Tapped In Newsletter: March 2004

...On the Tapis
March 2004
Issue 76

In This Issue

[1] Member Perspective: Tom Reinartz
[2] News Nuggets
[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts
[4] Tapped In Technology Tip
[5] The Worms Crawl In...
[6] New Web Site Hosts Directory of Higher Ed Distance Learning Programs
[7] About ...On the Tapis

Quote of the Month - "The creeds of individual freedom, democracy, and diversity indeed have unifying power. They inspire me, though I would temper them with equal recognition of community and responsibility." - Bart Laws

[1] Member Perspective: Tom Reinartz

Tom has been using Tapped In for about five years. He has been teaching English/Language Arts at Rosemount High School in Minnesota for 10 years. For the past six years, he has taught technology courses for teachers at the University of Minnesota. In about six months he will complete his dissertation in Learning Technologies at the University of Minnesota.

Tom's Perspective
I remember using version one of Tapped In and thinking it really was close to the most powerful learning tool that I had used in my teaching. Tapped In has been essential for my teaching and learning not only for its easy access, but because of the opportunities to meet and collaborate with others from around the world on just about anything related to education.

When I first began integrating technologies into my teaching, I remember learning new technologies that were exclusive to our high school. Very few teachers from neighboring districts could access the same technology that, through a recent bond referendum, was available to teachers in our district. Since then, I know that technology simply mediates what is to be learned, and really, it's how the technology is used rather than the number of gadgets built into it.

Read all of Tom's Perspective online.

[2] News Nuggets

Tapped In was featured in an article by Tapped In member Joyce Valenza in the Thursday, March 4 Philadelphia Inquirer. The article was also highlighted in ASCD SmartBrief.
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On the MERLOT-Teacher Education home page, Tapped In was featured as the learning object of the week.
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Tapped In member Rachel Williams co-authored "Narrative Art and Incarcerated Abused Women" in the March issue of Art Education, The Journal of the National Art Education Association.
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The article that Tapped In member Teresa Almeida d'Eca wrote, "Webheads in Action (WiA): An online community for professional development - from past to present," was published in the January 2004 edition of "Humanizing Language Teaching", an online magazine edited by Mario Rinvolucri. See http://www.hltmag.co.uk/jan04/sart10.htm.
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Tapped In member and co-moderator of the Euro Language Forum, Barbara Dieu, was re-nominated for the annual GSN Online Shared Learning Award as recognition for her important contributions in the area of international collaborative projects online. She is also coordinator of Homebase Brazil for the This is Our Time Project, an annual global telecommunications project for secondary schools. Barbara was among the eleven finalists from five countries who have distinguished themselves in the area of global collaborative learning last year. To read Barbara's narrative and find out more about the educators worldwide who have distinguished themselves in online collaborative learning (OCL) visit the Global SchoolNet Foundation site.
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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.

[3] Tips and Comments From the Experts

If everyone goes to my office and I project to the ones logged in, it will go to all. I am trying to set up a training session for faculty at CSUF and Tapped In is a great tool for communications and collaboration. Everyone will be logged in so I can share sites. - Otto Benavides
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I really thank you for changing the calendar and the time zone connection. I kept getting lost in the go to and find your zone way of figuring things out. The new way is really easier. Again, thanks! You all work so hard to keep this site going and it's wonderful! - Karen Williams
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From a Preservice Teachers Group discussion:
MarianneH: I would like to send a message to your teacher.
KristiN: Yes, THANK YOU so much Jan and Marianne.
MarianneH: thank her for preparing you so well to participate... that is what made this such a good session.
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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

International Characters in Chat
The chat system has been revised to allow international characters. Give it a test (especially if you have a foreign-language system) and let Tapped In know if you see any problems. To see characters in the chat window, your system must have the fonts installed, and be running a JVM that handles these fonts (newer Mozilla, or IE using the Sun java plug-in rather than the default Microsoft JVM).

[5] The Worms Crawl In...

Not only have we heard more and more in the last few weeks about email worms and viruses than we've probably wanted to, but we've also received emails condemning us for being the carrier of the dreaded disease! Frequently, these messages arrive in our mailboxes with our own return address. The nature of worms and viruses is that they like to gather all email addresses from an infected computer and send messages to them. It typically "spoofs" email addresses and sends messages to someone from someone else who is in your address book or whose email is stored somewhere on your computer. It is hard to trace who the infection is coming from because of how the virus or worm sends the messages.

Additionally, there are other worms and spammers who often spoof email addresses for fun or for malicious reasons. Recently, staff members at Tapped In got a message from themselves notifying them that their email account was about to expire and that they should open the attachment to learn more about it. This was NOT a real message. The attachment was a virus or worm. We didn't open the attachment and only hope that if you receive this from a Tapped In address (it is NOT from us, but from a spammer) that you won't open it either. If you ever receive an email asking you to open an attachment or forward it on to people or send back personal information, don't do it! Make sure it's legitimate first! See the resources below for more information.

http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/commentary/story/0,23008,2563024,00.html
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/story/0,24330,2566233,00.html
http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/features/story/0,23008,2136015,00.html

(This article is a rewording of an article that appeared in the April 2003 Tapis.)

[6] New Web Site Hosts Directory of Higher Ed Distance Learning Programs

OnlineTeacherEd.com is a new Web site for K-12 educators that features an extensive, searchable, online "DegreeFinder" Directory to more than 260 bachelor's, master's and doctorate-level degree and certificate programs in teacher education that are currently being offered in a distance-education format at more than 120 regionally accredited institutions in the US. OTE also features a rich "Resources-for-Educators" section; two timely, journalistic-style eNewsletters covering distance education and electronic portfolios; a "Research-and-Reports" section; and an "About-Distance-Education" section geared toward informing prospective students about how to enroll in and get the most out of higher-education distance-learning programs.

[7] About ...On the Tapis

Past issues of ...On the Tapis newsletters are available online.

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