Let’s talk about communication that happens THROUGH the computer. This is called CMC or
Computer Mediated Communication. Some examples are Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger,
these are all examples of Instant Messaging (IM); Skype is virtually the same thing but
it likes to promote itself as Voice Over IP (VOIP) technology. If you haven’t tried
one of these, I encourage you to use this class as an opportunity. I have provided my
ids in the syllabus. Another example is any “chat” site that you might use. Chat allows
conversations with multiple people (although IMs now usually allow groups also). Another
site or kind of site that is new is called Elluminate… Elluminate is one example, Dim
Dim is another example. And they allow synchronous classes online. If I need to do any troubleshooting
with you online, I may very well ask you to go through the Elluminate website. Elluminate
allows the teacher to have verbal and textual conversations with students. It also allows
the instructor to take control of the student’s computer plus some other features. One last
kind of CMC are Virtual Worlds with the most famous one being Second Life. I’m not good
at Second Life. While IMing and Chatting are mostly writing,
it is important to know that they do not promote writing fluency. They promote speaking fluency.
For some reason, even if you are only communicating through typing, and not a webcam or microphone,
the part of your brain that gets activated is what we use for listening and speaking—not
reading and writing. So, if you try using them in class, I suggest you be careful about
rules regarding punctuation and capitalization and full sentences because that will be forcing
a skill upon a technology that doesn’t fit, in my opinion.
On the other hand, definitely impose rules and guidelines for writing in Emails and Discussion
Boards. In fact, you might want to have the students practice writing the same email to
people of different status. We talk differently—even in email—to our boss as compared to our
friend, etc.
Okay, let me finish talking about reading and writing and technology by going back to
the earliest and most obvious use—that of wordprocessing. In class, we are using Google
Docs to do some wordprocessing. We also will use Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, but if
you can’t afford copies of those at home, you can download “Open Office” from the
Internet. It contains several free programs that do the same thing Microsoft Office does.
It might be good to remember it in case you have a student sometime that can’t afford
their own MS Office software. Anyway, it’s important to teach students
the basics of how to use a wordprocessing program. For example, they shouldn’t use
the space key five times at the beginning of a paragraph. Instead they should hit the
“tab” key one time to create the indented first line. Also, as they are typing, they
should understand about “word wrap.” Word wrap means that you do not have to hit enter
at the end of one line. Just keep typing and the software will “wrap” itself and start
a new line. You only use the “enter” key at the end of a paragraph. Otherwise, you
are creating extra work for yourself if you try to go back and make any changes.
It’s also good to understand about line spacing (single space versus double space
lines), how to set or change the margins, and what the difference is between “Save”
and “Save as” (Save as creates a copy of the document, while Save keeps replacing
the document). Some other skills to teach are copy, paste, insert, bold, underline,
italics, center alignment, left alignment, and how to change font sizes. Of course, this
is more fun when you teach some non-essential skills also, like how to change the font color
or insert pictures.
So, using technology to help students improve their reading and writing, grammar and vocabulary,
is really easy. Just take your pick of one of the techniques and try it out.