by David A. Starrett, Michael L. Rodgers and Thomas C. Laughner

As we all know, good teaching is about effective communication. Learning is a result of effective communication. We build our lives around it. Technology offers many new ways to communicate: cell phones, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), chat and more. Are they effective? They have certainly become ubiquitous. The Key Indicators of World Telecommunications estimates that there were 1.3 billion cell phone users in 2003. (www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/KeyTelecom99.html). It seems that you canât go anywhere without seeing a cell phone in use. Students chat online and send instant messages.

The new technologies that have increased our access to one another also challenge our societal structure. Cell phones ring at the movies, during weddings and in classrooms. Ever fewer spaces in society are deemed special enough to warrant voluntary cell phone abstinence. Teachers routinely ask that cell phones be turned off, yet persistent cell phone use in classrooms has prompted some college campuses to install jamming devices, a move which produced, perhaps inevitably, student complaints that the jamming is a violation of privacy. Phone users themselves often employ defensive measures to reduce accessibility: call screening, no-call lists and turning off the phone come to mind. Likewise, states rush to implement no-spam lists to reduce unsolicited e-mail advertising, and Internet service providers offer ãfamily-friendlyä filters to fight pornography and hate speech. Tools such as Turnitin (www.Turnitin.com) combat electronic plagiarism, and Napsteresque peer-to-peer file sharing has come under intense assault in the courts.

Still, our students are chatting, phoning, blogging, IMing and otherwise interacting electronically in ever-growing numbers. How might we use these new media to better communicate with students and to improve teaching and learning? Are we willing to communicate on their turf, using the technologies that empower them?

How would your students respond if you bought a cell phone and gave them the number? Began using emoticons in e-mail? Opened a chat room or dedicated an e-mail address to exclusive use by and with your class? What might YOU learn about the ways that your students relate to one another and, more deeply, what they consider meaningful and worthy of attention? As suggested by Trent Batson, director of information and instructional technology service at the University of Rhode Island, we might learn more about ourselves as we struggle with new modes of communication.

Even traditional teaching and learning can be adapted to new communication environments. For example, virtual office hours and help sessions for upcoming exams can be offered on the Internet via conferencing software, such as Elluminate or Centra, both of which are fairly easy to master, even at dial-up connection speeds. Students may chat while the teacher writes on the included white board, and converse through the video or audio functions. The software relies on technologies now familiar to Internet-savvy students: chat, streaming audio and webcams. Sessions can be recorded, so students who missed them can catch up later.

Some faculty already take advantage of these technologies to communicate with their students, or to get students to communicate with each other. For example, the chemistry professor who encourages his students to IM questions to the TA during lecture, or the political science professor who knows his students are chatting during class but permits it because they are asking each other questions and clarifying points about his lecture. Then there is the biology professor whose students use blogs to post hypotheses about the diversity of living organisms and to record tests of these hypotheses. And what about the history professor who allows her students to use cell phones in class to talk live with re-enactors retracing the journey of Lewis and Clark? These faculty all have embraced new technologies to enhance learning.

We pride ourselves on connecting with our students. Try adding new communication tools to your teaching arsenal to make the connection. Make a pact with yourself. In the next course you teach, try adapting one of the above examples, ask your colleagues for examples, or better yet, be creative and come up with your own use of 21st-century communication technology. You might surprise your students and even yourself.

*ROTFL!: Rolling On The Floor Laughing!

David A. Starrett is assistant professor of biology and director of the Center for Scholarship in Teaching and Learning at Southeast Missouri State University. Michael L. Rodgers is a professor of chemistry, also at Southeast, and Thomas C. Laughner is associate director of educational technologies and services at Notre Dame University. This article was adapted from "What Did She Say?" in the October 2003 National Teaching and Learning Forum newsletter.