Email and text messaging is a great way and quick way for information exchanging with friends, family, coworkers, even students and teachers. Using text messaging and emails to as a learning tool in my opinion can be good, but of course has its negative points. Email is a great way for students and teachers to communicate. It is a safe environment where students can feel comfortable asking questions instead of asking in front of their peers.It is an less formal way to communicate with a teacher. It is also good because teachers can keep records of the conversations. Text messaging is wonderful with students. It can help the students build relationships and always keep in touch and according to Transforming Learning with New Technologies it is a good way to teach and practice spelling.
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In my classroom I would definitely use email to communicate with my students, but I don't think I would use text messaging at all. Text messaging could be a great tool, however it is too difficult to make sure that students are actually using it for the right things in the classroom. If there was a way to monitor the way the students are using it I would consider it. I do believe students exchanging phone numbers is great to communicate with each other in order to build relationships with classmates and for them to ask for missed materials, etc.
Tech Tool Link: Skype
Skype is a great tool for communications, but I don't believe it is the best for younger students to use alone. I think it would be a cool way to use as a classroom together to teach about other cultures and use it to communicate with students and teachers from other cities, states, or countries. That is how I would use it in my classroom.
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Though the younger students would probably not be texting, it would be interesting to incorporate it when trying to teach them the basics of reading and writing. Maybe there would be more 'proper' convention, instead of 'textspeak'! ;) Using Skype in the classroom would be awesome and open up a whole new world for students.
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