.

Glen's Perspective
I use the "Mining the Internet Column" in Learning & Leading with Technology to explore exemplary educational uses of the Internet. I am always looking for applications or uses of the Internet that can be brought to the attention of ISTE members. I would welcome hearing about innovative uses of the Internet in which members of Tapped In may be engaged.

I met BJ Berquist in the context of a recent article on Tapped In that I was developing for Learning & Leading. I had been aware of the evolution of Tapped In over the past several years, and had briefly talked to Mark Schlager at conferences once or twice during its development. My recent exploration of Tapped In 2 increased my awareness of enhancements in the user interface and in the community of educators gathering around it.

Read all of Glen's Perspective online on the member perspectives page.

[2] Preparing Students for Participation in Real-time Online Discussion - By Marianne Handler and Jan Naher-Snowden

Preparing teacher-candidates entering today's classrooms requires providing a range of experiences using all of the available technologies. We know that the children in the classrooms where our graduates will be placed need to be prepared users of all the tools that are a part of their future lives. Experiences in virtual learning environments should be included in all teacher-preparation programs. The Tapped In After School Online discussions provide a meaningful introduction to these virtual learning spaces as well as interactions and experiences within a community of learners.

It is not unusual for a group of pre-service students to attend an ASO session. It is not unusual for them to gain good teaching ideas and have interesting interactions with the leader and others attending the discussions. Unfortunately, it is also not unusual to welcome to the discussions students who are unprepared and uncertain about expected online behaviors and courtesies. It is the goal of this short piece to help faculty plan for the needed preparation prior to sending students to their first virtual discussions.

We at Tapped In hope you will accompany your students on their visits or, possibly, drop in on sessions they will be attending. There are discussion groups designed for all learners. This month (January, 2004) we are beginning a new forum for Teacher Education Faculty. The first meeting of that group will be on January 22 at 8pm EST/7pm CST/5pm PST. And, no surprise, our first meeting will focus on Preparing Students to Visit ASO sessions.

Read the rest of this article on Preparing Students for Participation in Real-time Online Discussion.

[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts

This month's column, Tips and Comments from the Real Experts: the Members of Tapped In, features members' reflections on and use of the new Tapped In online calendar and the changed format of the emailed calendar. Your comments are invited to help improve the features and make them more useful to you.
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Member Question: Maybe this is a reaction to anything new, but I am still trying to decide whether the email monthly calendar is better listed by days or by disciplines. Do I try to attend when I can or do I try to attend what I am interested?

Tapped In Reply: We debated which makes more sense too and we're trying to save space and make the emails we send shorter... The organization by discipline was about 1/2 the length of the organization by dates. It's nice to hear feedback about the change... We're hoping to hear from other members about whether they liked or disliked the change. If you have more thoughts, let us know so we can figure out what format works best for this mailing.
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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

New Tapped In Calendar
A new calendar has been introduced that is accessible both from outside and inside the Tapped In interface. The url to access the time zone friendly online calendar is http://tappedin.org/tappedin/do/CalendarAction. To access the calendar while you are logged in to Tapped In, go to the Tapped In tab and click on Calendar. At the top of the calendar is a place to choose your time zone. Once you have selected a time zone, the calendar will be displayed with that time zone when you are logged in. To see more information about the events on either calendar, click on the event to open a description page.

[5] News Nuggets

The University of Houston wrote a grant, that was accepted, and the curriculum that Tapped In member Suzann Connell developed for them will be published on the state's education department web site for public high school teachers. This curriculum is in direct competition for publishers such as McGraw-Hill, SouthWestern, Prentice-Hall, etc. Suzann wrote what they call a business module (student edition and teacher edition - about Employment Skills). For more information contact Julie Jaehne at the University of Houston is at 713-680-3143 or Suzann at suzann_connell@verizon.net
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Tapped In member, Steve Schatz, a grad student at Indiana University, is doing his doctoral research on how to evaluate search tools. He has developed a collection of 500 lesson plans and other educator resources and is studying methods for evaluating how useful different methods of searching are for educators. He is seeking K-12 educators (teachers, media specialists, administrators) who are willing to take part in an online research project. Participants will be given access to the collection of resources after the study is over. To learn more, see http://www.powerstart.com/Research or email sschatz@indiana.edu to contact Steve directly.
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Tapped In member Phil Harrison wrote an article in the January 2004 CACE Newsletter introducing CACE members to Tapped In (see http://www.uvcs.uvic.ca/csie/cace/). Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education is a division of continuing studies in education from the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
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Tapped In member, Pamela Stephens' article "Not Art in the Dark, An interdisciplinary approach to teaching art history" is in the January 2004 issue of School Arts Magazine.
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Tapped In member Craig Roland does a web review of "A Brush with History: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery" in the January 2004 issue of School Arts Magazine.
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Tapped In member Harvey Daniels co-authored "Out With Textbooks, In With Learning" in the December 2003/January 2004 issue of Education Leadership.
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"The Learning Power of Webquests" by Tapped In member Tom March appeared in the December 2003/January 2004 issue of Education Leadership.
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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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