COMMUNICATING ON THE INTERNET:
E-MAIL, MAILING LISTS, AND OTHER
FORMS OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION

The Internet offers new ways of learning about and experiencing the world. Most importantly, electronic communication exposes us to a variety of people and a wide range of views from around the globe, with the potential to broaden perspectives and develop critical thinking as we integrate new and diverse ideas with our own experiences. The Internet is not just another tool for getting information; it is an opportunity for students and teachers alike to increase understanding and share their ideas.

Teaching with the Internet: Marilyn Campbell’s Class

Getting Started with Email

Before you communicate via email, you must let your software program know who you are and where to get and send your mail. This is done by “setting preferences.”  There are also numerous tutorials on the Web. Check the Google Directory  for a large list.  Check out an online tutorial such as the one from WebTeacher for Macintosh and Windows. Or you may wish to work with a partner.

Using Email for Teaching and Learning

Many students already use email to communicate with people they know, similar to writing a letter.   In times past, one of the most common ways for students to interact with different people was to write to penpals. Today, the Internet equivalent is emailing keypals, or e-pals as they are often called. This activity can increase motivation, improve writing skills, enhance knowledge, and broaden perspectives. Email’s greatest feature, however, is that it reduces the time between messages to just a few seconds or minutes. Because of the  speed of e-mail, students can do much more than simply correspond once or twice a month.

E-mail provides opportunities for locating specialized information, working collaboratively in new ways, and communicating ideas to a wider and more diverse audience than their classmates.

1. Take time to compose your message carefully so that it is suitable for the recipient and your purpose.

2. Write concisely. Short, to-the-point messages are expected and appreciated in most situations. However, provide enough information to place your message in context.

3. Write explicitly. Words and sentences can often be interpreted in different ways. This is especially true with email, which must be read without the benefit of intonation and facial expressions. Clear and direct messages leave less room for misunderstanding.

4. Be careful when using humor (or simply avoid it). Without the clues mentioned above, a comment may come across as sarcastic or rude. If you mean to be humorous, consider ending your message with a cheery closing so the reader will realize that no bad feelings are intended.

5. Proofread messages before you send them – not only to find mistakes, but also to find words or sentences that could be confusing or misleading.

6. Pay attention to netiquette and the usual conventions of electronic communication.

Netiquette

Electronic messages cannot communicate the facial expressions, voice tone, and body language we use automatically in face-to-face communication. Without these paralinguistic features, email messages can more easily lead to miscommunication. Thus, it is very important to help students develop good Internet manners and become sensitive to how their messages might be interpreted and, more importantly, misinterpreted.  One often-cited location is The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette.  Additional information, including a section for system administrators, is available at RFC 1855—Netiquette Guidelines.

Directories for Keypals

• Intercultural Email Classroom Connections originally founded by three teachers at St. Olaf’s College, this free site is now located at Teaching.com. It allows subscribed teachers to search for partner classes and projects around the world from the website or by subscribing to any of several discussion groups.

• Teaching.com This site allows both teachers and students to sign up, but requires parental consent for those under age 13. Currently it has members from 112 countries.

• ePals Classroom Exchange Teachers can look for class matches for keypals and projects from many different countries on this site, which emphasizes privacy and safety. Up to 35 free email accounts are available for each registered teacher. Site information is offered in eight languages. Students can also sign up individually with parental consent. This site also offers monitored web-based mail for classrooms or entire schools for a fee.

• ESD 105 This site allows teachers to search for matching keypal classes in the United States and abroad through free subscription to current K–2, 3–5, 6–8, or high school lists. Announcements of projects may appear as well.

• Gaggle This site stresses safety in several ways: by monitoring, blocking inappropriate messages and language, and only allowing sign-ups through teachers and schools. However, the free subscription contains ads.  Although the ads are screened for student appropriateness, they are still ads. You can pay for an ad-free version if you wish.

Ask an Expert

Directories for Finding Experts

• Pitsco This comprehensive site has links to no-fee experts who are interested in helping students and educators. (The site, however, is sponsored by an educational materials supplier and contains a small picture of a Lego block on each page.)

• CLN This site is sponsored by the Community Learning Network through Open School of British Columbia, Canada. It is organized by categories and easy to use.

• Library Spot This site contains fewer entries, but includes some areas not covered by the previous two sites. Check out the individual expert sites, however, because some of them charge a fee.

Getting Started with Mailing Lists

In addition to using email for one-to-one communication between individuals, an email address also allows you to participate in one-to-many communication by joining mailing lists—sometimes called discussion lists— and commonly referred to as listservs.

Subscribing to a Mailing List

Mailing lists have two addresses. The first one is the administrative address, which begins with the name of the program and server that manage the list. The other address is for posting (sending messages to the list members) and usually begins with the name of the list. Make sure you subscribe to the administrative address. Most of these begin with “listserv@...”—the most common server program, or “listproc@...” or “majordomo@...”

The Welcome Message

Shortly after you send your message, you should receive a return message that welcomes you to the group and details its procedures. Save this message!

Unsubscribing

The general procedure is to type “unsubscribe” and the name of the list. It is not necessary to type your name. For example: unsubscribe MIDDLE-L Remember to send this message to the administrative address, not the posting address.

Posting a Message

When you feel ready to make a contribution to the discussion, you should send your message to the posting (not the administrative) address, which usually begins with the name of the mailing list. For example, the MIDDLE-L posting address is: middle-l@listserv.uiuc.edu

Mailing List Netiquette

In order to get a feel for the culture of the list it is strongly recommended that you just read the list for awhile without posting any messages; this is called “lurking.” It will give you a chance to see how the group operates and find out answers to some of your initial questions. For additional suggestions, refer to previously mentioned netiquette sites: RFC 1855—Netiquette Guidelines and The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette.  A short introduction to smileys can be found at Learn the Net.

Privacy

The issue of privacy is often overlooked by newcomers to the Internet.  TV news stories have reported about investigative firms that search email archives to get evidence for various purposes, such as court cases. There is also the Wayback Machine  a service that allows visitors to surf previous versions of the Web as it existed on a given date; as of this writing, it contained some 10 billion pages.

Computer Viruses and Email

Many times a well-intentioned mailing list member will send out a virus alert that is later found to be a hoax. This overloads inboxes with unnecessary messages and my cause undue anxiety. You can avoid this mistake by checking for hoax information at another location in the CIAC website.

Directories for Mailing Lists

Go to one of the sites below, select a list, and follow the subscription directions.

•TileNet Most entries have descriptions and direct links to their subscription addresses or webpages.

• Email Discussion Lists and Electronic Journals This is a smaller list from the EdWeb K-12 Resource Guide, but it focuses only on education, especially K-12 issues, educational technology, and education reform. It also has a little background on mailing lists and an example of how to subscribe.

• The Teacher’s Guide Another smaller list that focuses only on education mailing lists. You can subscribe to lists directly from this site.

• CataList Reference Site This site is a catalog of listserv mailing lists only. You can search by country or membership size.

• Global Schoolhouse Mailing Lists  A list of lists from Global Schoolhouse for parents and educators to discuss relevant issues and keep up with projects.

• Online Forums  Forums sponsored by the Aussie School House.

• Online Educator’s Forums  A short but relevant list of forums, some in French and some in English, from Canada’s SchoolNet.

Getting Started with Newsgroups

Newsgroups are more like bulletin boards where anyone who is “in the vicinity” can post and read whatever is on the board over a period of days or weeks. This allows you to browse a large number of messages quickly and read at your convenience rather than having to check your inbox every day.   Even users who are group subscribers may only check messages infrequently. There is an incredible variety of topics and viewpoints to be found.

Usenet Newsgroup Hierarchies

Hierarchies include:

• alt. alternative (almost any topic, usually from an alternative view)
• biz. business
• comp. computers
• humanities.
• misc. miscellaneous
• rec. recreation and hobbies
• sci. science
• soc. social issues
• talk. current issues

Newcomer Groups

There are many groups especially for newcomers, such as:

• news.announce.newusers
• news.answers
• news.newusers.questions

If you have trouble locating these groups on your server, or want to find the FAQ for a particular newsgroup, try a search of the Usenet FAQ Archives.

Reading Newsgroups

Many services charge, but some, such as Google Groups are free.

Newsgroup Netiquette

In general, newsgroup netiquette is similar to that for email and mailing lists. Check the newsgroup area of the netiquette sites RFC 1855—Netiquette Guidelines and The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette.  Google Groups also offers good advice on effective postings to newsgroups. In general, you should compose short, well-written, on-topic, and courteous messages.

Directories for Newsgroups

•TileNet A searchable site listing thousands of newsgroups.

• Google Groups A good site for accessing newsgroups from the Web. In addition to reading and posting to many groups, you can also search Google’s archives of Usenet groups back to 1981.

• Usenet Discussion Groups A list of groups focused only on education from the EdWeb K-12 Resource Guide.

• Harley Hahn’s Master List of Usenet Newsgroups A simply organized, easy-to-use site. It includes links to several webbased newsgroup access services (some are for a fee).

Weblogs are often characterized as online journals because they contain personal diary-like entries on almost any topic with no links to news and events. For helpful information and a history of weblogs, check out
Rebecca’s Pocket.

Using Weblogs for Teaching and Learning

Educators have taken notice and are developing a variety of blogs for multiple purposes as this short list of examples illustrates:

• class blogs such as Will Richardson’s Journalism 1 at HCRHS

• teacher news blogs such as Pam Pritchard’s Edublog News

• teacher blogs such as Anne Davis’ EduBlog Insights

• mentor blogs such as Pam Pritchard’s Entry Year Teacher/Mentor Blog

• school blogs such as Tim Lauer’s Merriweather Lewis Elementary School Weblog

• educational blog networks such as the Bay Area Writing Project’s Educational Bloggers Network

• school district blogs such as Ohio’s Olentangy Local School District What’s New Weblog

• even bear blogs! The Adventures of Jefferson Bear  

• The Year of the Blog

Directories for Weblogs

• Eaton Web Portal A very large directory for all types of blogs.

• Google Directory of Journal Hosts A large and growing list of places to find blog software and hosting sites. Some charge fees.

• Blogger.com A blog software site for creating and hosting your own blog. Free and pay versions available. 

• Diaryland A free site for creating and hosting your own blog.

• Movabletype Software for creating and hosting your own blogs. Free (donations accepted) for non-commercial users.

• Userland Software Many blogs are created with Manila and Radio software from this company. Fees are charged, but many say it is worth it.

Many teachers express concerns about scheduling time for every student
to participate in realtime interactions. Chat usually entails one student
in a cycle of typing and reading messages over the course of several or many
minutes. In contrast, using email, one student types a message and then moves
on, making the computer available for another student. Nevertheless, some
teachers feel that the excitement and motivation created by chat make it worth
using.

Check out the sites below to begin your explorations:

Chat

• Chat Magazine A site that explains what chat is and the basics of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Includes good information on chat safety, netiquette, and different types of chat programs. Useful for teachers new to chat.

• e-Pals.com A safe and secure site to join existing chat rooms or set up your own password-protected room. For teachers and students.

• Kidlink.org A good site for students with chat rooms in several languages.

•Tapped In This site provides chat and discussion boards for its “international community of educators” to share and discuss a variety of education topics.

•Teacher.Net A large variety of topics can be found at this site for teachers.

• IRCLE The homepage for a very popular IRC software program for Macintosh. 

• mIRC The homepage for a very popular IRC software program for Windows.

Instant Messaging

• AOL Instant Messenger A site for downloading AOL’s Instant Messaging program. It is free and you can use it even if AOL is not your service provider. Several newer versions of browsers now come with this software already installed.

• MSN Messenger The sites for downloading MSN Messenger’s programs for Macintosh and Windows.

MOOs

• Moosetracks This fun site is a MOO designed especially for 9–13 year olds, but anyone can try it. Adults must be identified as “rangers.” It has links to the free software needed for both Mac and Windows users.

• Educational MOO Resource List A good site for book suggestions, websites and links to information about MOOs.

• Rachel’s Super Moo List Educational Moos A list of educational moos for all levels including university students.

Video-Conferencing

• SBC Knowledge Network A nice introduction to the topic with examples, strategies, and a glossary.  You can also join their mailing list to discuss videoconferencing issues.

• Digital Bridges Digital Bridges is a project of the Northwest Educational Technology Consortium. This well organized site has examples of current project schools and links to videoconferencing resources.

•Videoconferencing Advice Sheet Basic information from Ireland’s ScoilNet about using classroom videoconferencing.

• iSight A new camera from Apple for videoconferencing with iChatAV. It is easy to use and relatively inexpensive. At the time of this writing, it is available for Mac OS X, and a beta version for Windows is due shortly.

Visiting the Classroom: Mrs. Contner’s Fourth Grade Class in Ohio

Mrs. Contner’s site illustrates many ways teachers can use a website to communicate with students, parents, other educators, and anyone else who is interested.

New Literacies in Internet Communication

Foundational literacies play an important role in using the programs and tools we have demonstrated.  If students and teachers want to achieve the maximum benefit from Internet communication, they must be skilled in the new literacies as well.   It may not be so obvious, however, that for truly effective communication, students and teachers will also need to develop new literacies related to the other functions. For example, they will need to identify important problems, questions, and issues to include in their messages. An ethical disposition toward Internet use will help their communications be useful and appropriate for their receivers.

Additional Communication Resources on the Internet

Beginners Guide to the Internet A well-organized guide to most of the topics discussed in this chapter: email, mailing lists, newsgroups, videoconferencing, and several more. Other locations at the site have classroom activities, resource links, and a glossary.

Edublog Webring  A webring for teachers, technologists, and librarians who are interested in integrating weblogs into the classroom.  Also for teachers who are using blogs in their classrooms.

Education Web Logs An informative article with basic background information on weblogs and links to examples. 

Email:  A Guide to Using It in Bristol Schools A comprehensive guide from Bristol, England that includes background information on using email as well as some suggestions for classroom activities. Most appropriate for primary and middle grades.

An Introduction To Weblog Terms For Weblog Readers  Not specifically for educators, but an easy to understand introduction from Phil Gyford.

A Practical Guide to Blogging This great one-page summary comes from Writers Write—The Internet Writing Journal, but contains useful material for everyone. It has many links to related resources.

Teacher Mailrings A network of 50,000 teachers around the world from the Teachers.Net site. Mailing lists are organized by grade level, subject, and special interests.

Ten Tips for a Better Weblog  Tips from Rebecca Blood, author of the Weblog Handbook.

weblogg-ED Another blog fromWill Richardson. See the idea file, read the FAQs, and check out the blogroll for links to other informative blogs.

Weblog Ethics An excerpt on weblog ethics from the Weblog Handbook.

West Loogootee Elementary School  A site for teachers with information on email safety and mailing lists, a chat room list, and resource links.