This paper describes a structured, collaborative-email-based model for communication between remote classrooms that was used to bring together two populations of children that would not ordinarily have the opportunity of interacting. The paper focuses on the role that teachers must assume and the necessary place of the model in the curriculum if this kind of electronic collaboration effort is to succeed.
The paper also examines the potential benefit of this model for teachers who are isolated by their unique functions. For example, special education teachers using this model can gain access to perspectives and teaching methods that may have been overlooked because of their own focus on compensating for their students' disabilities.
Children with disabilities whose problems cannot be met in general education classes are frequently placed apart-- sometimes in entirely separate schools with populations of children who share similar problems. As a result, children in general education often have little contact with these children. Attitudes that develop rely on stereotyped images that perpetuate distorted information (Reaves & Roberts, 1983).
At the same time, the isolation experienced by teachers in special schools leads to an insular school culture, which reinforces its own values and approach, and primarily supports their expertise in the area of the child's disability. Lost is the interaction with colleagues in general education and access to the diverse methodologies. This reinforces the focus on the disability at the expense of general needs that exist in all children.
To address both problems, we developed a structured model for email-based communication that fosters both academic and social opportunities in the context of cooperative learning. Specifically, the communication in our project is the exchange of knowledge that children have acquired from their social studies curriculum. Thus children take on the roles of both teacher and learner. When playing the role of teacher learning take on greater meaning as ideas are reviewed and reorganized in order to actively explain them in writing to another person. Thus each child's own knowledge is deepened through rethinking and recording ideas, and by replying to further questions that the information they sent elicits. Playing the role of learner-- using the other child as resource/teacher-- breaks down traditional stereotypes. Each child is valued for their complementary knowledge.
Two groups of children in different schools in Brooklyn were selected. Both groups were gender-balanced and ethnically diverse.
One group consisted of English-speaking fourth grade children with no disabling conditions. They attended a mixed-grade general education class in a public school where creative problem-solving through student interaction, and constructive discussions between peers was emphasized. The children in this class were also heterogeneously grouped with regard to intellectual abilities.
The second group consisted of fifth grade children in a school for the deaf. Their common defining characteristic was some degree of hearing dysfunction ranging from severe to profound loss. Their most outstanding difference with the first group was the use of American and English Sign Language as their primary means of communication. The children wrote in English, but exhibited a slower rate of progress in writing skills because of the disadvantage caused by hearing loss.
Project ProcedureTeachers in the participating schools paired children from the two groups by gender, behavior style, shared or complementary interests and as closely as possible for writing level in order to promote the social and educational goals of the experiment. The most essential procedural element for the success of this project was for the teachers to integrate the email exchanges into their existing social studies curriculum. The following guidelines were given to the teachers to encourage this:
There were two phases to the communication process.
Phase 1. The first phase helped children gain familiarity with email technicalities and its
informal protocols and to begin the contact with their partners. During this phase, children
informally shared personal information with one another. A typical message from a child with
hearing limitations would include their name, age, a statement about their disability, the number
of people in their family and their current interest. Mail from children without the disability tended to be less standardized:
Phase 2. Next, a more structured interchange was established and continued until the end of the
school year. Each message was to contain at least one piece of information that the child had
found interesting in their social studies curriculum and one question that he or she had concerning
the topic that the email partner was studying.
The second phase especially required the teacher to incorporate this project into the
existing social studies curriculum, to treat email as an integral part of the school day and to enable
all children to participate in it on a regular basis.
Email Tabulation. Tabulation of email traffic revealed a sharp disparity in the number of email messages sent between the two classes, consistent with the imbalance of class time that was set aside for email use. Greater than twice the amount of messages were sent from the School 1 children than were received by them (179 vs. 81). From teacher reports and our own observations, we also noticed a disparity in the amount of time it took to write messages.
This result was consistent with observations we made during the year. As the project evolved, we began to notice that the teachers in the two participating classrooms took very different approaches to the use of email, and it is this difference and its impact that constitutes the core result of this paper.
Outcome: School 1. Childrens' initial response to this project was one of sheer excitement. Early messages between children reflected the same initial excitement. For example:
hi it is me ___________ I am so glad you wrote to me . my favorte tv show is the same one is yours . i
will like to see you one day in person . i hope you will like to see me to .
As we will see below, limited access to the computer in School 2 led to infrequent responses from the School 1's counterparts. This caused the School 1 children to write messages such as, "write to me, write anything!" By June, with continued limited response from their partners, enthusiasm had changed to dissatisfaction and reluctance to participate. One comment was, "do I have to?". Many messages illustrated frustration with not receiving mail.
Dear _______,
Why havn't you talked to me? I would like to talk to you! Talk to me!
TALK TO ME 111 mesplease! I want to tell you my poiems! I want to just say
stuff! Please just at least once, Well, before I go crazy (which I am already) I'll go. Bye!
Outcome: School 2. Each child had one designated time each week for checking, responding to and sending new mail. However, these times were often pre-empted by other work. Children could only use email with teachers' request, and so the task lost the joy and natural curiosity it was expected to promote. These external constraints interfered with making timely responses, and freely communicating with and developing an interest in the child with whom they were paired. The result was a frustrating experience at best.
Canada love ice hockey and ski. Canada is cold because Canada is
north. see shoe and boot for cold weather outside wet socks need hang to dry. Can
go skiing. Now we study Mexico.
After a year's experience in this project, we can identify several additional underlying elements of the teacher's role.
Technical functions.This role has been frequently examined elsewhere and it is unnecessary to describe here.
Integration into the curriculum. Computer access is a major source of contention both between children and for each child's time allocation during the school day. In order for an email project to benefit and not detract from other activities, it must be integrated into the ongoing activities and become part of daily ongoing assignments.
Psychological functions. When technical problems interfere with message transfer or when e- mail partners fail to respond, children understandably become frustrated. At this point teachers must help children resolve problems. This role is especially important because the sense of frustration can generalize onto the email partner and negatively effect attitudes toward that person. This consequence undermines the social intent of the project. Likewise, limiting computer access also affects the quantity, timeliness and quality of the messages and ultimately the quality of peer relationships. The lack of timely responses caused the most frustration. Others have observed this same issue (Allen and Thompson, 1994).
Monitoring message flow. Teachers need to be aware that message flow can easily be derailed by any one of a number of problems and they must be prepared to intervene as unobtrusively as possible to restore flow. For example:
Dear ____,
Here is an old leter from ___ that didn't get through to you because something
was wrong with the computer. Thank you for writing avout Canada!
Serving as model. Teachers' messages can serve as a model for children to follow. More importantly, an occasional message from a teacher is always special for a child and can smooth over rough spots such as technical problems or delayed partner response. The following is an email example of teacher encouragement:
Dear _____,
______would really like to hear what you learned about Canada. We are about to
study the Arctic, part of which is in canada. What do you know about the weather there?
The quantitative difference in messages sent from the two classes demonstrates a systematic teacher impact, either promoting or interfering with the development of this mode of communication. The success of projects such as this one rests heavily upon the willingness of teachers to integrate email into the children's daily classroom activities and to recognize its value as a natural vehicle for deeper understanding of curriculum through review, reorganization and written expression of ideas, for social learning and increased self-esteem.
To summarize its essential benefits: This program replaces didactic approaches with an open-ended strategy that couples classroom teacher collaboration with paired student cooperation, and integrates a student-driven review of the social studies curriculum with written communication and organization of ideas. It reinforces concepts by using a new avenue for their expression. It extends naturally over the course of the school year, unlike other email projects (Baugh & Baugh, 1997) which are short-lived. Furthermore, this project is completely tied into each student's class curriculum and thus can be expanded into any curriculum area based on the interests of email partners and collaborating teachers. An additional benefit for teachers is exposure and exchange of ideas and teaching methods with colleagues in other settings.
Allen, G. & Thompson, A. (1994). Analysis of the effect of networking on computer-assisted collaborative writing in a fifth grade classroom. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Asssociation.
Baugh, I. & Baugh, J. (1997). Global Classrooms: E-mail learning communities. Learning and Leading with Technology, 25(3), 38-41.
Reaves, J., & Roberts, A. (1983). The effect of type of information on children's attraction to peers. Child Development, 54, 1024-1031.