Communication: Not Just a Friendly Letter Anymore!
July 23rd, 2010 by cmhwHey cyber world! When was the last time that you sent a friendly letter? Better yet, when was the last time you received a friendly letter? Chances are you have not received or sent a friendly letter in years. If you have, did you remember the greeting, heading, date, closing, and signature? I’ve probably sparked a memory of a beautifully handwritten letter you sent or received sometime in your past. The reason it was in your past is that society really does not communicate this way anymore. Our world moves much too quickly for this form of communication. The funny part? Writing a friendly letter is a common state standard for elementary students. Why are we teaching and assessing this skill when in the real world it is mostly obsolete? Is this skill preparing our students for the future they will live in?
Let’s face it the only way most of our stud
ents will be prepared when they graduate from high school is if they hop in a time machine and go back 20 years. We are not preparing our students to enter the world they will live in. During a casual conversation with a group of educators we began discussing Facebook, the most popular form of social networking on the web. About three of us were extremely pro Facebook as a way to communicate with parents, students, and fellow colleagues. On the flip side about twelve were TERRIFIED of the use of Facebook with students and parents. Citing that they had no interested in students and parents having access to their personal information. Not only that, but their main argument was that students should not be on websites like that because they will only fall victim to cyber bullying, or become a cyber bully themselves. Ahhhh…now to the point of this whole post. COMMUNICATION. It is a 21st Century Skill. It is something that the business world feels our students are not able to do when they enter the work force. Colleges also recognize this as a weakness. However, teachers feel in order build communication skills within our students we need to take away their cell phones, twitter accounts, and Facebook status updates, and get students to write more! We assign them a pen pal from another state and exchange a series of friendly letters via the United States Postal Service or have the students write several research papers.
To a point, I say yes, students need to write more. However, students need to be writing for an accurate purpose. Their future will exist in 200 characters or less. Concise, thoughtful, and quick is what the future will hold. Texting, blogging, emailing and twittering are convenient and efficient ways to communicate. Plus, even grandmas have a Facebook account!
The question now arises, how? How do we get students to communicate in these ways when the media is filled with reasons why we should not allow students to do this within school, and we should really try to ban them from doing it outside of school? The answer is they are already doing it and they will continue to do it no matter what we as educators try to say about it! If you can’t beat them, join them! The short, easy, under 200 characters answer: teach them to use it properly. Students need to be given a safe, strictly monitored environment to socially network. Why not utilize classroom blog to discuss homework, or brainstorm ideas for the next field trip? Wouldn’t homework be more interesting if you could access your teacher’s lecture using You Tube on Facebook?
Yes, there are risks with using technology. The fact is we are not going back. Technology is here to stay. Bullying has always existed on the playground so maybe we should have eliminated the playground from school years ago! Thank goodness we did not eliminate the playground rather as teachers we try to teach students how to use the playground in a bully free manner. Thus, the same needs to be done with communication through technology. Get them to use it, and teach them to use it the proper way.
This is an excellent point. I find it hard to decide if I should take the leap and communicate with parents via facebook/twitter. It does make sense to communicate this way I just don’t know why it scares me.
By Katie on July 23rd, 2010
Excellent points! This will tie in with the previous post, but I recently researched the topic of technology in the classroom as well as cell phones in the classroom. Some educators made valid arguments about attempts to provide students with technology (in the form of laptops), which is expensive, when 90% of kids walk into the school everyday with that technology carefully stowed away, out of site and (hopefully) muted, in their pocket.
Cell phones have become an amazing tool, and most kids already have them. It would be much more cost effective to provide kids with Internet capable cell phones that have many of the same tools as laptops, and take advantage of that technology, rather than reinventing the wheel by figuring out how to get everyone a laptop, or determining who gets one and who doesn’t.
You are correct in your statements that kids need to be educated for the future and not the past. Ask any kid in our school systems and they will agree. So much could be accomplished by taking advantage of the technology that almost everyone already uses. I think the education system could make a giant leap forward by recognizing this and utilizing what is already available to them.
By Tammy on July 26th, 2010