The advent of the Internet presents new ways to communicate via email, and instant
messaging. Email is a unique cross between spoken language and formal written language. People can easily reach out and "e-converse" with others around the world. This presents new challenges for building relationships in cyberspace. Email does not allow the reader to see body language and hear voice inflection.
How will students learn the critical communication skills they need for the twenty-first century? What can schools do to prepare students to build cyber-relationships?
Provide opportunities for students to connect with others across email.
Evaluate students' email communication using IDE's skills chart |
| The student uses words and emoticons to express emotion about the subject. |
| The student expresses himself concisely. |
| In responding to a prior email, the student includes sections of the original email and enters the response directly after each section. |
| The student takes steps to not assume the reader remembers something from a previous email. |
| The student reads beyond the email to infer how the writer feels. |
| The student responds to the writer's feelings rather than merely to words and ideas. |
| The student uses phrases where appropriate to eliminate redundancy and unnecessary words. |
| The student uses ellipses, dashes, and blank lines to create pauses in thought or transitions to new thoughts. |
Useful Sites for Internet Netiquette
- http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/netiquette.html
- http://www.albion.com/netiquette/
- http://jade.wabash.edu/wabnet/info/netiquet.htm
- http://songweaver.com/netiquette.html
Additional Netiquette Web Sites for Email
- http://www.emailreplies.com/
- http://www.dynamoo.com/technical/etiquette.htm
- http://careerplanning.about.com/library/weekly/aa050401a.htm
- http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/65mailet.htm
Hand-in-hand with cyber-relationships is the ability to collaborate across the Internet. The Internet provides opportunities for people in geographically distant locations to work and create together through email and videoconferencing. Collaborative skills are becoming more important in our society. Collaborating through cyberspace presents its own set of unique challenges. How will students learn the skills of collaborating across the Internet? What can schools do to provide related learning opportunities?
- Collaborators can attach documents to email messages for critique and commenting. Microsoft Word allows the user to insert comments in another person's document. Click here for IDE's "how -to" sheet for inserting comments.
- Microsoft Word allows the user to make editing changes that are tracked so that the author can choose to accept or ignore the suggested changes. Click here to see a "how-to" sheet on tracking changes in a document.
- Microsoft Net Meeting (part of Internet Explorer) allows users to videoconference across the Internet with a simple video camera. Collaborators can see and hear one another and work collaboratively on various applications.
- Microsoft Net Meeting (part of Internet Explorer) allows users to collaborate even if they are not using video. Collaborators can share applications and work together, taking turns controlling the mouse, to create!
- The Ross School in East Hampton, N.Y. has a circular videoconferencing room. Students sit on the benches and connect their notebook computers to the network. A control box allows the teacher to project any combination of computer screens to the projection screens that encircle the room. Video cameras located strategically around the room allow the students and teachers to videoconference with learning partners around the world.
