 |
 |
Hi JoAnn, I hope you had some feedback from CASLLers on your CCCC 98 post. I distributed the information along with your e-mail address at a recent department meeting. Have you decided what form the session will take? I've not had time to do much thinking about it, but I'd be willing to present at a forum, panel, or roundtable. Here is a really rough abstract. If you want to use it for the initial submission, I'll try to polish it a bit more. (I don't even know how long or detailed they're supposed to be; I gave away my paper copy of the call for submissions, and I'm too tired at this time of the night to get it off the web.) It could be as short as seven minutes or as long as twenty. Here goes: Connecting at the MOO: Canadian Contexts for Synchronous Electronic Communication Can real-time synchronous electronic communication strengthen a professional organization? A few members of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning decided to begin regular meetings on a MOO to discuss professional and pedagogical issues. An orientation session was held at their annual conference and invitations to regular MOO meetings were distributed on a listserv. Members were encouraged to build their own spaces at the MOO and incorporate synchronous electronic communication into their pedagogy. This paper will examine the effect of MOOing on CASLL's growth and evolution as well as the pedagogical changes that members made as result of their exposure to MOOs. Ugh! It looks like an ugly two-headed beast..... Oh well, writing this may cure my insomnia. My feeling won't be hurt if you already have a full slate of participants. I think the idea is to choose a few strong submissions to ensure that we do get the spot on the program. Here's the catch: I'm going to be out of town and away from my computer as of about 9:00 a.m. April 16, so you'll have to get back to me quickly if you want me to do serious rethinking/writing. Thanks a lot for taking this on. I felt a bit guilty when we roped you into this..... I hope you get a number of thoughtful abstracts. Janice Freeman Centre for Academic Writing University of Winnipeg