IM and teaching.
My experience teaching has this year included instant messaging as a way to communicate with students and fellow teachers. I use a Google Site wiki to communicate assignments and other information. It didn’t take long for students to figure out that the email address for the google site connected to my IM client. Google Chat is part of GMail. It is common for a student or two a week to pop up a message asking about assignments or deadlines. I don’t mind until they start chatting it up like we are friends, I just ask them if they have any more questions and politely say goodbye. I think this is a new best practice for a teacher. I treat instant messaging the same as the phone. If a student called and wanted to know about an assignment I would just want to talk about that and then get on with my life because I don’t want to take work home! I teach a course at IPFW and using Google Chat was very helpful to my students there also. They are other teachers with varying familiarity to instant messaging. The ones that were ok with it would send messages regarding assignments and I was more than happy to help. I tried to be as straightforward and clear as possible in class to cut down on anything that would be confusing and cause IM’s to pop up all evening! So using an instant messaging client like Skype or Google Chat can be helpful to students if common sense and professionalism is applied. It can be even more helpful in terms of professional development. I am waiting to hear the result of a grant application I helped write that will fund training on low cost collaboration tools. The two cornerstones of this are wikis and instant messaging. Sitting down at lunch and sending an IM to a colleague at another school regarding the solution to a problem and having a quick discussion about it can really maximize results and be helpful.
3 Comments
There is no end to your knowledge with the benefits of google! I think it is great that you can chat with students via google’s chat feature. I really have to sit down and take some time to figure out all the wonderful things google has to offer.
A student and I were discussing the email that he had sent regarding a question he had on a project that was due. Another student was listening and said, “Email? You mean people still do that?” I had to laugh because of everything we have been learning in this course and that students are so used to contacting each other with AIM. Oh well…I guess I just stick to old habits!
Thanks for the information on google chat! You make it sound so easy to use.
Thanks for you r encouragement Jenn. I am not a tech person, I just started playing with computers around ten years ago when I was looking for solutions to the problem of being the only teacher for 30 young men who hated school and ranged in age from 4th grade to twenty. It was nuts and that is what started my interest in using computers. I agree, it is funny to hear students refer to new technology to us as old! Check out the Beloit College Mindset List for more shocking revelations about the incoming freshman they have every year it is interesting.
I enjoyed your link to the Beloit College Mindset List. Thanks for sharing it. Your points about maintaining professionalism while using chat features with students is an important one to remember. Students are familiar with using these features with their friends, but need to realize that a different protocol is used with teachers.