This newsletter is designed to outline events and happenings in the Arizona State Public Information Network and throughout the State of Arizona. If you would like to submit an article to be published in ASPIN News please contact:

Jim Casey
jim.casey@asu.edu
(602) 965-8437

by Stephane Smith

The ASU Alumni Association, in conjunction with the alumni associations at NAU and UofA, will be hosting a series of candidate forums in several key districts in August and September. These are informational events designed to give you the opportunity to learn more about candidates running for the Arizona legislature. The focus will be on higher education. ASU will host the following forums:

District 17 (parts of Glendale, Peoria and Sun City)
Tuesday, August 29 at 6:00 pm at the ASU West La Sala Ballroom

District 18 (North Phoenix)
Wednesday, August 30 at 6:00 pm at ASU Downtown Center, Building C

District 30 (Gilbert, Mesa and Queen Creek)
Wednesday, September 6 at 6:00 pm at ASU East Campus Union

District 06 (Ahwatukee and Chandler)
Thursday, September 7 at 6:30 pm at the ASU Armstrong Hall, Room 105

ASPIN staff will be present to videotape the forums for distribution over cable access TV Channel 11.

by Kolleen Roberts

Eruditio, an ASPIN project now in its third year, has partnered with MCI's MarcoPolo Project to provide more Internet resources for Arizona teachers.

Eruditio was founded in 1997 to help teachers integrate communications technology into their curriculum planning. The program offers hands-on training about the Internet and web site development, sample lesson plans, and networking resources for K-12 teachers across the state.

The partnership with MCI WorldCom Foundation's MarcoPolo Project will add additional enrichment tools to those already available from Eruditio. MarcoPolo has been involved in a series of "Train-the-Trainer" workshops sponsored by Eruditio, which were held in March and April of this year.

MarcoPolo provides an Internet portal and web development resources for organizations such as the National Geographic Society, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A free booklet for teachers on using MarcoPolo resources in the classroom is available from the organization's web site. The 32-page guide is posted as a 2 MB file in Acrobat PDF format. The file can be downloaded and printed on a computer printer in about ten minutes. It is located in the publications section of the site, at http://www.wcom.com/marcopolo/publications/shtml.

Eruditio participants who have completed their initial seminar and follow-up workshop have gone on to develop their own collaborative projects, said Barnaby Wasson, an Eruditio project coordinator and trainer. An example would be to study navigation using real-time oceanographic data from a U.S. Navy web site, Wasson said.

Eruditio's web site can be found at http://eruditio.asu.edu/.

Eruditio is a collaborative effort between members of the Arizona State Public Information Network (ASPIN). Educational institutions involved in the partnership are Arizona State University, Arizona State University West, the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University-Flagstaff, Northern Arizona University-Yuma, and Grand Canyon University. Also participating are the Arizona State Department of Education, the Arizona Education Association. Initial funding for Eruditio was provided by the U.S. West Foundation.