Tutorial for using iEARN's WWW-based Forums

iEARN's Database - the Entry Point:

If you are a teacher, your first step to participating in iEARN's WWW-based forums is to enter the iEARN database. Students should contact their teacher or their iEARN Country Coordinator to be registered to participate in the forums.

Teachers need to be in the iEARN database to be able to participate in the 200+ WWW-based discussion forums. If you are not yet in the iEARN Teacher Database, please register now! A copy of your registration will go to your country coordinator. Everyone in the database has a personal "My iEARN Page." This is the page which contains your current contact information, including your e-mail address. You enter the database with your e-mail address and a personal password. To go the iEARN database log-in page, click on the link "Member/Projects Databases," at the upper right corner of the main iEARN page.

When you go to the iEARN database log-in page, you will see the page below. If you would like, you can roll your mouse over the address here: http://amity.iearn.org and this page will open in a separate window as we work. You can position the two windows beside each other so that you can read the tutorial on one side of your screen and enter information into the actual pages in the window on the other side of the screen.

For you to log-in, you must type in the e-mail address and password that appears in our database. This will take you to your own "My iEARN Page."

NOTE: the e-mail address and password are "case sensitive." Use Upper and Lower Case if they are in your e-mail address or password.

As you can see, Juan needs to add additional information including, for example:

-his school's street address

-his school's WWW page address

-languages he speaks

-projects he and his students are working on

By clicking on "Update Your Personal Information" Juan (and you) can add this information.

Let's do that now before we forget. Click on "Update Your Personal Information."

Juan can complete any missing parts on the forum and then click on "Submit These Changes to iEARN" at the bottom of the page.

Note: You can also change your password here (your password is the same for both the database and WWW-based forums), but this may take some time for the computer to process, so do not do this now if you would like to immediately start working.

Giving Students Access to the WWW-based Forums

Each teacher in the iEARN database can give access to the iEARN forums to as many students as you wish. This can be done at the bottom of your "My iEARN Page."

If you click on "register new users" the following window will open:

Note: Information on students is not kept in the iEARN People Place database and is not available for either iEARN members or anyone outside of iEARN to access. It only appears on your "My iEARN Page," to which only you, as their teacher, has access.

We encourage iEARN participants to use First and Last Names so others will know who they are working with in the Forums. We recognize that this presents problems for some schools. Nicknames are OK, but ones that are comical can give the network's users the impression that your students are not taking this work seriously.

All fields must be completed. If students do not have their own e-mail addresses, they will need to be registered with a school address. This is necessary to avoid anonymous postings.

You can edit any of this registration information at any time.

After registering for the forums, click on "Add this User."

If there is no other forum user by the same name, it is accepted and sent for processing. Your students will be able to access the forums in about 30 minutes. At the bottom of your "My iEARN Page," you will notice that they have a status of "pending" until this information has been processed.

Use your "back" key and register as many additional students as you wish.

If you go back to your "My iEARN Page," you can see (and edit) the users which are sub-users under your account. You can also get to the page by going to: http://amity.iearn.org/mypage.lasso

In order for a newly entered Teacher to have "administrative access" so that they themselves can register students, the participant who created their User Name must "upgrade" their status. This can be done by clicking on the name of the teacher as shown below.

From here, you will be taken to a screen that offers an option at bottom to "Propose "_______" as a Registered User." This step "upgrades" their User Name so that they can then login to the databases and manage additional accounts under their "My Page."

Entering the iEARN WWW-Based Forums

Now that you have updated your "My iEARN Page" and registered students (you can always do this later as well), you are ready to enter the iEARN Forums and start interacting with others around the iEARN global network.

At the upper right corner of all pages is a link to: "Interactive Forums." Clicking here will take you to the log-in Page for the Forums.

To log-in, type in your User Name, which is your first and last names (with a space in between), and your password, which is the same as your database password.

Now you are ready to enter the Teachers Forum to meet other teachers and introduce yourself and your school. The topics in this discussion forum are organized by the most recently active.

If you know the name of the specific forum you would like to enter, you can use the forum navigation menu to navigate to a particular forum.

Click HERE for a tutorial on reading, responding and posting messages in the Teachers' Lounge forum.