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Discussion Groups

Text-based discussions among K-12 educators can be found at the COSN and NII-Teach sites, after you sign up...

Text-based discussions among K-12 educators can be found at the COSN and NII-Teach sites, after you sign up. (The third site is less active than it used to be.) Subscribers might inquire about best curricular practices, technical issues, searches for particular projects, and issues of the day. For a modest fee COSN offers other services. You can just submit postings, like a bulletin board, also. (COSN telephone =202-466-6296) The pitsco site contains a megalist of educational listservs.

The online services also host discussion groups; only subscribers who pay the monthly fees can participate. Most are migrating with some discussion functions to the Internet and the Web and, consequently, in the future a wider group could join in.

(Please note that each discussion group has adopted different conventions for subscribing, and they are changed periodically. Such changes are given to subscribers so it is a Catch 22. Try info@(name) or listserv@(name) first. If those don't get you there, then resort to above. Just ask for subscription info because message may go to all folks on the list who will be unhappy with the overflow.)

Teachnet contains information about grants and lessons. The organizers encourage teachers to share curriculum in a fun way. The site has just been developed so it is still a little thin.

These groups seem to be "hot". No central address for K-12 educators prevails. In a high-end UNIX environment users can access newsgroups. With system modifications pc or Mac owners can enter a users' group (eg. alt.education.group)but the channel is too crowded. Like all real discussion groups, topics can become controversial and personal but, whether you join in or not, you can keep tabs on new goings-on within the networked community.