DELMARVA EDUCATION ACTION LEARNING

Good News about the DEAL Network:

NEW SECTIONS: The DEAL American Immigration

series now contains modules on Blacks in America and

Asian Americans.

PDA FRIENDLY: The Asian American section is PDA

friendly. Most of the materials are readable on a PDA.

All future DEAL series and modules will be readable on

PDAs and other handhelds as well as full screen monitors.

(Some pages of the Irish and Blacks can also be viewed.)

FUTURE SERIES: A new science series is planned for

the coming year. This is a collaboration between the

School of Education and the Department of Electrical and

Computer Engineering at the University of Delaware .

Look for updated information in the Community

Room postings.

SUPPORT: A federal grant has allowed the University

of Delaware School of Education to interact with the

Seaford school district over the DEAL Network. A second

grant, when funded, will allow the interaction to continue

with the new planned science series.

COLLABORATION: The DEAL Network is now

collaborating with Seaford Middle School and High School

with the current social studies series. Additionally, we are

one of the partners in the PDA Study by the Seaford

School District as they study the change of teachers’

perceptions in the use of PDAs. See the picture of the

recent Seaford PDA workshop.

EVALUATION: The DEAL Pilot Project, with 163

educators participating, has been evaluated, and

a report is available to those interested on the DEAL website.

The Immigration series currently has three modules, or

learning events. There is an average of 300 varied

multimedia pages for each learning event module. Because

of this intensive concentration of material the series will

only require three more modules, which are now under

construction.

Using the Community Room:

The Community Room is a vital part of the design of DEAL.

It will have information for you on speakers and area events

that come up. Importantly, you will be able to place lesson

ideas, plans, and student products. As the DEAL, Delmarva

Education Action Learning Network grows, the Community

Room will be a site where educators participate in sharing

ideas in teacher- centered collaboration, and exchange .

General instructions for the Community Room:

Use logon name of either "teacher" or "expert".

Use password "community".

To upload a document, all you have to do is click on

DEAL Document Libraries on the Quick Launch

bar on the left. Then select which document library you

wish to share a document (for example, the General

Discussion Web). Click Upload Document

(not New Document,) then click Browse. Browse for the

file you wish to upload to the DEAL Web Site, then

click Open. The document name will appear in the

File Name bar. Type your first and last name so

that others know who is uploading this document.

Then click the Save and ClosE link located at the

top of the File Name bar.

To participate in web discussions, click on DEAL

Discussion Forums on the Quick Launch bar on

the left. Then select which discussion forum you wish

to participate in (for example, the General Discussion

Forum). Click the New Discussion link to start a new

discussion thread. You may also join an already existing

discussion by clicking the blue subject title of any

existing post, then click Reply. If you are replying or

making a new discussion, the next steps are the same.

Type your full first and last name, a subject of your

message to the community, and your message in the

Text box. Then click the Save and Close link

located just below the New Discussion title.

Practice a few times so you are comfortable.

You can say practice, or just put up a short expiration time.