Friday, January 7, 2011

I Watched a Great Movie on My VCR Last Night

“We don’t think a modern messaging system is going to be e-mail” says Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook and Time Magazine Person of the Year. In 2008, I heard a talk by Lee Rainie, the founder and director of the Pew Research Center Internet & American Life Project. One of his comments based on a recently conducted survey was that 15-20 year olds thought that e-mail was for “old people”. I am not sure what the fact that I have 3 different e-mail accounts says about me.

From my observations, it does indeed seem that students are moving away from email as their main method of written communication. What does that mean for us as faculty? Take a look at this news report from the January 6, 2011 edition of Inside Higher Ed.

I think that one thing we can learn is that we may need to use a variety of technologies to communicate with our students. There are probably many different student preferences in a class for linking with others or receiving information. This is really no different than a class filled with students with different learning styles, is it.

How we need to communicate also probably depends on our objective. If it involves reflection, then e-mail or a wiki or a blog may best serve the need. If the goal is to rapidly get information to the entire class, maybe a Facebook page is the best way to do that.

We need to assess what we are trying to do and then select the best technology to do that. Always remember, however, to use the technology that is effective and that assists in the learning process. Don’t use technology just because you can.

I look forward to your comments.

3 comments:

Nader M said...

At first glance at the title, I wondered how it came to be known that I watched a great movie on my VCR last night?

I have on many occasions sent important items to students by email only to be told that they don't check their emails and thus didn't get the review the material. I even had one student a few years ago tell me that they were sorry they were replying so late to my email (after the course had ended), but they don't check their emails because they "don't like computers".

That instance is different than most cases where people don't have any trouble with computers, they just don't like email. Perhaps en masse text messaging would be useful, as that medium seems to be this generations email. Facebook would seem to be an ideal medium for communication, as they all have it up on their laptops in the classrooms, however as brought up in a previous post the use of this media for professional use seems far off.

Lea Bonner said...

If texting/Facebook/Twittering is going to be the next revolution of communication, what does this say about us as a society that we have reduced our communication to 140 charachters? How would they great literary works if they were written in "text lingo" and reduced to 140 charachter snip-its?

Annesha Lovett said...

Great article! I like the idea of using a mixed method. As we know the times are changing and we have to keep up with technology. I don't like to send text messages, but if it helps the students to learn then it's worth it. I don't want to be so resistant to change that I am impeding the growth of others. This is a new generation and they do communicate differently. We can show them the value of old methods (e.g. looking up and reading books in the library) and still meet them half way by using technological methods. If someone created a way to send an email and a text message at the same time from one typed message that would be great!