End of ADS-L Digest - 11 Mar 1994 to 12 Mar 1994

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There are 9 messages totalling 436 lines in this issue.



Topics of the day:



 1. Assisting Schools via E-mail

 2. Adam's off ox

 3. HEL-L (2)

 4. Actors & Accent (4)

 5. you all singular--north Texas



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Date:  Sat, 12 Mar 1994 22:52:23 -0700

From:  Rudy Troike <RTROIKE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]ARIZVMS.BITNET>

Subject: Assisting Schools via E-mail



To all interested linguists:



    My colleague Carl Berkhout just copied the following to me,

which looks like an interesting opportunity to put some of our expertise

to use working with the schools in kind of an e-NDEA way. It

essentially asks if you would be willing to do some electronic volunteer

work in behalf of unhigher U.S. public education.

The idea is that you would be an on-line subject specialist who would

work with teachers and their students. The scheme might be of interest to

those of us who would like to see our rarefied areas of interest

represented a little better in high schools and grade schools.

Anyway, you might pass this on to anyone you think might

be interested.







***----------------------> Original Mail From <----------------------***

   Judi Harris <jbharris[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu>

***------------------------------------------------------------------***



WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SHARE WHAT YOU KNOW WITH

PRE-COLLEGE STUDENTS AND TEACHERS BY ELECTRONIC MAIL?



Recent estimates indicate that there are now more than

300,000 classroom teachers from primary, middle, and

secondary schools who hold accounts on the Internet.

This makes a very special kind of learning available to

them: one which directly involves subject matter experts

communicating with students and teachers about their

specialties, via electronic mail.



With support from the Texas Center for Educational

Technology, we (at the University of Texas at Austin)

have piloted and are now expanding an Internet-based

service (the "Electronic Emissary") that brings together

pre-college students, their teachers, and subject matter

experts (SMEs) electronically, helping them to create

telecomputing exchanges centered around the students'

learning in the SMEs' disciplines. For example,



* A class studying South America could learn about

recent global environmental research results from a

scientist who studies rainforest deforestation in

Brazil.



* A class studying geometry might "talk" electronically

with Euclid, who is actually a mathematics professor.



* A class studying the future of education might

converse with an emerging technologies specialist from

California's Silicon Valley.



* A class studying American History might

electronically interview Harry Truman, who is really a

curator with the National Archives.



* A class exploring the rapidly-changing governmental

structures that are emerging in what was once the Soviet

Union might correspond with a group of graduate

political science students at a university in the CIS.



* Or, a class reading _Huckleberry Finn_ might

correspond with an African-American studies scholar

about the repercussions resulting from the enacting of

the Emancipation Proclamation.



In successive phases of the project, increasing numbers

of SMEs or SME groups are needed to correspond regularly

(approximately 4 times per week) with primary, middle

school, or secondary students and their teachers (1 SME

or expert group per class, study group, or "special

student"). Each electronic exchange will begin with

approximately 2 weeks of project planning via electronic

mail between the SMEs and the teachers. Communications

with students will begin on mutually convenient dates,

and will continue for previously-arranged periods of

time, usually between 2 and 10 weeks.



Subject matter expert volunteers are sought in all

academic disciplines and areas of practical expertise.

Communications with classes will occur during the rest

of the spring 1994 semester, then again in the fall 1994

and spring 1995 semesters, and beyond.



==> If you would like to find out more about

==> participating in this project, please read on.



  * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - *



Hello! Thank you for the interest that you expressed in the "Electronic

Emissary" project. I am Judi Harris, a faculty member in the

Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at

Austin.



What follows is more detailed information about the Electronic Emissary

project.



Purpose



We are now expanding the Emissary project, which was successfully

piloted during the spring 1993 semester. Through our work, we hope to:



  1.  refine and implement a workable, useful

     service for educators and their students,

  2.  study the ways in which adults and children

     converse via electronic mail,

  3.  and plan for further expansion of the Emissary.



Participation



If you want to be a subject matter expert (SME) for the project, we will

ask you to agree to:



  1.  Send and receive/read electronic mail to and from

     the class (teacher and students) with whom we ask

     you to correspond AT LEAST THREE TIMES EACH WEEK,

     for as long as you and the classroom teacher agree to

     conduct the exchange. There will be two electronic

     conversations taking place: one between you and the

     students about the topic(s) of your expertise, and another

     between you and the teacher with whom you will

     collaboratively coordinate the activity. Please note that we

     would like you to engage in *inquiry-based* exchange with

     the students, during which they will have many opportunities

     to ask you questions, rather than you delivering an

     "electronic lecture."



  2.  Allow automatically-generated copies of your

     messages to the teachers and students to be read and

     retained by those of us coordinating the Emissary project, for

     use in our research in adult-child conversation via

     telecomputing networks. Your names or identities will not be

     revealed in any way in any report (oral or written) that we

     present on the results of the research. We will also supply

     you with electronic copies of all manuscripts that we create

     that summarize our research results.



  3.  Complete a short electronic project evaluation questionnaire

     at the end of the exchange period.



  4.  Respond to weekly+ questions and suggestions from

     an "exchange facilitator," concerning your perceptions of the

     communication and ways that it could be improved upon,

     both during and immediately following communication with

     the students and their teachers.



  5.  Help the teacher to compose a one-page summary of your

     project (to post on the Internet for other educators to use)

     in the two weeks immediately following the exchange period,

     using the category template that we supply electronically.



Scheduling



Each SME-classroom team in this phase of the Emissary project will

arrange its own communication schedule according to your availability and

curricular considerations, such as when the unit(s) that concern your

area(s) of expertise will be explored in the classroom. Each exchange will

begin with approximately two weeks of SME - teacher (only)

communication, so that the details of the exchange can be collaboratively

planned before the students begin communicating with you. Average

exchange periods will probably range in duration from 2 - 10 weeks.



The Application Process



To volunteer to serve as a subject matter expert for the Electronic

Emissary project, we request that you Telnet to the Texas Center for

Educational Technology's server, and fill out an application online. To do

that, please follow these steps:



1. Get to the "system prompt" in your Internet account. (If you don't

know how to do this, please ask the folks in your Computer Center to help

you.)



2. Type this at the system prompt:



  telnet tcet.unt.edu   ...and then press the <Enter> key.



3. You will then be connected to the TCET server. When you see the

login: prompt, type:



  sme         ...and then press the <Enter> key.



4. You will then see a menu of options. Select the one that is labeled

"Subject Matter Expert."



5. Follow the instructions on the screen, providing all of the

information that is requested.



6. Since we are still beta-testing this interactive software, if you

encounter problems, please contact the Emissary's programmer, Greg Jones,

at:



  gjones[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu



==> PLEASE RESPOND ASAP; the next set of teacher-SME

==> pairs will be formed beginning on 3/28/94.



After you have completed the application online, it will be stored in the

Emissary database. As support for more matches becomes available to the

project, teachers wanting their students to correspond with a subject

matter expert will be permitted to Telnet to the database and search it

for a subject matter expert who can address their students' content

information needs. They will be able to read all of the information that

you supply about yourself *except* for your email address, street address,

or telephone number(s), so that you will not be inundated with requests

from classrooms.



When a teacher requests that a match be made with you, an Emissary staff

person (an "electronic facilitator") will contact you by email. S/he will

ask you whether you are available and interested in communicating about

the topic at the time that the teacher has specified. If so, a special

account on the TCET server will be set up as the Internet address to which

everyone on your team (you, the teacher, the students, and the

facilitator) will mail your messages. Emailing to this address will cause

a program that we have created to execute that will automatically generate

copies of all of the messages exchanged among the members of your team.

The log of these messages will be kept for us to study as part of our

research about adults and children using electronic mail to teach and

learn asynchronously. The program will then automatically forward the

students' and teacher's messages to you, and your messages to the teacher

and students.



The Future



We hope to continue to expand the numbers of classrooms and subject

matter experts that are "matched" with the Emissary's services as the

semesters pass. Each semester, we will seek support for this purpose,

making groups of 10 - 40 "matches" available as each proposal is funded.

We will also continue to add to our database of subject matter expert

volunteers. The availability of these opportunities will be made known to

both SMEs and classroom teachers via periodic newsgroup and

LISTSERV postings. Participating classrooms will be selected on a "first

come, first served" basis. SME volunteer applications will be welcome at

any time.



Since we are presently staffed rather meagerly, we will only be able to

"match" a relatively small number of SME/classroom teams at this time.

We hope, therefore, that we can retain your application for use as the

project grows during the next few years (keeping fingers crossed, of

course, that we are able to obtain funding). If you are *not*

willing for your application to be made available in later years,

please make sure that you include a statement of that preference in the

text of your application.



Future Communications



**Due to the unusually (wonderfully!) large volume of potential SMEs for

this project, please do not be disappointed if we cannot "match" you with

a classroom right away.** Also, please forgive us in advance for not

writing to acknowledge receipt of your completed application. We would

love to be able to respond to each of your applications individually, but

time does not permit what hospitality and gratitude would recommend.



Please know how *very* much we appreciate your willingness to help with

this volunteer effort! You are making a direct and meaningful contribution

to the education of young people by offering to share your time and

expertise. Please accept our heartfelt thanks for this gesture.



- - - - - -



Judi Harris

Electronic Emissary Project Director

University of Texas at Austin & Texas Center for Educational Technology

jbharris[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]tenet.edu



***---------------------> End of Original Mail <---------------------***