Chapter 7-Communicating on the Internet

Communicating on the internet has become a main source of communication for teachers and students. Internet communication such as e-mail and videoconferencing can be much easier than sending a letter or waiting for someone to return your phone call. Chapter 7 describes various internet resources and ways they can enhance communication. Email is one of the resources it lists. An email is an electronic message sent to an individual. Email can be especially helpful to teachers, students, and parents. I have learned firsthand through EDT 630 how helpful email can be. I find myself using email to contact the professor as well as my classmates. If I can use it to contact my classmates, I'm sure my students can use it to contact theirs. I didn't think of it this way before but now it all makes sense. Berkson and Britsch (cited byRoblyer 2006) found that having students email others gives more immediate purpose for writing, motivating them to write more frequent ly and produce longer passages.

Listserv would be another great resource for students to use. Listserv is an electronic list of email addresses. Listserv would be great for classroom use because everyone gets a copy of the email sent to the list address. This way every student has access to the class email list. They can email one another versus calling on the phone. This would help students to advance with technology skills.

Video technology skills is also a great resource that Roblyer discusses in chapter 7. Videoconferencing is a form of two-way interactive communication that allows those involved to see and hear each other. This would be great for students to interact with each other. This would also be handy for days when the teacher cant come to school. The teacher and students can conference with one another.

Chapter 7 lists a number of Internet resources but I found the ones listed would be the most helpful to me.