senseiOnline

1. senseiOnline

senseiOnline was founded on the November 21, 1999 using eGroups (now YahooGroups) to serve as an online community for teaching Japanese. As of November 16, 2002, it has 781 members. Current members include teachers of Japanese (Elementary, Immersion, Middle/High School, Community College, University/College, Other Education Institutions), ESL/EFL teachers, CALL specialists, Language Lab Technicians, Engineers, Web Designers, Graduate Students and eager learners of Japanese. Geographic locations spread US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Guam, Europe, Russia, West Indies, Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the list is expanding. People without educational institution shouldn't be discouraged in joining the list. It will help networking, sharing ideas and supporting each other. It uses free online services: YahooGroups for asynchronous communication and TAPPED IN for synchronous communication.

2. Communicating asynchronously: YahooGroups

senseiOnline uses YahooGroups. The communication is based on listserv. When a member posts a message, it will be read by all members. Members have options to read only at web site, receive daily digests instead of individual messages. Membership is free. As of November 16, 2002, there are 5254 messages, all archived and searchable.

2.1 Reading the Messages and Searching Previous Messages from the Web site

To read the message via web at your group archive, you'll need to first register your e-mail address. Once you've registered and logged in, you will be able to read the messages via web.

You can read senseiOnline messages on the web by doing the following:
1. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/senseionline/
2. Click on Sign to the right and enter Yahoo ID and type in password
3. You will see most recent messages and you can search from the top page.
4. Or click on Messages on the left (under Home)
5. Messages are shown from most recent and you can search, jump to previous messages.

2. 2 How to join

2.2.1 If the email account does not look educational
It is best to identify yourself in a message to the manager (senseionline-owner@yahoogroups.com) with the intent of subscription. The manager sends out a message to confirm the educational affiliation or to inquire the intent of subscription. It is to make sure whoever is joining is not interested just because somebody wants to send spam/unwanted advertisement messages.

2.2.2 If the email account looks educational
Approval is done without further contact. There are a couple of ways to join.
1 Send a blank message to senseionline-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
2 Go to http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/senseiOnline.html and put your email and push purple "Yahoo Groups Join Now" button
3 Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/senseionline/ and click on "Join This Group" link towards right

3. Communicating synchronously: Benkyoukai at TAPPED IN

Also we have a monthly online forum called Benkyoukai. Usually a member is invited to contribute and posts a short paper online (3-5 pages). Participants are asked to review before the live interaction. 50-minute interaction will take place at TAPPED IN (http://www.tappedin.org) The event is announced through senseiOnline listserv.

29th Benkyoukai is on the December 12th (Thursday) in the US (13th in Japan) by Professor Joseph Poulshock. It will be from 4pm Pacific. The title of the presentation is "Learner Strategies for Effective Study of Foreign Languages". Details will be available from benkyoukai page.

References:

(1) senseiOnline Info: http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/senseiOnline.html
(2) senseiOnline homepage (YahooGroups): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/senseionline
(3) Benkyoukai page: http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/benkyoukai.html
(4) Member Handbook: http://www.sabotenweb.com/bookmarks/about/handbook.html
(5) TAPPED IN: http://www.tappedin.org

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