Tapped In Newsletter: September 2002
September 2002 News
...ON THE TAPIS
September 2002
Issue 58
In This Issue
[1] Profile of a TAPPED IN Member
[2] Member Perspective: Derrel Fincher
[3] Ken Burns Visits TAPPED IN!
[4] Krause Center Staff Development Programs
[5] Technology Tips
[6] TAPPED IN News Nugget
[7] About ...On the TAPIS
Quote of the Month - "Each generation rediscovers that part of the past which gives the present new meaning." - Ken Burns, Educator, Historian, and Film Maker
[1]Profile of a TAPPED IN Member - by BJ Berquist
Welcome to TAPPED IN! Are you here to join a discussion group or are you here to meet with a class? Oh, this is your first visit to the TAPPED IN environment! We're so glad you could take the time to visit and see all the resources that are available :-). One of the most valuable resources of TAPPED IN is its international membership of over 15,000. How do you know if you qualify for membership? Good question! All of the members are involved in education in some way...researchers, edtech leaders and coordinators, librarians, K-12 teachers and students, university students, pre-service teachers, professors, ESL/EFL teachers, and more! The calendar of events reflects not only the diverse interests of the membership, but also the mutual love of learning and the desire to share knowledge with others. If you think you fit that profile, the answer to your question about whether you qualify for membership is a resounding yes!
[2] Member Perspective: Derrel Fincher
Derrel (Derrelf) spent fifteen years in engineering prior to becoming a teacher in 1998. He switched careers when he found himself in front of a class of sixth grade math students for nine weeks in 1997 and realized he liked it! Now with certifications in K-12 Mathematics and Elementary Education he is a Math and Technology teacher at the American School in Japan. He discovered TAPPED IN when it was a requirement for his coursework in Pepperdine University's Online Master of Arts in Educational Technology (OMAET) program but he found it so useful he now uses it with his middle school students as well as using it for discussions with other professionals.
Derrel's Perspective
The most significant learning for individuals occurs within a social context, whether it's an engineering team trying to create a new product or authors discussing writing. I try to give my students the same experience of learning within a social context I enjoyed as an engineer.
See all our member perspectives.
[3] Ken Burns Visits TAPPED IN!
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for more than twenty years. Since the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War (1990) and Baseball (1994). The historian Stephen Ambrose has said of Ken's films, "More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source." Ken joined Michael Hutchison, Social Studies Forum discussion leader, for a special Social Studies Forum at TAPPED IN on September 12 and spent an hour answering questions from the discussion participants. The transcript from the event will be posted soon on the Social Studies Forum mail list.
[4] Krause Center Staff Development Programs - by Linda Ullah
The Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills CA provides a high quality, low cost technology integration staff development programs for educators. Classes provide continuing education units that can be used for salary schedule increases. Classes will take place in our newly renovated high tech facility, in local schools and districts, at the Resource Area for Teachers in San Jose, and online. Online classes are open to educators throughout the world. For more information please see http://www.foothill.edu/cfi.
[5] Technology Tips
Student Activity Center
If you teach a class of K-12 students, you can have them log into the TAPPED IN Student Activities Center (SAC) to meet with a class from another school, talk with an author or an expert, or engage in jigsaw activities in the Studios.
Advanced Tech Tip of the Month: Getting Student Accounts
If you want to bring your class to the SAC, you will need to get student accounts for them. A student account provides a private, safe and secure opportunity for the student to log in to the SAC.
[6] TAPPED IN News Nugget
Pam Berger has an article in the September issue of Technology & Learning. This article is a follow up to "Not Your Parents' Library" in the May issue which can be found at http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/2002/05/library.html. Part two of the article, in which TAPPED IN is promoted, uses the example of a public and school librarian from Pennsylvania who collaborated in TAPPED IN to build their website.
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Phil Benz presented a paper at the Cyberlangues 2002 conference. You can read it at http://www.ardecol.ac-grenoble.fr/english/viva/viva.htm.
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Webheads were featured in the August 29, 2002 newsletter "Learning from the Innovators: Internet Communication Technologies Changing Business Practices". See http://www.imakenews.com/ict1/e_article000089866.cfm?x=193008,0.
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Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz are proud to announce an interactive web site designed to help students learn and use the Big6 Skills for information problem solving. The site, Big6 Kids, contains helpful hints, templates, worksheets, songs, games and fun to help children master essential information problem solving skills. TAPPED IN member Ferdi Serim leads a monthly discussion group for the Big6.
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Some of the members in TAPPED IN have begun including their TI membername in their email sigs. Derrel Fincher's inclusion of "TAPPED IN: DerrelF" is a nice way to help his students and colleagues recognize him when they are logged in.
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TAPPED IN member, William Wilson had a busy summer. He was involved with online radio broadcasts for the Georgia Gold Prospectors Association at http://www.goldprospecting-northamerica.com/. In the National Geographic Explorer - Attack of the Mystery Shark video, which attempts to identify the type of shark responsible for the 1916 NJ shark attacks that are the basis for the movie JAWS, the actual lead character is Fabian Cousteau - Jacque's grandson. Bill is the one in the cowboy hat :).
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The staff of USAToday Education online selected the Operation RubyThroat Web site as a "Best Bet" for the week of 10-16 September 2002.
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The ArtsConnected web site was mentioned in the "On the Web" column in the September 2002 issue of SchoolArts magazine. TAPPED IN member Kevan Nitzberg leads a tutorial and discussion group about ArtsConnected each month in TAPPED IN.
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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.
[7] 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.