Topic: Conference in TAPPED IN

Conf: 387 2c TAPPED IN discussion

From: Megan Forness (mforness@springfield.k12.il.us)

Date: Wednesday, July 15, 1998 12:46 PM

A transcript of our conference may be viewed at the following URL

http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/forness/ci335/tappedinmtg.html

Arrangements for this conference were made using the TAPPED IN tour on Monday and via email. I proposed the idea to Karen Bennett, and she and I had a delightful conversation during TAPPED IN to arrange this meeting time. On a couple occasions, we both made verbatim comments to each other simultaneously! I wish I had known how to record it! Later in the online discussion, Michelle Tjelmeland agreed to join us at the same time. I sent an email message to both Sue Ruff and Toni Greer to inform them of these plans. Our meeting today successfully included Karen Bennett, Sue Ruff, Toni Greer, Michelle Tjelmeland, and myself. Unfortunately, there were other individuals in the room holding meetings at the same time. I will address how this happened and how to prevent it in the next paragraph. There was initially some confusion about how to record and who should record the session. Questions as to how many recorders were needed floated back and forth for a while. I did have my "cheat sheet" out, and this helped me a lot. However, I see now that our group failed to set up our meeting correctly! I was viewing the 3rd page of my "cheat sheet," which includes information about how to use recorders. I failed to look at page 2. Included on this page are instructions on how to hold a meeting. Our group did not use the NEWGROUP command or REGISTER any members. Our session seemed a bit like Grand Central Station, with lots of active users engaged in separate conversations simultaneously. Now I understand why it was a bit haphazard and what our group needs to do to prevent this! Unfortunately, my group had disassembled when I made this discovery. Aside from the fact that we were not in a "closed" meeting, the conversations flowed quite freely and were not too difficult to sift through. Last week I would not have imagined being able to communicate so effortlessly in this type of environment. We learned from watching each other and asking "how to" questions. I noticed also that all members were quite supportive and encouraging. Once the conversations started, a few of us discussed some project ideas and CTER business. My impression of why we held this first meeting is thus: it served to familiarize us with the environment so that we can participate more effectively when we join a forum. I will be participating in a "Girls in Mathematics" forum tomorrow at 5pm. I think the experience I had today has helped me to feel more prepared to do this.