IAT INFOBITS April 1995 No. 22 ISSN 1071-5223 About INFOBITS INFOBITS is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators. ========================================================== IAT WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE REVISED The World Wide Web home page for the Institute for Academic Technology has been thoroughly revised and updated. Here you will find information about our courses and services, software developed at the IAT, and all our publications (newsletters, academic and technical papers, bibliographies, and resource guides). Our site is at http://ike.engr.washington.edu/iat/ ========================================================== LINGUISTICS, RHETORIC, AND WRITING RESOURCES SITE An Infobits subscriber, David H. Roberts, Professor of English and Director of the Writing Project at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, has a World Wide Web page that features writing, linguistics, and rhetoric links, plus local data on writing teachers. In addition to information about the Samford University Writing Project, Roberts provides links to many other sites covering linguistics and composition. Some of the sites he links to include: Purdue University's "Writing Resources and Writing Labs on the Net," Brown University's pointers to linguistics sources, Georgia Tech's Natural Language and Reasoning (NLR) research group, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), and The Conference on College Composition and Communication Committee on Computers in Composition. Professor Roberts' site is at http://199.20.17.120/index.htm For more information about the Samford University Writing Project, contact: David H. Roberts, Director, Samford University Writing Project, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229-2207 USA; email: dhrobert@samford.bitnet or 72630.3633@compuserve.com NOTE: If you have a World Wide Web page that might be of interest to other Infobits subscribers, contact the editor. ========================================================== MULTIMEDIA FILE FORMATS ON THE INTERNET "Multimedia File Formats On the Internet: A Beginner's Guide for PC Users," by Allison Zhang, is intended to cover the most basic concepts of various file formats available on the Internet, and ways to use the files. It was planned to function as a "one stop shopping" guide for IBM PC-compatible users who have some knowledge of DOS and Windows. The guide contains links to viewer software that can be connected to your World Wide Web browser. Chapters in the guide include how to download and use picture, sound/music, foreign language, movie, and compressed files. Access the guide at http://ac.dal.ca/~dong/contents.htm To contact the author, Allison Zhang, send email to: azhang@admin.stmarys.ca ========================================================== MORE PUBLISHERS' CATALOGS ONLINE Add this resource to your list of book publishers' catalogs on the Internet [for more information, see "Read Any Good Books Lately?" in IAT INFOBITS, February 1995]. Readmore, Inc., a journal subscription agency for libraries, has a list of publishers' catalogs on their gopher server. Included on the list are pointers to the catalogs of the Association of American University Presses, Elsevier Science Amsterdam, Viking Penguin Classics, and numerous university presses. The site is at gopher://gopher.readmore.com:70/11/Pub.databases ========================================================== INTERNATIONAL TUTORS International Tutors (IT) is a new project scheduled to begin operations on September 1, 1995, that will offer global non-profit tutoring for pre-school, primary, secondary, post-secondary, and continuing education students worldwide. This nonprofit organization was created as an alternative approach to learning using information technology. "IT's mandate will be to use a multimedia interactive Web Site, email, and licensed or qualified international teachers and instructors serving as global tutors to: (1) supplement the teaching received by the student in his/her mainstream or alternative school; (2) provide students, their parents and guardians with low-cost access to professional tutors from around the world who are certified teachers or qualified instructors, either teaching or retired; (3) provide students, whose families pass a needs test, with partial or full bursaries for payment of evaluation and tutoring fees, and with information about area libraries, institutions and schools offering free access to the Internet for IT students; (4) disseminate information concerning IT and other approaches to teaching which can enhance student learning, motivate the student and engender student interest in learning and, for the primary- or secondary-level IT student, encourage the student to complete his or her high school education; (5) establish ancillary IT volunteer adult, cross-age and peer tutoring programs, advisory services, and community and school liaison groups; and (6) introduce an applied research program at IT into alternative educational uses of information technology." For more information on International Tutors, contact: Michael Berns, History & Philosophy of Education Department, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, 8th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1V6 Canada; email: mberns@oise.on.ca IT also has World Wide Web pages at http://www.inforamp.net:80/~it1/it1.html or http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca:80/it/ ========================================================== NEW EMAIL LISTS FOR FACULTY USING COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET FACSUP-L list is devoted to supporting faculty efforts to use computer technology in their work. As computer technology changes conceptions of teaching and learning, faculty need more assistance with the tools for these changes. Part of the list's mission will be mutual support among people charged with support of faculty in the computing-skills self-training process. The list will also be a forum for sharing of specific needs, experiences, ideas and resources for the day-to-day support of faculty. Support center staffs and faculty are invited to participate in the list. To subscribe to FACSUP-L, send email to listserv@uconnvm.uconn.edu with the following message: subscribe FACSUP-L your_firstname your_lastname substituting your own first and last names For more details, contact the list owner: Ted Mills, Faculty Resource Lab Coordinator, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269-3138 USA; email: tmills@uconnvm.uconn.edu; tel: 203-486-5052; fax: 203-486-5744. The INTCOLED list is dedicated to computer use issues of concern to all teachers who use the Internet in the classroom. The aim is to promote international understanding through collaborative learning. To subscribe to INTCOLED, send email to listserv@ist01.ferris.edu with the following message: subscribe INTCOLED [Note: The characters in the email address after "ist" are the numbers zero and one.] For more details, contact the list owner: Richard (Dick) Hewer, email: rhewer@music.ferris.edu ========================================================== NEW ERIC CLEARINGHOUSE WORLD WIDE WEB SITE The ERIC Clearinghouse for Social Studies/Social Science Education (ERIC/ChESS) has a new World Wide Web Site that highlights the services of ERIC/ChESS and offers links to valuable Internet resources for social studies education. You can browse the site at http://www.indiana.edu/~ssdc/eric-chess.html For more information, write to: ERIC/ChESS, Social Studies Development Center, Indiana University, 2805 East Tenth Street, Suite 120, Bloomington, IN 47408-2698 USA. ========================================================== EASI: EQUAL ACCESS TO SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION EASI is dedicated to collecting and disseminating up-to-date information about how to provide access for persons with disabilities to computing and information technology resources and to assisting universities, colleges, schools, businesses and non-profit organizations in making their information facilities accessible with the use of state-of-the-art adaptive computing technology. EASI is affiliated with the Association for Higher Education, with friends and volunteers in over 40 countries. For more information about EASI: email: easi@educom.edu; tel: 714-830-0301 (pacific time zone). EASI's World Wide Web page is at http://www.rit.edu:80/~easi/ ========================================================== HTML VERSION OF INFOBITS Issues of IAT Infobits for 1995 are now available in HTML format as well as plain text. HTML-tagged issues enable you to read an issue with your World Wide Web browser and link to other Internet sites mentioned in articles. Copies of this version are available at: http://ike.engr.washington.edu/iat/infobits/infobits.html (There are no plans to convert issues from earlier years to HTML format.) ========================================================== To Subscribe INFOBITS is published by the Institute for Academic Technology. The IAT is a national institute working to place higher education at the forefront of academic technology development and implementation. A partnership between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and IBM Corporation, the IAT strives to facilitate widespread use of effective and affordable technologies in higher education. To subscribe to INFOBITS, send email to listserv@unc.edu with the following message: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS your_firstname your_lastname substituting your own first and last names. Example: SUBSCRIBE INFOBITS Clifford Stoll INFOBITS is also available online on the University of Washington's Gopher server at gopher://ike.engr.washington.edu:70/11/academic/iat/infobits If you have problems subscribing or want to send suggestions for future issues, contact the editor, Carolyn Kotlas, at carolyn_kotlas@unc.edu ======================================================= Copyright 1995, Institute for Academic Technology. All rights reserved. May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.