Week1

Page history last edited by ElizabethHS 1 mo ago

Week 1: Oct. 19-25

Discussion leaders: Aiden Yeh and the Coordination Team

Week 1: Oct. 19-25

Activities

1. You must have a Yahoo ID to access the EVO_Moderators group, so be sure to sign up for an ID at http://yahoo.com. You need provide only minimal information, and you can set any of your email addresses to receive mail from our YG. Our frontpage at the EVO_Moderators YG changes frequently, and you can always find a short version of current happenings there--with links--so check it frequently. You will also receive reminders from the Calendar.

* See the Help file on this topic at Yahoo! Sign-in and Registration Help (also in our YG LINKS area for future reference).

2. Introduce yourself to our EVO group of trainers, coordinators, and moderators by sending an email message to EVO_Moderators@yahoogroups.com. Tell us a little about your online experiences and other personal/professional information you'd like to share. We have also created a wiki to keep all the profiles at hand, please copy the same information you sent to the YG to this wiki. This is the URL: http://mods-profiles.pbworks.com. You will need the password which was provided in the YG list.

3.Upload your photo to the PHOTOS area of our YG. (Notice our group is set NOT to allow attachments to emails, so don't send your photo as an attachment to a message.)

4. Make sure to set your options in our Yahoo Group to receive individual messages or to get a daily digest, so you'll know what others have written. To do that, click on Edit My Membership on the top right of our front page. Under Message Delivery, check either Individual Emails or Daily Digest. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the screen.

* There are a number of help files in the Using Yahoo Groups folder at our YG or link via the Index. Please also see the Sidebar at right.

5. When your proposal was accepted, you should have received and read an article, How EVO Differs. Please write to the group your comments about and impressions of this article. (You will also find a copy in our group's LINKS area, and in this wiki - see SideBar) How will the all-volunteer nature of EVO impact your online experience?

6. You should also have received and read the Netiquette document, and taken the self-test. Feel free to copy and upload it to your own YG. We recommend you mention it in your syllabus.

* If you are already familiar with Yahoo! Groups and want to check out the features of text chat, be sure to join the Webheads in Action at Tapped In on any Sunday morning, noon GMT (you will need email confirmation of your registration in advance).

Feeling lost or left behind already? See the suggested catch-up strategies for online courses, Lost or left behind in online learning? by Bronwyn Stuckey.

BENCHMARKS

I have . . .

introduced myself
copied my intro to the moderators wiki with a photo
set my email preferences in the Mods_YG
uploaded a photo to the YG
commented on the article, How EVO Differs
read Netiquette and taken the self-test

Additional Recommended Reading

Lost or left behind in online learning?

Summary of Week 1

This week we met many new friends from all over the world: Sudan, Kuwait, UAE, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, parts of Europe, regions of the US and Canada, Taiwan, Ukraine, etc., etc. We have a nice mix of newbies and oldies.

There were many comments on How EVO Differs, and several mentioned how important it was to include lurkers and not give up on them. There were also many nice comments about how useful and important EVO is, and even some discussion of its founding (see the article in TESL-EJ).

"It's a delicate balance to keep the 'experienced' and 'inexperienced' together in the sessions as the weeks go past, hence the need to create a friendly collaborative and social environment from the outset, encouraging peer scaffolding."