Dear participants,

Welcome to our TESOL Electronic Village Online session 2008 "Teaching with Technology: PowerPoint in the Classroom".

Since you are now registered in this group, you have received this message that includes some things that you can do to prepare for the course which begins on January 14th. You will see some repetition of these tasks in Week 1, which you can disregard if you have already completed them. Many of the tasks to be completed for Week 1 are mainly devoted to participants getting to know one another and familiarizing themselves with the tools we will be using during the next six weeks.

There will be two main communication modes throughout this workshop:

1. the asynchronous mode (e-mail). Our communication center is our YahooGroup (YG) Teaching with PowerPoint, which makes it possible to be in permanent contact with all members through its e-mail feature (distribution list).

2. the synchronous mode (chat). We may have occasional, optional chats that will take place at a time and place to be determined.

E-mail: We will have moderators sharing and working each week to assist in making sure that we cover the pedagogical, building and practical usage components of PowerPoint. Always feel free to ask questions or voice concerns, and please post all such ideas in the message area of the Teaching with PowerPoint Yahoo Group. If you have a question, it's likely that others have the same or similar questions, and the goal of this session is for all of us to learn from one another.  To alert your moderators and/or colleagues, please write "Question" or "Help needed" in the subject area of your message.

Chat (optional): Instructions on how to find the place and determine what the designated GMT means to you in your time zone will be covered in more detail in Week 1. As we are an international group with very different and distant time zones, the time may not always be the most suitable for everyone. However, if you are unable to join our chat events, a transcript/log of the chat will always be uploaded to our Files section (YG) for you to read.

FYI: GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) is the standard time we have adopted, so please refer to The World Clock site http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html to situate yourself in your time for each synchronous event.

Some Things You Can do to Prepare for This EVO Session

1. Tell other participants about you/your location. Click on the Frappr link on the YG homepage and enter your picture and a message on Frappr. This will allow us to begin to get to know one another as well as determine participant locations so that we might be able to choose a chat time that is more suitable to the majority in our session.

2. Take the course survey.  Go to the Teaching with PowerPoint User Survey  and answer the few questions. This will help us to determine where extra help may be needed to navigate Yahoo Groups and with PowerPoint.

3. Review the main elements of netiquette.  Read the Guide to Netiquette and take the short Netiquette Quiz that follows. This is a very simple and quick reminder of netiquette on the Web.

4. Review how to protect yourself online.  Read the article 10 Most Dangerous Things Users Do Online We would recommend that you print this out and make sure to follow these guidelines to help prevent spam and other unwanted Internet bugs.

5. Decide how to manage your email.  There will be a high volume of e-mail in our course. If you want to stay in constant touch with what is happening with the group, you may choose to receive individual e-mail or a daily digest. More on these options will be covered in Week 1. Though all e-mail will be archived in the Yahoo Group, you might want to create a folder (or folders) in your Yahoo Mailbox for e-mails that are of particular interest to you.

6. Participate. We truly hope that you will take the time to engage with other participants through the message forum and that this and other forms of communication will help you and the other participants gain both the practical knowledge to build PowerPoint presentations as well as pedagogical background information to assist you in the integration of your PowerPoints into your current curriculum.

7. Provide contact information: Please add your contact information to the database on the Yahoo Group. To do this, click on the "Database" on the left sidebar of the YG. Click "Contact List" and then click "Add record". Add your name and IDs, such as Yahoo Messenger, Skype or other contact information.

Once again we would like to welcome you to our TESOL EVOnline session, "Teaching with Technology: PowerPoint in the Classroom".

Links for our Communication during the Session

Our Yahoo Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TeachingwithPowerPoint/
Workshop/Live Chat Site: WiZiQ
Yahoo Messenger

 

BIOGRAPHIES

Jennie Brown, with over eight years experience designing and developing instructional technology for higher education and an MS in Human Computer Interaction, currently teaches ESL at Georgia Tech and helps teachers incorporate instructional technology into their English courses. Interests outside of teaching and technology include writing, photography, vegetarian cooking, and travel. Susan Burg teaches CALL English at the Università degli Studi di Firenze in Italy as well as other institutions. She began participating with the Webheads in 2002 and, thanks to the group's spirit and encouragement, in 2006 she went on to get her Masters in e-learning from the university where she teaches. Roger Drury teaches in the IEP of Georgia Tech. He has taught EFL and done teacher training in France and Colombia, the latter as a Fulbright Scholar. Roger also develops ESP courses, often with a CALL emphasis, and is an active member of the TESOL CALL-IS. Kent Matsueda has just returned to America after almost five years in Japan teaching at the Tamagawa School and Kanazawa Technical College. He has designed and taught distance-learning, conversation, and CALL classes in Japan. He's temporarily living in Las Vegas until he can find a position as an Instructional / Multimedia Designer somewhere in the US.  He's an experienced user of Macs and PC's and has begun to build his knowledge of UNIX servers. When he's not fooling around with computing and electronic gadgetry, he likes to mountain bike, hike and scuba dive.   © EVO PowerPoint team: Christine Bauer-Ramazani, Sandy Wagner, Paula Emmert, Roger Drury, Jessica Noyes, Kent Matsueda, Susan Burg, Jennie Brown Created November 2, 2006; last updated Januray 20, 2008