FuseTalk Guide

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FuseTalk Guide

• American Bar Association
• Division for Public Education

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Overview

• The tutorials and exercises that follow are
  designed to familiarize you with Fuse Talk, the
  web conferencing software used by the ABA for
  communication on the discussion boards.
• The guide provides tutorials and exercises on
  four basic FuseTalk functions used repeatedly
  throughout the Summit Replying, Posting,
  Editing, and Attachments.
• Teacher Only Discussion Board The primary
  vehicle for communication between teachers and
  with ABA staff.
• Student Discussion Board The board used for all
  communication among students.
• Access the online forum on the ABA NOYS website
  at http//www.abanet.org/publiced/noys/. Click
  in the Registered Users Login section. Enter
  your login name (in the Username field) and the
  password (in the Password field) and click
  Login.

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FuseTalk Levels of Organization
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FuseTalk - Three Levels of Organization

• Categories
• Categories are folders of collected topics
  relating to a specific aspect of that discussion
  board. Categories are at the highest level of
  the folder structure and can only be created by a
  discussion board administrator.
• Topics
• Topics are threads/discussions created within a
  category. Multiple topics can exist within one
  category. Topics can be created by anyone logged
  onto the discussion board.
• Messages
• A message or many messages are found within a
  topic and are related to one subject matter.
  Anyone that has logged onto the discussion board
  can post or reply to a message.

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Categories

• Figure 1 displays the basic layout of the
  Discussion Board screen. Categories are located
  on the left side of the discussion board as
  depicted in this screen shot from 2007 NOYS.
• The screen shows a category for Jefferson High
  School, Washington High School, Teachers Only,
  Feedback, and Software Questions. The Icons to
  the left of the category show whether the
  category contains messages, whether it is locked,
  etc.

Figure 1 You can return to this page at any
time by clicking on Discussion Board Home in
the menu at the top of the page (indicated by the
red arrow).
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Topics

• The screen shot at the right shows the topic
  Welcome Summit Applicants (yellow arrow), which
  is within the category 2007 NOYS Software test
  (green arrow).
• A topic message begins a new thread of discussion
  within a Category.
• Click on the topic to read all messages in that
  topic. All messages within the topic will be
  listed in chronological order. You can reply to
  the Topic, or to any of the messages within the
  Topic. Your reply will be posted under the
  message to which you replied.

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Tutorial Replying to a Topic
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Replying to a Topic

• There are two ways to reply to a Topic.

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Using the Reply Key

• Method One Use the Reply key
• Click on Reply at the lower right-hand corner
  (indicated by the green arrow on the previous
  slide).
• Type your reply in the window that appears.
• Sign your message. Remember to sign using your
  first name, your last name, (T) and your school
  name (e.g., Mike Smith (T) Washington High
  School).
• Click Reply to Topic. (see Figure 3, next
  slide).

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Figure 3 Reply to Topic button indicated by
the red arrow
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Using the Quote Key

• Method Two Use the Quote key
• Click on Quote at the lower right-hand corner
  (indicated by yellow arrow).
• Type your message and sign it.
• Click on Reply to Topic.
• If you use the quote key, the original
  message will appear in a box below your
  reply (see Figure 4).

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Figure 4 This screen shot shows what happens if
you reply to a message using the Quote button.

• The original message appears at the top, followed
  by the reply to the original message, which
  includes a boxed quote of the original message.

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Hands-on Exercise

• Log into the Teachers Only Discussion Board using
  your login name and password.
• After you log in, you will see a list of
  categories, including two school cluster groups,
  an Updates Information category, an Evaluation
  category, and a Software category.
• Complete the following exercises
• Click on Cluster Group A.
• Find the post by Joe D. Jefferson High School
• Post a reply to Joe D. Jefferson High School

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Tutorial Posting Editing Topics
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Posting New Topics

• Posting New Topics
• First, select a category in which you would like
  to create a new topic.
• Next, click on the category selected.
• You will notice that a new menu option, New
  Topic," appears in the main menu. Select New
  Topic and a new window will appear giving you
  the ability to add a new topic.

Figure 5 The New Topic button is in the menu
and the right-hand corner.
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Posting New Topics

• After you click on New Topic, the screen below
  will appear.
• Enter the topic name in the message title
  field. Keep the name short.
• Type in your message or question.
• Sign your message (as previously demonstrated).
  When you have completed your message, click Post
  Message.
• Your Topic will post immediately.

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Editing A Posted Topic

• Edit Topics by opening the topic message and
  clicking Edit at the bottom right-hand corner.
  You can only edit topics you create, unless you
  are a board administrator.
• You can edit the topic title and summary, as well
  as the content of the Topic.
• After you edit a Topic, a message will appear
  with the Topic to indicate it has been edited,
  the name of the person who edited it, and the
  time and date.
• Please Note Editing messages is performed in
  exactly the same way. As with topics you can
  only edit messages you originated (unless you are
  a board administrator).
• Posting Tip Messages can be previewed prior to
  posting.

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Hands-on Exercise

• Part I
• Click on school category Cluster Group B.
• Make a new topic with the title Discussion
  Starter Statement for Group 1. Use the following
  text for your message
• Sixty-seven percent of Summit participants
  believe that school officials should not be able
  to discipline students who, while off-campus,
  post entries on social networking sites that may
  be disruptive to school classes. Do you agree or
  disagree with this statement? Why or why not?
• Post your message.
• Edit your message, changing sixty-seven percent
  to eighty-two percent.

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Hands-on Exercise

• Part II
• Visit the Updates Information conference.
• Find the message entitled Welcome and
  congratulations! from Wendy Holtman.
• Reply to her message by posting any text you
  want, which will indicate that you have been
  successful in navigating the board.
• Post a new topic message. Title it with your
  first name. Include the following information
  in the text of your message
• Your name
• Your town/city, and state
• If applicable, the number of summits you have
  participated in
• The subject of the class that will participate in
  the summit
• The grade (s) of your participating students
• The number of students in your class.
• Sign your message with your name and your school
  name.

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Attaching a File
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Attachments

• Only Board Administrators can attach files on
  FuseTalk. All teachers will be Board
  Administrators of the Student Discussion Board.
  (Which will also allow you to edit student topics
  and messages, if necessary).
• Students are not permitted to post attachments on
  FuseTalk. Please keep your login information
  confidential.
• Files can be attached when creating a new topic
  or replying to an existing topic.

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Attachments

• To attach a file follow these steps
• Click New Topic, Reply, or Quote.
• Click Attach File located at the bottom of the
  screen that appears.
• Click Browse to locate file, and double click
  on the selected file.
• Click Upload File. File will now appear in
  File Listing box.
• Double-click file to attach to message.

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Conference Views, Searches, Printing
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Threading Linear Views

• You can view messages in two ways
• Threading view (see figure 6)- provides a list
  of all posts, showing the name of the person who
  posted, the date and time of the posting, and the
  thread of messages (i.e. arranged in order of
  message and replies). Using this view, all
  replies to a message will appear directly under
  the original message. We strongly recommend that
  you use the Threading view so that messages and
  replies are grouped together.
• Linear view (see figure 7)- shows all messages
  in chronological order. Using this view, replies
  to messages will not necessarily appear below the
  original messageeverything will appear in the
  chronological order in which it was posted.
• To change conference view
• Click on Profile.
• Click on Personal Options.
• Change the setting from a linear view to a
  threading view.

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Threading View

• Figure 6
• Threading view of all posts
• within the topic Welcome
• Summit Applicants.

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Linear View

• Figure 7
• Linear view within the
• topic Welcome Summit
• Applicants.

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Searching for Messages

• To search for messages, you can either
• Click on Search Discussion Board in the main
  menu, or
• Click on advanced search in the left hand
  navigation window.

Figure 8 Arrows indicate location of Search
Discussion Board and advanced search.
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Searching for Messages

• A search window will appear (Figure 9). Select
  one or more categories to search from the Forum
  Categories window on the right side of the
  screen (red arrow in Figure 9).
• You can search
• By word or phrase,
• By author,
• For messages you have posted,
• For messages within a date range, or
• For messages posted by you.
• Tip Keep Hard Copies of Students Messages.
• The search function is not foolproof. Our primary
  recommendation is to instruct students to print
  out all of the messages they write from Microsoft
  Word, and keep a portfolio to turn in to teachers.

Figure 9
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Printing Messages

• Printing a single message
• Select the print icon shown in the top right hand
  corner to print the message displayed in the same
  frame.
• Printing a topic and all messages within the
  topic
• Click on the topic you want to print.
• Click on the topic tools drop down box. Select
  print this topic.
• A pop-up window will appear. Select print this
  topic.

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Miscellaneous
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Logging Off FuseTalk

• To log off of FuseTalk, click Logout on the
  menu bar.
• You will be automatically logged off if you
• Go to another site on the Web, or
• Close your browser window.
• A different user will then be able to log on to
  the same computer using his or her own login name
  and password.

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Glossary of FuseTalk Icons
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Reporting Error Messages

• Hopefully you will not have encountered any or
  very few error messages, but if you have, please
  share them by starting a new topic message in the
  Software category.
• Title your topic message Errors from (your
  name).
• Be sure to provide as much information as you can
  so that your colleagues can perhaps share their
  expertise on your problems. Such as I went to
  post a new topic, entered all of the information
  in all of the fields, hit reply to topic and
  (the problem happened/the error message I got was
  ).
• Include the browser and browser version
  information so teachers with similar browsers can
  assess whether their solutions might help you.

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Feedback

• Visit the Software category and let us know
  what you think by replying to the topic message
  entitled Hello, Teachers! Please Read Me!
• You may wish to answer the following questions
  when giving your feedback
• What aspects of FuseTalk did you find easy?
• Could you access the categories easily?
• Could you reply, post, edit, and attach messages
  without difficulty?
• What aspects of FuseTalk were difficult?