The tappedin.org site is free. It is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, so it should be operating for a long time.

It differs from nicenet.org in that it can be used for many more things. Unlike the asynchronous chat rooms in nicenet, you can use it for real-time synchronous chat in your own "office" or, with small groups, in other rooms on the tappedin.org campus. In these discussions, you can also use it to share URLs using the whiteboards located in these rooms.

You could, therefore, as we will do in this course, specify that all students meet in a room at a certain time. You show students a clip of a video by simply putting in the URL onto the whiteboard. You could then ask students to meet in small groups to discuss the video clip for a certain period of time; they could then return for a large group discussion. All of these discussions are recorded and you can receive transcripts of these discussions for evaluating students.

As a teacher, you can also join various professional groups' discussions or professional development events that are scheduled for various times during any given month. Read about members' involvement.

The Tapped In community is based on a room metaphor. While you are logged in, you are always in one room or another in Tapped In. The room you "land" in when you log in to Tapped In is called your home room. If you have chat enabled, anything you say will be "heard" by other Tapped In members that are currently in the room with you.

The Tapped In campus consists of a collection of buildings. These include the Tapped In Community Center and a building for each tenant. Most buildings have three floors: 1) the ground floor, 2) the group's floor, and 3) the offices floor. All buildings have a reception room on the ground floor and a lobby on all other floors. Every room in Tapped In is located on some floor in some building.

You can see which room you are in from the "You are in Room Name" near the top left of the window and at the top of the chat area. When you are in the room view, you should see a menu on the left side of the content area showing the different areas of the room (e.g. Welcome, Notes, etc.). There are various ways to move from one room to another. There are several types of rooms, including personal offices, reception rooms, and group rooms.

While in any room, you can also access certain types of information from the "information tabs" running across the top of the window. Right now, you are in the Help tab. Opening an information tab does not change the room you are in. Rather, it replaces the window contents with information until you close the tab and go back to the room view. Each tab is divided into several sections. If chat is enabled, the chat area always appears at the bottom of the window.

Rooms
While you are logged in to Tapped In, you are always in one room or another. You can see which room you are in from the "You are in Room Name" near the top left of the window and at the top of the chat area. The room you "land" in when you log in to Tapped In is called your home room.

By default, you should be in the Room View, which simply means you are looking at the contents of the room rather than having an information tab open. (See How do I close an information tab?) While in the Room View, you should see the room menu along the left side of the content area. The menu items are how different features of the room can be accessed.

Each room has one owner and is of a particular type. Rooms can be locked and edited. Each room is owned by exactly one Tapped In member. The owner of a room always has the ability to lock the room, edit the room configuration, and add files, links, etc. The owner of a room also owns all the items (files, links, etc.) in that room.

Room Menu
If you haven't opened an information tab, you should see the room content in the content area. On the left side of the content area each room has a menu. At the top of the menu is a picture of the room, followed by a number of menu items. What menu items appear depends on the type of room you are in. If you have permission to edit or lock the room, links to do so appear at the very bottom of the menu (you may have to scroll to see them).

Certain menu items appear in all types of rooms. These include:

Welcome: A welcoming page displaying the welcome note and any featured notes and items.
Notes: Lists all the notes in the room. If you have permission, allows you to add, edit, delete, and feature notes.
Files: Lists all the files in the room. If you have permission, allows you to add, edit, delete, and feature files.
Links: Lists all the links in the room. If you have permission, allows you to add, edit, delete, and feature links.
Whiteboard: Displays the whiteboard, which you can write on or erase. Those with appropriate privileges can print it to a note, feature or unfeature it, or edit the full contents of the whiteboard.
Passageways: Lists all the passageways out of the room. If you have permission, allows you to add, delete, and feature passageways.

Room Types
There are currently five types of rooms in Tapped In: 1) personal offices, 2) group rooms, 3) floor lobbies, 4) reception rooms, and 5) other public rooms. Any Tapped In member can create exactly one personal office. Group rooms are automatically created when a group is created. Each building has a reception room, and each floor that is not a ground floor has a lobby. Public rooms are customized rooms open to all members and are similar to reception rooms.

Passageways
A passageway in Tapped In is a one-way tunnel between two rooms. From the Passageway menu of a room, you can click on any of the passageways to other rooms and you will go to that room. For example, if John creates a passageway from his office to the Tapped In reception room, then the Tapped In 2 Reception room appears as a passageway in the Passageway menu of John's Office. Clicking on the passageway will take you directly to the Tapped In reception room.

The Passageway menu of a personal office displays both passageways into the office and passageways out of the office. All other room types (e.g. reception rooms, etc.) only display passageways out. A room owner cannot directly affect an incoming passageway unless he or she owns both rooms in question. For example, if John creates a passageway to Ellen's Office, Ellen can't delete that passageway since she did not create it.

Outgoing passageways can be featured by the owner of the room or a user with feature privileges for the room. A featured passageway appears on the "Featured Items" note on the Welcome page of the room.

Favorite Places
A favorite place is a lot like a browser bookmark. However, a favorite place marks a favorite room in Tapped In, not a particular URL. Favorite places allow you to get to your Tapped In destinations in two clicks from anywhere in the community. Any Tapped In member can add and remove rooms as favorite places. A pull-down down list of your favorite places appears in the upper right of the window.

Chat
Chat allows you to be a part of an online conversation with other Tapped In members that are in the same Tapped In room that you are currently in. Anything you "say" will be "heard" by those in the room and vice versa. The chat applet also allows you to send private messages. If chat is enabled, you should see an applet taking up approximately the bottom third of your browser window. The left side of the applet has three awareness tabs and the right side is the chat area, which contains two text areas and the action menu.

Enabling/Disabling Chat
When you log in to Tapped In there is a checkbox allowing you to enable or disable chat. Chat is enabled by default, unless you clicked on a link that specifically disabled chat.

Once you have logged in, you will see the chat applet at the bottom of your window if you have chat enabled. While in the Room View, i.e., not looking at an information tab such as "Me," you will also see a link to disable chat at the bottom right of the content area (you may have to scroll down to see it). Likewise, if chat is disabled, you should see an enable chat link in the same location. This allows you to disable or enable chat at your discretion without logging out of Tapped In.

If you have chat disabled, you are completely invisible to other online users. You won't show up in any of the awareness tabs in the chat applet, receive private messages in real time, or appear as "Online" in the Tapped In directory. You can still read saved private messages.

Action Menu
In the upper right hand area of the chat window is the Action Menu. The Action Menu currently provides the following actions, many of which require a user to be selected by clicking on his or her username.

Join: Takes you to the location of the selected user.

Private Message: Opens a private message window with the selected user.

Show Profile: Shows the profile of the selected user in the content area.

Show Login Info: Lists the login info of the selected user in the chat area.

Larger Text: Increases the size of the text in the chat area and the private message window.

Smaller Text: Decreases the size of the text in the chat area and the private message window.

Help: Lists and describes command line actions available.

Detach: Makes the chat applet a separate window.

The commands listed by Help can be typed into the Say text box and begin with a "/". For example, typing "/help" has the same result as choosing the Help action on the Action Menu. To get help on a particular command, you can type "/help cmd" where cmd is the command in question.

Detaching the window removes the chat applet from your current window and gives it its own window. When the applet is in the same browser window as Tapped In content, it is not resizable. When chat has been detached it can be resized. Once detached, the applet can be re-attached by either choosing "Reattach" from the File menu, "Attach" from the Action Menu, or by closing the detached chat window. By default, chat is not detached. When chat is detached, several new menu options are available, such as changing the size and style of the font.

Transcripts
If you have chat enabled for your Tapped In session, you will be e-mailed a chat transcript after you disable chat or otherwise end your Tapped In chat session. This chat transcript includes all utterances by you or others while you were in a particular room as well as transcripts of any private messaging sessions between you and other Tapped In members. Guests are not e-mailed chat transcripts. An option to turn off chat transcripts will be available soon.

Whiteboard
Every room in Tapped In has a "whiteboard," a simple tool to help facilitate unrestricted interactive communication that is especially useful for agendas and brainstorming. You can access the whiteboard by clicking "Whiteboard" in the room menu. You do not need to have chat enabled to use the whiteboard.

There are a lot of other features associated with the use of Tappedin.org. To learn about these features, go to the Help link and print out the instructions.

An English Teacher's Use of Tappedin.org to Foster Literature Discussion

Susan Borgen has been using tappedin.org for several years to have her high school students engage in literature discussions in real-time. The following are some excerpts from a paper that she wrote about this process.(If you have further questions, you can contact her at susuborg@hotmail.com.)

Instruction Prior to Online Discussion

Prior to online discussion, students should receive instruction on discussion skills in order to enhance their understanding and response to the literature being studied and how to conduct synchronous online discussion. It is imperative that students be given clear purposes for the discussions and a list of characteristics of effective, small group discussions. They need to be taught how to be effective participants, how to handle conflicts that might arise, and how they can self-evaluate their participation. They should also be instructed as to how they will be scored or graded for their discussion participation. Finally, the process of synchronous online discussion needs to be explained including how to access the website, how to navigate the site, and how to use it.

Students and instructors should be aware that the type of language expressed at the beginning of the project will differ from that of the end; i.e., their writing at the beginning of discussion will sound more conversational while their writing at the end of the unit will be more academic. The possible roles of discussion participants should be introduced: the facilitator who keeps the group on task; the recorder who takes notes and writes down important points; the encourager who gives the group feedback and ensures that all participants are heard; and the reflector who keeps track of group process and makes comments about the groups success/failure and progress. No recorder is necessary for the online discussions since the MOO program used automatically records written conversation. Finally, students need to be advised of the nature of true collaboration among group members: rather than dividing the work, all group members are responsible for all aspects of discussion.

To keep students informed, it is advisable to provide them with a schedule of expected topics of discussion. For example, if a short story unit is planned, students can be given the schedule of stories, the expected date of online discussion, and the journal questions they will be asked to consider while reading and during discussion. Questions for discussion should range from literal/text-based to summarization and from analytical to evaluative.

Real-time Online Discussions

Students, assigned by the instructor, should be divided into groups of four or five. Assignments to groups may be based on several factors: cognitive ability, verbal skills, personality, gender and previously documented effort. An attempt should be made to make the groups as heterogeneous as possible. Students should alternate roles within the group as well as move from different groups as the unit progresses.

Before discussion on any assigned reading material, students should be allowed some time to explore all aspects of the site including the reception desk, campus map, student activities center, commands, and the help function. A one-hour initiation into the site and an opportunity to chat socially should be sufficient for today's computer savvy students.

The length of class time reserved for online discussion is dependent upon the length of the class period. Those on the block schedule will find a 45- to 60-minute discussion adequate with time for wrap up at the end. Those on a 50- to 60-minute schedule might shorten the discussion time or use the majority of the class followed up by whole class discussion at the beginning of the next day's class.

After the Discussion

After synchronous online discussions, transcripts are e-mailed to the instructor's address. They may be accessed by the instructor, read, and scored. The first attempts at online discussion need not be scored until the instructor feels students have had adequate experience. At some point, the most important concepts of the discussion should be summarized, clarified and presented to the class. Problems that arose during the online discussions or particularly insightful responses can be shared in the large face-to-face forum of the regular classroom. Students may add further reflections during that time. Occasionally, it is helpful to provide students with copies of some pages of the transcripts to highlight the most positive aspects of the discussion, and to reinforce those occurrences that are part of effective group discussion. Goals for the next synchronous discussion should be made during these times as well.

Student Progress

An analysis of earlier transcripts recorded at the beginning of the synchronous online discussions should reveal an ability of students to carry on a discussion that sounds like true conversation. There should be a positive exchange among group members; students should comment on another student's opinion, elaborate on another student's answer, or ask a clarifying questions to get to the bottom of an issue.

While early discussion should demonstrate the students' ability to work toward a plausible answer to the question and the ability to use correct discussion procedures such as turn-taking, responding to cues, etc., the writing may be more simplistic in nature. One of the goals of the project is to move from more conversational writing to that which is more academic and in-depth. As students move through the program they should be reminded of that goal and should attempt to make significant progress in developing a line of reasoning, supporting it with textual evidence, using prior knowledge and critical thinking skills, and making personal connections with the literature's themes.

In later discussion, students should be able to recognize literary devices such as symbolism, irony, and title meaning, make reference to the text itself, offer evaluative comments on the actions and motives of the characters, present their own personal responses to the material, compare cultural differences of the past with current viewpoints, and proffer predictions of what might happen to the characters in the future. In addition, students' critical thinking skills should show improvement as they use the literature to not only summarize what happens, but to synthesize, evaluate, and analyze the information as well.

Students earn points for discussion as follows: one point for a comment which answers the question at hand; one point for a comment that elaborates on someone else‚s answer; one point that asks a question about the item being discussed; and two points for comments that show true insight into the material being discussed. Grades can be determined by adding the points and making appropriate cutoffs according to teacher preference.

Advantages of Synchronous Online Discussion

Upon further analysis of the scoring of the discussions, hopefully, those students who had been identified as reticent during in-class face-to-face discussions prove to be more willing to participate in the discussion. In one study, for example, Jennifer, who had previously refused to speak at all during face-to-face discussions even when asked specifically to answer, usually responding with "I don't know," was willing to answer questions, elaborate on others' answers, and analyze key points. Her 0 score in face-to-face discussions grew to 23 comments made in one online discussion. Similarly, three other reluctant students not only made significant contributions, but did, at times, guide the discussion within their online groups. Without exception, every student who had the tendency to be disinclined toward participating in previous face-to-face discussion consistently scored well during the online discussions. And, while the more vocal students consistently scored the most points during online discussion just as they had in face-to-face discussions, they did not and could not dominate the debate. Scores were more equally distributed among the group members, although the most reticent members continued to score the lowest points.

The use of the online discussion transcripts for evaluation and grading purposes is of enormous help. During face-to-face discussion, students often stop talking when the teacher is present. In addition, a teacher might often miss some wonderful insight a student offers because he/she (the teacher) is listening in on another group. The use of the transcripts solves both of these problems.

Finally, while it might seem, to some, strange to be talking to a group member that is sitting in the computer lab right beside him/her, the use of online discussion has global implications. Students need not be in the same classroom, indeed, need not be in the same school building, community, state or country. Teachers across the country and the world are eager to have their students discuss with others. Tappedin can connect you to others who make online discussion part of their teaching strategies. Teachers who use online discussions can offer their students insights to other people, cultures and ideas to help create a true community of learners. Students, especially those in small, homogeneous schools, can be exposed to heterogeneous groups not found in their own limited worlds.

Conclusion

As synchronous online discussion units are completed, students can continue their work in literature with large and small group face-to-face discussions. It can be noted that student participation should rise considerably even to the point that the teacher no longer has to be involved with the discussions at all. Students may be able to moderate an entire 50-minute discussion. Students who have previously declined to be involved in face-to-face discussions usually participate on a greater level of involvement, and the work of the group is more equitably distributed. No student should dominate the discussion and those reticent students who have more fully participated online usually become more than observers during face-to-face discussions. Debates are livelier and the pace at which material can be covered accelerated.

Module 2: Word document

Five Principles of New Media Production

Acquiring Literacies through the Use of New Media

Literacies Associated with Digital Media

One Example: Video Games as a New Media

Studying and Using the Web

Using the Web as a “Media Lab”: Working with Media Using the Internet

Building Learner-Centered Environments through Technology Integration

Creating a Webquest

What is a Webquest?

What are the Different Parts of a Webquest?

The Webquest Design Process

A Sample Webquest using Filamentality

Final Task: Creating Your Own Webquest

Web-based Resources for Teaching Media Literacy

Using Tappedin.org and Nicenet.org

Tappedin.org

Nicenet.org

References