Final arrangements for Sat 29th November

You are invited to join us in the chat room as part of the Teachers Talking (TT) anniversary celebration on Saturday 29th November. We will meet for about an hour - start time 10.00 GMT, 11.00 Nigerian time, 13.00 Kenyan time. To work out your local time see time zone converter.We are celebrating the fourth anniversary of the Teachers Talking (TT) programme, which I started at Fantsuam in 2004. Each year there has been some kind of anniversary celebration at Fantsuam including an online link-up (so I could join in from the UK).

This year we are widening the invitation list – so if you have any interest in what we have been doing with TT and other Dadamac learning programmes at Fantsuam, and would like to meet some of the people involved, do come and join us. You are welcome even if you have never participated in one of our programmes. It is an informal get-together – just like an ordinary face-to-face celebration. There is no formal agenda – we just want to enjoy being together. If you are new to the chat room, don't worry, I will put joining instructions at the end of this post.

The plan

The chat room session is part of a longer celebration at Fantsuam, including refreshments and various other off-line activities. Part of the plan is to chat online and part is to have a video link, between UK and Fantsuam, so we can smile and wave at each other. We cannot do a video link in the chat room. The best we can try this time is to just set up a link between two webcams (between Fantsuam and UK) using skype. Perhaps by next year we will have something with video that can involve everyone.

We will spend most of our online time in the chat room. The people at Fantsuam who are organising the celebration are accustomed to using skype for conferencing, but are not used to entering the chat room. If they have not already seen the instructions here I will meet them on skype, and bring them over to the chat room. (Later I will use the skype link with them for the video).

We will have a good group. We expect the Fantsuam people. Fola plans to join us in the chat room from Ibadan. Rose is hoping to join us from Kenya. There will be two or three of us from the UK. There are others I am not sure about. David Mutua, organiser of TT Kenya sends his apologies and greetings (he has a meeting and is also in the count-down to his wedding – greetings to David and his bride-to-be). Thanks to Andrius for letting us use the chat room. Andrius is busy in Bosnia, putting in time on the day job, and wrote “of course, please do use our chat room http://www.worknets.org/chat/ I will be grading midterms so I probably won't be there, but I'm excited for our work together...”

I need to leave soon after the hour is up (well before one and a half hours is up) because I have to go and earn some money teaching. But of course you can continue in the chat room for as long as you like. I am excited about the celebration and the people who will be there. If you want to join us, you are very welcome.

Using the chat room

• Go to http://www.worknets.org/chat/
• Look for “Choose your language:” It is probably set for English (which is what you will need to choose on Saturday).
• Click on Next.
• Type your name in the box and click on “Start the chat”.
• You will find yourself in the chat room.
• It will “whisper” a welcome greeting to you (whispers are just seen by one person - they are not visible to everyone in the chat room),
• If you want to know what people were saying before you came into the chat room click on the chat archive link. You will see it on the right hand side of the chat screen.
• If you prefer you can check what is going on before you go into the chat room by going ot http://www.worknets.org/archive/ but you will not be able to write any chat of your own until you do go into the chat room properly
• When you leave the chat it is best to do it officially, by clicking the “leave” link on the left had side of the screen. This lets the computer, and everyone in the chat room, know you are not in the chat any more.
• Sometimes there is a problem - perhaps you have a bad connection, or power cut. On a bad day it is possible you have to sign in again and again to rejoin the chat. The computer will not let you re-use your name if it seems that someone with that name is already in the room. I just add a number to my name if it happens to me (Pam, Pam1, Pam2... )

You are welcome

I look forward to meeting whoever chooses to come, friends old and new, at the TT celebration on Saturday.