Reflections on TappedIn
Reflections on TappedIn: an online community of education professionals.
I just completed my first encounter with TappedIn in the form of an orientation tour called Tips and Tricks. This online, chat based web site is designed to be a virtual academic campus, including many different classrooms, groups and even a campus just for students grade K-12. I was completely amazed and very impressed with the intricacy of the entire set up. This site will prove to be a very valuable resource for me as well as my future students. I plan to become thoroughly familiar with it in the very near future.
TappedIn is my very first experience with chat rooms. I did not know what to expect and was very pleased at the end of my first encounter. I signed in a few minutes early feeling very fearful and afraid to make a mistake. What if I got lost in cyberspace? Our guide proceeded to greet us as we entered and was very helpful throughout. She introduced us to herself and to each other, and showed us how to ‘know’ the people in our chats by accessing their profiles. She then carefully guided us throughout the site. Her directions were very explicit and she was very patient. The site itself is incredible and packed with valuable resources of varying subjects.
Of most interest to me was the idea of setting up a student group within TappedIn. My students then have a safe and secure environment where they can learn how to chat with others, share information with peers from all over the world, post their work for others to see, participate in discussion boards and a multitude of other benefits. The beauty of it is the teacher is sent transcriptions of all her students’ chats and postings, which can then of course be assessed accordingly (or addressed with parents and administration if you get my drift). I plan on taking advantage of this free and valuable resource in my classroom. For now, I am still a little intimidated by the sheer intricacy of the entire site, but with use I will get very comfortable with it. Now I know I can depend on someone in TappedIn to guide me if I do get lost within the site. It is not scary at all, just a new experience for me which I enjoyed very much.
June 13th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I am happy that this was a good experience for you. BJB is a good guide. I cannot wait to read about your next experience within this community! It is okay to be a bit intimidated, it is new and very different. It is large and seems very vast. We are lucky though, it is very well organized.
Enjoy!