Communication Technologies

Personally, I would never talk to my family without instant messaging or email. We are never at home at the same time and trying to talk to my sister on her cell phone while she is in her van full of kids is next to impossible. Using these ways to communicate allows my family to stay more in touch from the big stuff to the little stuff. I can see how this would be beneficial in the classroom. You could hook up with someone in another class or school and in many ways it could be used to enhance learning and teaching by hearing how someone else is doing something. I think this would be a great way to pair an upper elementary child with a lower elementary child and possibly have paired reading time, or just a big buddy/little buddy time using a webcam and a microphone. This could also be used by children to email themselves homework assignments or reminders each day. Or, they could email their parents reminders, notices or questions. I definitely think that the webcam technology could be used with kindergartners to pair with someone else, but they would have a hard time with the reading and writing part of communication technologies.