Section 3: Communication on the Internet

Activity

The most important aspect of the Internet is communication. Fundamental to the spectrum of Tools of the Internet is the exchange of ideas. email, mailing lists, web boards, talker sites and moos all offer new approaches, new perspectives for learning and teaching.

Basically, communication is either synchronous or asynchronous. In a synchronous exchange the interaction is live and immediate. Talkers, moos, messaging systems like AOL's Instant Messenger, in which people actually log in and talk in real time are examples of synchronous exchanges.

Asynchronous interactions don't take place in "real time". This includes email, web boards and mailing lists. In these types of exchanges a person posts a message and others may read it at a later time (any where from a couple of seconds later to years later) and may or may not respond.

We will look at a variety of these methods in this section.

Assignment

Class Discussion Board
You will be working in Section Three of the Class Discussion Board.

Post a new thread to discuss one or more of your experiences with this section. Do you see any tools and resources here that you can use in your teaching or work? Be sure to post to section three of the board.
Respond to a Section 3 post from another student.

Link Share
Select two different resources to post and discuss on the Link Share board. Choose any resource on this page, any site linked to any of these linked resources, or any relevant web site that you are already aware of. Be sure the links go in Section 3 and be sure the link works correctly. After you enter the link return to the link share board and click on the link to be sure it will correctly open the page you are citing.
Tip: You must always begin the URL with http:// and it is usually most successful to actually visit that page and use your mouse the copy the URL directly from the browser location strip; then use your mouse to paste the URL into the link share board.

Meet with Paula at the CORAL Reef talker. You can visit during office hours, or ask Paula to meet you at a different time.

Resources

Synchronous (Real Time) Communication

Talkers

Talkers are a good approach for working with students who are geographically diverse. They're an excellent method of communication for people on various platforms, and for those with computers that are less than state of the art. Talkers don't require modern equipment, they use few system resources. They work perfectly well on dial-up connections too. For more information about talkers, and about the class talker site, the CORAL Reef, refer to the discussion on the Class Tools page

Moos

Moos are really extraordinary environments! They are much more complex and difficult to use than a talker, but offer many more rewards. Moo stands for Multi-User Object Oriented. Multi-user, because many people can connect simultaneously. The "object oriented" reflects a kind of programming that users can use to build objects and tools (such as slide projectors and informational robots). As in talker sites, moos are text-based. Conversation and descriptions of rooms and people and objects all appear as text scrolling across the screen. Moos are rather like stepping into, and becoming part of, a never ending story. Moos started out as recreational sites. But there are more and more moos tailored for educational purposes all the time. Diversity University Moo (DU) is an educational site, and Paula keeps an office there. At DU people build supplementary materials for classes and even teach classes for credit! Paula's favorite areas in the moo are a rainforest and a poetry cube. You just have to visit a moo and experience it to gain a better understanding of what it offers.

This List of Moos contains a section on moos used for educational purposes. While many of the links are dead, a number are viable and offer a glimpse of the extraordinary potential of moos.
What is a moo? offers an excellent overview and links a number of resources.
Strategies for teaching in moospace
Pedagogues in Virtual Spaces: Writing Classes in the MOO CoverWeb OverView by Michael Day
Diversity University moo is an educational site. For credit classes are offered at DU moo and several K12 projects are available.
The Effect of Having Grade Seven Students Construct Virtual Environments on their Comprehension of Science
The Effect of Student Construction of Virtual Environments on the Performance of High- and Low-Ability Students
Online Community Papers from TappedIn, a terrific resource.

Asynchronous (Delayed) Communication

Discussion Groups (Web boards)

Web boards, like our class discussion board, are better for short-term, or tightly focused, collaborations such as this class. They are based on web pages. Unlike email and mailing lists, one must visit the web site hosting the discussion group. Web boards are excellent formats for offering help, guides and supporting tutorials. People who are learning a specific subject need not clutter their email box with mail from long-term relationships, they can simply visit the web board when they feel the need for assistance or information.

Mailing Lists

Fast paced, highly interactive discussions are best carried out on mailing lists. Very broad coverage of multiple topics are generally more suited to mailing lists. In general, people become better acquainted with each other and form closer personal relationship over mailing lists.

A Comparison of Web Boards and Mailing Lists
Chat boards for teachers at Teachers Net offers a wide range of web boards for teachers of all sorts, from beginners to the experienced and covering all grade and subject levels. This is a prime example of the kinds of mentoring that can accomplished with a web board system.
Links to a variety of K12 discussion boards I was fascinated by the Elementary Chat board (Grades 1-3) with the post about the "irritated teacher"!
Read about how mailing lists work and about Netguide, our class mailing list.
Interested in joining a mailing for professional development? There are indexes to mailing lists that you can use to identify just the list that will suit your needs. The L-Soft list Search offers an index. Try entering words such as "k12", "education", secondary". You can also search the Publicly Assessable Mailing Lists. TappedIn mailing lists can be useful too.
And, finally, check out these Smiley Faces to liven up your emails!

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