Lesson 2: Communications, Part Two
In our first lesson, we concentrated on the finding and assessment of tools. In this second lesson, we will focus on using the tools in our classroom, and end with a completed plan for their use.
Teacher-Student Communication
This week, we're going to harness the power of the Internet to improve levels of communication between our students and ourselves, learning how to find and assess Internet Tools for communication. In our first lesson, we concentrated on the finding and assessing of these tools. In this second lesson, we will focus on using the tools in our classroom, and end with a completed plan for their use.
We all understand the importance of teacher-student and teacher-parent communication; without that vital piece of the puzzle, we can never hope to create a holistic educational experience for our students. What we don't always have readily available are ways of assessing current communication practices and measuring the success of new models. Such models are often necessary in defending our position - despite the obvious need of technology in education, it's still a long process to get many supervisors to recognize its need.
The goals of educational communication should include outcomes from students like, "My teachers make clear what I'm supposed to learn", "In most classes, if we are having trouble learning something our teacher usually finds another way to help us understand it", and " My teachers inform me about my progress in their class." Comments from parents should be able to include, "Teachers inform me about what my child will be studying", "The way they teach at this school works well for my child", and "I can talk with my child's teachers or principal whenever I need."
By making available specific means of contact, communication lines will remain open and our job as learning facilitator becomes much more stress-free. With this in mind, we're going to focus on email as a solution to the needs of communication.
Preparation and Materials Needed:
In all lessons in this course, if you have problems downloading a file that I have linked to, try this method: Right-Click the link and choose "Copy Shortcut". Then, Right-Click in your browser's address bar and choose "Paste". Hit the enter key on your keyboard. This should bring up a dialogue that asks where you want to save the file to.
***Note: all books and reading assignments are optional and are provided as additional information for the student.
- A computer with Internet Connection and Printer
- Microsoft Word™
- Microsoft Paint™
- Adobe Acrobat Reader
- WinZip
