Fire Drill
Schedule

• Fire Chief's Comments
• Firehouse Tasks
• Hot Topics This Week : Computer Mediated Communication II
• Drills
  • 1-Alarm Drill : Identifying Empirical Research on IT Topics
  • 3-Alarm Drill : CMC on your Desktop
  • 4-Alarm Drill : Browser-based CMC
• Chief's Inspection List
• Fire Marshal Badge Skills
• Future Drills

Welcome to your fifth week of firefighting at Firehouse 6287. 

We have had lots of interesting activities to keep us busy and this week will just add to all the hoopla!

As we continue with the semester and our topics and assignments become more in depth, several assignments will carry over for several weeks so you are not completely overwhelmed in a single week. With these it will be important for you to complete the steps in the week given even if you do not have to turn anything in because if you wait until the next week to complete all the elements required for turn in then you might find yourself overwhelmed. Breaking it down into smaller chunks is helpful for some but some of you still may wish for even smaller chunks.

Following directions is going to be of utmost importance in the next few weeks and can save you LOTS of headaches. I cannot stress how important it is for everyone to read each drill carefully and thoroughly BEFORE beginning the exercise. If you need clarification before you begin then send me an email. You should be sure to read and try to troubleshoot on your own first so you can clearly explain what you have tried so far that did not resolve your problems. There will certainly be times when even following the directions will not work because of something specific with your computer or some other type of problem. Do not suffer in silence. My final warning is not to wait until the last minute. I am not going to be able to help everyone fix their problems on Tuesday night and Wednesday before the assignment is due - get started early so you can find out whether you are going to encounter problems and will need to work through them with me or a partner.

Also, do not forget that your peers are trying to figure out the same thing and you can use each other as resources if I am not as speedy as you might like in addressing your problem. Several of you have mentioned to me that your teams are working together to try out different tools and then to connect with one another to try them out. I think this is a great strategy.

As you begin your CMC tools mini project this week, take a deep breath and jump on in. Most of you seem to be excited to learn a few of the tools which I hope will provide you with a bit of motivation to keep going when things don't go exactly as they should.

My goals for you during this week's drills are to:

• begin identifying 5 empirical articles for your summary of research table
• choose 2 synchronous CMC tools to set up and use with your computer
• reflect on their usability and value for instructional management and instructional delivery

Task #1:
Download and print the CMC Tools Set Up Document I have developed for you this week in Word or RTF format.  If neither of these work email me and we will figure it out.  Do not panic if you look at this and think you have to do everything.  Read the drills on page 2 first.  I am providing you with everything in this form to make it easier for you to print and use instead of working from my directions on the screen.

• Check the FAQ Page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Email Chief Curda.
• Email EMT Kelly.
• Email the firehouse crew and see if another firefighter knows the answer.

Now let's see what the hot topic is this week!