CIRCLE NEWS 2
iEARN Learning Circles
globallearningcircles.org

Opening the Circle

First Teacher Tasks

The first thing you should do is login to your iEARN account and find your Learning Circle group. It should be listed under My Collaboration Groups. Click on your group.

The next thing you need to do is to accept the invitation to join your group.

After this when you see your group, look on the left hand side. You will see a menu. Click on the link for “My Group Settings.” Please click the box that reads: “Notify me of topic updates via email.” You will now receive an email posting for every message that is posted in the forum. (Please note that you will NOT receive a copy of the message you post.)

You are now free to post a message in the forum by clicking on “Add a Topic.”

Teacher Hello Messages:

Find your own way to describe yourself or use one of the suggestions in the Teacher's Guide
http://globallearningcircles.org/lcguide/p2.open/2.open.html#Hello

Class Introduction:

Everyone is eager to find out more about you. The class surveys are a great way to begin to examine both similarities and differences.

Class Survey Template
http://globallearningcircles.org/lcguide/p2.open/2.s.survey.html

The template for the class survey will be sent to the circles in a few days. Have fun completing it.

Welcome Packs:

Welcome Packs are described in the Teacher Guide. Challenge your students to think creatively of items (which fit in a large envelope) to give the most information about themselves, their school, and their community. Check to see who wants to participate in this exchange. It is disappointing for students to work hard on creating these and then not receive any back.

A new option for Welcome Packs is to put together an e-version of your Welcome Pack. This can be sent as Word document, Pdf file, or PowerPoint Presentation. Be creative and share information about your school, community, local region, and area of the world.

For more information see:
http://globallearningcircles.org/lcguide/p2.open/2.open.html#WP

How to Send Your Messages:

If you are starting a new topic or a new message, please post your message in your Learning Circle forum by clicking on "Add a Topic." When you post a message, a copy will automatically be sent to everyone who has activated “Notify me of topic updates via email” in their Group Settings.

Once you have activated “Notify me of topic updates via email” in you Group Settings you should begin to receive messages that are posted by other members of your Learning Circle group. You can reply to any message that is sent to you by email. All you need to do is simply hit reply in your email, type your message, and send it. It will automatically be recorded in the forum and distributed to everyone else in your forum. (Please note: You will not receive a copy of your own message.)

Messages remain online in your Circle forum throughout the session.

As a general rule, if you are starting an new topic or initiating a new message, you should post it in your Learning Circle forum. If you are responding to a message sent by someone else, then you may respond by using your email reply function.

Changing Your Email Address:

In past session of Learning Circles I received requests from teachers to use a separate email for receiving Learning Circle messages. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to do this in the new iEARN Collaboration Centre.

You can change the email address you use for iEARN messages. In order to do this you need to log into the iEARN Collaboration Centre. Next click on your Member Dashboard. Choose My Account. Near the top is an area where you can change your email address. You will now receive all your iEARN email communication at this email address.

A Tip on Learning Circle Interaction:

Class-to-Class Communication vs. Pen Pal Messages

When students are engaged in group learning in the classroom some amount of talk among students about personal things can help the group work well together. However a large amount of student talking during class draws the attention of the teacher and often reminders about getting down to work.

The same is true in Learning Circles. Students want to know who they are working with and it is important that they get to know their partners. However, with hundreds of students in an average Circle, students should not expect to get to know everyone personally. If your group is small, everyone might be able to send a hello, but in many cases the size of the group will make a group message with a few lines from each person sufficient.

During introductions, there may be time for some personal exchanges, but continued interaction between individuals is best addressed directly to the person's ID's or to the specific school address rather then the Circle address.

Learning Circles are a classroom-to-classroom link organized around project work. Extensive student-to-student chats may be viewed by some teachers as getting in the way of project work. These personal exchanges can be very valuable, but they should not replace the project work that is central to a Learning Circle.

If there is enough interest among the participants of your Circle, we can form a separate Student forum for your group. This forum would be for student postings. It would be moderated by the teachers of the students who are doing the posting.