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Welcome to Forum
online, which replaces
the print publication that has existed since October of 1984. Despite
the fact that I too will miss the feel of the nicely laid-out print
issue in my hands, it is time to move away from print, for many reasons.
From now on, you'll be able to:
 Copy
and paste parts of articles to your word processor, and adapt the
content to your own needs.
Search
the Forum website and quickly locate articles that contain
your search term. (Our search engine is elementary at this point, but
will be improved.)
Receive
an e-mail that lists the articles that have become available online.
Click on the provided links, and immediately access the articles that
interest you.
To receive an e-mail notification
whenever each issue becomes available, send an e-mail to TokForumEnglishNotify-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
This is a one-way (from the editor to all subscribers) distribution
list, not an "everybody posts" listserv. The volume of e-mails
will be low. To protect you against spammers, your e-mail address
will be hidden from other subscribers. After subscribing, you will
have to reply to an e-mail from yahoogroups, confirming that you're
a live person with a real address instead of a spammer-bot.
If you have trouble using
yahoogroups, e-mail me
and I will resolve your problem on an individual basis.
I will also post notification
of new issues on the Online
Curriculum Centre (OCC), which is now available to all authorized
IB schools free of additional charge.
Access
websites mentioned on the "Worth Clicking" page without
having to type the URLs. You'll be able to click and go!
[Under
consideration] Click on a link on the notification e-mail (or visit
the Forum website) and download the entire new issue as one PDF file,
rather than downloading each article separately. (What
do you think about this?)
[Under
construction] Access past issues of Forum. I'm delighted
to say that the Forum
Archives Project is well underway! The work of scanning and
performing optical character recognition of issues prior to No. 43 (August
2000), begun by John Day of Springbrook High School, has received a
major boost. Rick Bisset kindly
suggested that Matthew Woolman, his ITGS student at the International
School of Kuala Lumpur, work on the Forum Archives project. Matthew
has been converting print into files at warp speed.
This cannot be a solo effort.
In the spirit of our entire Forum endeavor, a team effort is
essential for its success. I need you to help with the next stages.
These are:
- Deciding which articles
are worth re-publishing;
- Locating authors and securing
permission to publish their articles on the Web;
- Re-editing these articles
(whenever necessary, for example to adapt terminology to the current
Subject Guide);
- Laying out the articles
in HTML for publication on the Forum website.
If you are able to help with
any of these, please e-mail me,
stating which of the four jobs most interests you. Please write "Forum
archives" on the subject line.
Issues 43 to 47 will be
republished online fairly quickly. My priority right now is to set up
the Forum website
in Spanish.
Beyond
personal advantages:
Presently,
newly authorized schools have very limited access to issues of
Forum published prior to their authorization. They will now be
able to access these issues online.
Future
TOK teachers in schools going through the authorization process
need to develop a course, but didn't receive the current print issue
of Forum, nor were allowed into the OCC. They will now be able
to access Forum online.
The
excellent peer-reviewed articles published in Forum will now
be available to the public at large. I personally believe that
in the past 30+ years we've developed a unique course, which our graduates
appreciate even more years after they graduate from university. It's
time for the world at large to become more closely acquainted with what
we do, which is why Forum is being published on a public site.
Some disadvantages of Forum online:
Even
if we offer, and you print out, the entire issue as one PDF file, it
will not look as nice as the print issue.
Since
Forum will be publicly available, we will have to be more mindful
of what we publish. Some lesson plans would be rendered moot if students
read the articles introducing them. Such "sensitive" information
will be placed on the Online Curriculum Centre (OCC), which is accessible
only to IB teachers. Thus, you will occasionally encounter, while reading
an article, a link such as "[Ed.: This is detailed on the OCC]."
Important note:
If you are an IB teacher and do not yet have access to the Online
Curriculum Centre (OCC), please contact your IBC.
Next project: TOK Memory Lane
In the future the earliest
issues of Forum, as well as the early subject guides and teachers'
guides, will be included on this website, thanks to Trevor Trumper,
Sue Bastian, and John Mackenzie who are furnishing source materials.
If you wish to participate in this effort to collate the history
of TOK, please contact me
(write "TOK memory lane" on the subject line).
I hope you enjoy this site and this issue of Forum. As always,
your comments and input are welcome.
May your holidays be everything
you wish for. And may you find the time to finally write up that great
idea you've been using in class, and send it
to us!
Lena
Rotenberg
Forum
editor
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