Tapped In Newsletter: July 2011

...On the Tapis
July 2011
Issue 156

In This Issue

[1] The FIRST 'R'= Research
[2] Impact of Online CoPs on Instruction
[3] Tips and Comments from the Experts
[4] News Nuggets
[5] About ...On the Tapis

Quote of the Month - "For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?" - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[1] The FIRST 'R'= Research

Did you know that Tapped In was originally created as a test-bed for research in education? TI's foundation, as well as current practices, include continuing the collaborative and cooperative aspects of research. When you read about a Tapped In member doing research about the community, please support their efforts and take a few minutes to respond to questionnaires or surveys. Your contribution will add to over a decade of research and support those who make the Tapped In experience possible.

[2] Impact of Online CoPs on Instruction

Seamus Clune is a PhD candidate in Organizational Leadership at Eastern University and a middle school principal. This fall, he will be conducting survey research with Tapped In members to investigate the impact of online communities of practice (CoPs) on instruction.

In particular, the purpose of the study is to examine the relationships between perceptions of transformational principal leadership, teacher self-efficacy, personal characteristics, and the effective use of educational technology in instruction for teachers who have participated in an online K-12 Communities of Practice. Personal characteristics will be divided into background information (i.e. age, gender, years teaching) and information regarding grade level taught (i.e. K-4 Elementary; 5-8 Middle; 9-12 High School). Nationwide data collected by the U. S. Department of Education on the effective use of educational technology for instruction will be compared to data from study participants.

Keep a lookout for the survey and please take a few minutes to respond!

[3] Tips and Comments from the Experts

Tapped In member Susan Goldarreh responded to a post that was made to the Cybrarians group discussion board. Note that even if your group(s) are not active with synch (real time) discussions, the asynch (email group) discussion board always allows you to communicate with your personal learning network (PLN). To see the information to which Susan refers visit the Cybrarians group and look at Files and Discussion.

Hi Bj. I wanted to respond to your email (which I ALWAYS enjoy receiving) that I will absolutely be using the poets.org link (and others I received from Dr. Farmer's transcript) that you had sent. I have scheduled several classes during the week of April 11th. We will be creating a poetree in the library media center with favorite and created poems. We will also be participating in Poem in Your Pocket on the 14th. Again, your resources are so enjoyed and appreciated as I am building my library media program!

Susan later sent images from the poetree project. These images are available in the Cybrarians group room.[BJB]
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Tapped In member Alyssa Roth posted an interesting reflection to the DWP-ESA Digital Marathon Group. After a summary of the pros and cons of the digital tools (which included Glogster, Wallwisher, and VoiceThread) she used in her lesson, she concluded her Reflection Paper on the Spring lesson implementation with, "I have learned a tremendous amount of information about technology. I learned that I can take about any reading or writing lesson and improve it just by adding a form of technology. We as teachers need to come out of our shell and branch out and embrace these 21st Century Skills because our world is so technology based that our students know more about it than we do!"
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Tapped In member Peter Kronfeld shared some reflections on how to engage educators in Tapped In.

Whenever I've told teachers about Tapped In, it's been about how it's a great resource. People's eyes seem to glaze over -- too many "great resources" out there to deal with. What would attract new teachers might be if they saw TI as a solution, rather than another generic resource. The challenge would be to identify/define the problem, since it might be unique to each person.

Since many new users of TI are university students introduced as part of their teacher prep curriculum, one route would be through the professors. I was introduced to TI through Dr. Bernie Dodge as part of an assignment to try out Personal Learning Network (PLN) resources and write a reflection on the experience. TI certainly can't control the assignments University profs give out, but maybe if students identified their own issue and then used TI to address it, they would see the benefits of TI. Since the professors assigning TI are already on board with the benefits of collaboration, surveying them for input would be a good starting point.

Hope this is of some use. I'd certainly like to see more people in the discussions!

If you have comments to Peter's ideas, please send 'em! [BJB]
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This teacher's comment is posted here anonymously to protect the offending student's identity. I couldn't resist this opportunity to share how Tapped In Helpdesk monitors logins to provide student security and how teachers respond to that monitoring!

Yes, please delete this account. And, thank you for continuing to moderate. I have used TI for various purposes and all the time used for timely discussion about Internet safety, netiquette, and etc. There will certainly be a "come to Jesus" meeting with this young feller on Monday at school; he may be done using the District's computers for the rest of this school year.
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Tapped In member Charlee King posted the following to the TI: Learning Hub Reflection Topics folder:

Taking the tour is a valuable way when learning and understanding how to navigate through the site. The pace of the tour was a little slow, which could be necessary for larger groups. However, I felt ready to explore the site and topics available. The initial tour introduces the site and teaches all the basics for future use.
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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 to How You Use TI.

[4] News Nuggets

Responding to the addition of a Tornado folder in the Natural Disaster Help Center following the deadly tornadoes in the U.S., Sandra Rogers let TI know that she had added Tapped In's info to her blog.
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Johnathan Chase, leader of the Learning From Lyrics group in Tapped In, sent this update to student writing assignments:

Thought you would appreciate our (12th grade Govt./Economics class)final writing assignment for the school year, a post-viewing response to the documentary Waiting for Superman.

You might also be interested in this writing assignment inspired by the film "Norma Rae". Scroll down the page and click on student names to read their responses.
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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] About ...On the Tapis

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

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