Tapped In Newsletter: April 2009
...On the Tapis
April 2009
Issue 137
In This Issue
[1] April is Volunteer Recognition Month!
[2] Member Perspective: Crystal Hack
[3] Advisory Board Positions Open for Life Science Teachers
[4] News Nuggets
[5] Tips and Comments from the Experts
[6] Tapped In Technology Tip
[7] About ...On the Tapis
Quote of the Month: "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." - Aristotle
[1] April is Volunteer Recognition Month!
April is the month in which we officially thank the many volunteers who invest countless hours in the TI community helping our members find classrooms, create special interest groups, bring their K-12 students to the student campus, and learn about the many features of the TI interface. Our volunteers also provide the events on the monthly calendars. Volunteers are the heart and soul of Tapped In. They're the real people who answer questions, calm technophobes, and provide inspiration for innovative educators. Please be sure to thank those volunteers the next time you log in and have a question or participate in a calendar event. You can do this ANY month! If you're interested in becoming a volunteer just log in and ask for information about TI Volunteering.
[2] Member Perspective: Crystal Hack
Meet Crystal Hack
Crystal is the Director for GED-i National Project, a nationally recognized online learning project used statewide in Illinois, Maryland, Washington, Minnesota, and a community college in North Carolina.
The GED-i Perspective
Crystal has led a national professional development initiative with administrators, instructors, and coordinators who are partners in their deployment of GED-i.
Tapped In provides a centralized location for the sharing of resources, hosting professional development chats, and engaging in GED-i related discussions. Both experienced and new adult education professionals are able to network, share tips and strategies about the online teaching and learning experience.
Read the rest of Crystal's Perspective here.
[3] Advisory Board Positions Open for Life Science Teachers
Please forward this message to other appropriate candidates for an advisory board position to represent K8 teachers who teach life sciences using FOSS, Insights, STC or BSCS.
The Video and Image Data Access (VIDA) collection contains annotated video and images with content and language appropriate for standards-based science. VIDA is meant to facilitate sharing current research through the use of images to connect teachers and children with bioscience faculty, biologists, and community resources providing opportunities for both formal and informal life science education of teachers and children. Donated images are made available on the web to complement hands-on inquiry at the level of grades K-8.
What we know today about the biological world bears little resemblance to what was known during our parents' generation, yet there has been very little change in what children are taught about biology. We are currently writing a proposal to NSF (the NSDL Program) with a vision to transform how this digital library serves the needs of teachers and learners of biology at the grades K8 level. There is currently no professional organization that is focused on life science preparation for K-8 teachers, and that is why I am contacting you. This project will develop a digital library interface that is aligned with a shift from the mid-twentieth century view of scientists as a select group toward a more liberal humanistic view that biological discoveries are made by groups of people who work together in communities with shared norms and procedures. Our plan is to revolutionize the VIDA collection based on emerging theories of learning, increasing emphasis on research experiences, the empowering nature of new technologies, and changes in the manner in which people work together to investigate.
As a minimum, we would like to be listed by teacher professional organizations as a recommended website supporting biology teaching and learning. But we would also like to explore the possibility that VIDA partners might play a role in future policy recommendations to serve the needs of a target group (elementary school teachers) that currently lacks support of any professional biological society.
Log in to see the current Archive that we plan to convert into a social networking resource for regional groups of K8 teachers.
[Ed. Note: See [4] Technology Tip]
Nancy Pelaez, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biological Sciences
Lilly Hall G-224, Purdue University
[4] News Nuggets
Tapped In is once again a partner of a Webheads in Action Online unConvergence, May 22-24, 2009, this one the 3rd bi-annual WiAOC free global online conference for teachers and education professionals. The theme for WiAOC2009 is Lifelong Learning, Connecting Facilitators, Transcending Borders.
WiAOC is mounted every two years by Webheads in Action and http://webheadsinaction.org, a world-wide multi-cultural online community of ESL/EFL educators and other professionals. WiAOC is a unique international conference held entirely online. Participation is free and open to all who are interested.
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Learning From Lyrics had a good session in March. Johnathan Chase thanks everyone who attended and he looks forward to our next session which is April 21 at 9pm ET. During the March discussion John shared a Teacher Appreciation Day "event" that he is trying to get off the ground. He has blogged about the event. For details, scroll down the page, look for the Blog Section on the left side and read the post for 3/19/2009. If you are on MySpace or have any colleagues who are, please spread the word and encourage them to stop over and leave a comment in celebration of upcoming Teacher Appreciation Day. John hopes to have numerous comments posted by May.
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IOC 2009 featured speaker Michael Coghlan is E-learning Facilitator for TAFE South Australia and an independent E-learning Consultant (and TI member!). He is well known internationally for his keen insights on online learning and his hands-on and innovative approach to connected education. 7th Annual International Online Conference for Teaching and Learning took place completely online March 30-31, 2009
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"Speed Dating for Books," a fun reading activity for high school students, was presented to a workshop about school libraries and literacy by TI member Pam Berger, leader of Web Tools for Education
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TI member Kim Lightle pointed out an Education Week article from June 2007, that mentions Tapped In.
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The TI team, responding to a request by a TI member, has added a feature that allows items in the TI calendar to be added to your Google calendar. TI Calendar items now have an "add to Google Calendar" button on them.
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Some TI members have requested daily reminders for the TI calendar events. BJ Berquist started a Twitter account with the username tappedinorg. Daily posts are made and, if comments are made during the discussions that will give a taste of what the event is like, those comments are also tweeted. Since this is BJ's first venture into tweeting, any constructive comments are welcome! (The 140 character limit gives new meaning to "brevity is the soul of wit!")
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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.
[5] Tips and Comments from the Experts
Here's a snip from the transcript from Web 2.0 Tools for Schools that took place on March 19, 2009. The discussion was led by Lynne Wolters.
LynneW: What have you learned from reviewing these resources and participating in the brainstorming? How are you different now than you were 50 minutes ago?
PH: Web 2.0 = Ed 2.0
LS: Nothing is impossible to a willing hard [working teacher] in Web 2.0 world!
MK: that there are a lot more ways to do instruction, assessment, and class work than we thought before.
KB: more online resources and things that can help my lessons be more interesting
LC: I have learned there are many free websites from Web 2.0 that give us the tools for providing fun and organized instruction/assessments for students
JW: There are so many tools available that I didn't know about and it's so exciting for an old teacher like me.
EB: A lot of helpful ideas for creating great amazing lessons using tech
MK: learning to children can be fun, rewarding and educational
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TI member Allison Schaffer sent in an email about how the Shed Aquarium uses TI, "In the education department, we have Tapped In department meetings quite often and we also use it probably once or twice a month for other meetings. When people are home sick, snowed in or unable to be there in person, we utilize Tapped In. We also like it because it forces everyone to listen to one another's ideas (we're a chatty group sometimes!) and it records everything. Plus it allows for introverts to participate and not feel over whelmed by the extroverts of the group!"
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New TI member Patty Fesser commented, "What I love most about Tapped In is I get a chat feedback [transcript] sent to my email that I can check out [the next day]. So many conversations you miss!"
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New TI member Charles Alimonda said that, "I am really starting to like this Tapped In community." When asked to explain, he commented, "Why do I like this because it gives you so many ideas of what you can do with kids. Like the one that we are going to do today. From what I am reading you can really get students involved too."
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New TI member Nalini Shyam shared this comment as she explored the TI environment, "Today is my first day here and I am hooked.
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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 or post how you use TI.
[6] Tapped In Technology Tip
Accessing and submitting to the TI Library
If you haven't visited the TI Library lately, here are just a few of the recent additions. To view the TI Library, go to the Tapped In tab and then click on Library in the blue menu bar. There is a hyperlink to "Add Tapped In resource" that makes it very easy to contribute to the library!
I have submitted a new Tapped In Instructional Material resource with the title "The VIDA project has online sets of video or images for life science instruction in grades K-8". [Nancy J. Pelaez]
I have submitted a new Tapped In Wiki resource with the title "ICT Enhanced learning and teaching PBWiki". [Hazel D. Owen]
I have submitted a new Tapped In Movie resource with the title "ICT Enhanced learning and teaching videos on Blip TV". [Hazel D. Owen]
[7] About ...On the Tapis
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