Tapped In Newsletter: May 1999
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********** ...ON THE TAPIS **********
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Issue # 19 May, 1999
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...ON THE TAPIS is a monthly newsletter with updates on TAPPED IN and related events. Check out our website to learn more. Please update us if your email address changes.
Quote of the Month:
"Knowing is literally something which we do." - John Dewey
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[1] Member Perspective: "Collaboration is the essence"
[2] Meet virtual colleagues at NECC!
[3] ED's Oasis LITE '99 lesson plan contest
[4] Let LTSeek find clippings for you
[5] Get your red hot ASO transcripts!
[6] Email us your newsletter contributions!
[7] Teaching as an act of scholarship
[8] About ...ON THE TAPIS
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[1] Member Perspective: Chuck Merritt
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Chuck Merritt is a Technology Learning Coordinator and Digital High School Program Director in Palo Alto, California. He has been immersing himself in technology for the past six years since returning to the San Francisco Bay Area from five years of living and working in Spain. His primary objective with technology at Palo Alto High School is to encourage colleagues to integrate technology into their curricula in ways that benefit student learning. Here is his perspective on TAPPED IN:
The State of Texas introduced me to TAPPED IN. Austin, Texas was the site of the 1997 TelEd conference. Among the many interesting and useful presentations that I attended was one by Mark Schlager. As Mark described the concept of the "virtual conference center" I became enthused by the possibilities for staff development with a national and international perspective. I was myself just launching a Keypals project (http://www.paly.net/~cmerritt/Keypals.htm) that has blossomed this year, and I saw TAPPED IN as a place that could be a help in finding e-mail exchange partners and others interested in this project.
Indeed, my Keypals Project at Paly (Palo Alto High) has used TAPPED IN as a resource for recruiting new Keypals participants, as a "venue" for a Keypals presentation at TelEd in Canada and, most recently, as a meeting place for my students and their Keypals in France. They logged in - from school or from home - at 7 a.m. to talk with kids in Lorrez, France! (http://www.college-lorrez.net/)
It was also my privilege last winter to host a TAPPED IN Foreign Language discussion group. I hope to restart this group with guest speakers in the fall. This ongoing group will allow foreign language teachers to interact with their colleagues across the country and around the world.
Since my first experiences with TAPPED IN, I have seen even more reasons to stay involved and to encourage others to join. My responsibilities in Palo Alto USD (http://www.pausd.palo-alto.ca.us) have led me to speak with local technology leaders who have little "free" time, but a lot to say to each other. Collaboration is the essence of TAPPED IN: After School Online discussions, ongoing discussion groups, inter-district projects, and of course the many wonderful chance encounters one may have with others members.
My hope is that TAPPED IN will continue to grow and expand as an important staff development resource. With every visit to this "virtual conference center" I come away with new ideas for how to use it to benefit my students, my colleagues and myself. I'm sure I'm not alone in the expectation that TAPPED IN will be an effective force in teacher development and educational reform.
[2] Meet virtual colleagues at NECC!
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Come meet some of your virtual colleagues at the National Education Computing Conference in Atlantic City, NJ. TAPPED IN, ED's Oasis, and Leadership and the New Technologies (LNT) will be hosting a Birds of a Feather gathering on Wednesday, June 23 from 5:30-6:30pm. We look forward to putting faces together with names, and hope to hear what you would like from us in the future. If you haven't worked with us yet, please join us to learn more about our organizations. Keep an eye out for the room assignment when you get to NECC!
[3] ED's Oasis LITE '99 lesson plan contest, Deadline: June 5, 1999
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Back by popular demand in celebration of the creativity and ingenuity of exemplary teachers: another ED's Oasis MasterSearch Contest! If you are a classroom teacher, librarian, or instructional staff member currently teaching in elementary or secondary schools, and have a lesson plan involving Internet technologies that promote collaboration, then this contest is for YOU.
Winners will be announced in our sessions at the NECC Conference in Atlantic City, June 22-24, 1999 and honored in an ED's Oasis Teachers' Guild Festival held in TAPPED IN. The winning lessons will be published in the Teachers' Guild library, and listed in the GEM Gateway to Educational Materials. For more information see http://www.edsoasis.org/TGuild/MasterSearch.html.
[4] Let LTSeek find clippings for you
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LTSeek is an online news clipping service for folks with more interest in news stories about education and educational technology than they have time to satisfy that interest. Five days a week, LTSeek editor John Rakestraw, who is with Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, will email you short descriptions of current articles from major newspapers on the World Wide Web. The descriptions include links to the complete stories. You can subscribe to this service at http://ltseek.ltc.vanderbilt.edu
[5] Get your red hot ASO transcripts!
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Did you miss that After School Online session that was a perfect match for what you're doing? Or were you there but forgot to ask for a transcript? Worry not! Transcripts are archived in the ASO room and you can easily have one emailed to you. When you enter the ASO room (or if you type LOOK), you'll see "What is here" listed at the bottom of the room description. The current transcript emailer is called "May-June 1999 ASO transcripts (T8)". Type: LOOK T8 to see a listing of the transcripts it contains. Then type: GET <object> FROM T8 to have a copy emailed to you (if you're a member; it doesn't work for guests). Use the alias (in parentheses) at the end of the transcript name for convenience. For example, type: GET Rubric1 FROM T8. For more
information, you can type HELP T8.
[6] Email us your newsletter contributions!
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Got something you'd like to see in this newsletter? Send us an email with reviews of interesting Web sites, projects, book reviews and other ideas you might have!
[7] Teaching as an act of scholarship
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On May 2, Lee Shulman, President of The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, spoke at the annual conference of the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT). His topic: "The Scholarship of Teaching for Meaningful Learning."
The Carnegie Foundation has a new program devoted to understanding how to make teaching an act of scholarship. In his address, Dr. Shulman spoke about the three critical characteristics of scholarship: "It should be public, susceptible to critical review and evaluation, and accessible for exchange and use by other members of one's scholarly community." He discussed how classrooms were almost more private than bedrooms: Teachers typically do not go into other teacher's classrooms and watch them teach. In fact, the idea of having a colleague observe them makes many teachers nervous. Collaboration is crucial to making teaching an activity of scholarship; a community of scholarship for educators to exchange the inevitable surprises of practice is needed.
TAPPED IN is a community in which we routinely share our surprises and successes, collaborate, and give critical feedback to our colleagues. We need to look at our activities critically and think about ways to help them become acts of scholarship. Your suggestions, as always, are welcome!
[8] About ...On the TAPIS
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