Issues Surrounding Email
In a
traditional educational setting, the classroom is a place where students learn academic
content, ask questions and receive instruction regarding assessment. Reflecting
back on my experiences in school, instructors would often encourage students to
email or call their office if questions were to arise.
However, this method of communication poses potential problems for a number of
reasons. which include teachers not checking their emails
frequently enough, multiple students asking the same questions, waiting for a
response and students refusing to
use email altogether. This poses a barrier for student-teacher communication as
students are unable to have their immediate questions answered while
progressing through school work at home. In his article, (Kane, 2015) discusses
some of the problems associated with using email as a technological tool. Some of these problems include people experiencing difficulty getting their point across
through email as well as copious amounts of time writing and responding to
emails. On
average, a person receives about 121 emails each day and spends about 14 hours
per week using email (Levenstein, 2013). As one could imagine, using email as
the primary method for student-teacher communication during off-school hours
becomes tedious and wearisome for both parties.
What is the Alternative?
While
emailing and calling instructors can provide some support for students while
working through academic content at home, it has many limitations. An
alternative intervention would be to provide support to students through an ICT
application called Edmodo.
What is Edmodo?
Edmodo is a technological learning platform that can
be used for a variety of subjects to facilitate online discussions, share
content, distribute various forms of assessment and promote student-teacher communication
(Purnawarman et al., 2016). It is a user friendly application that is
compatible with various electronic devices including desktops, laptops, tablets
and smartphones. Edmodo allows for students to ask questions, engage in
practice questions, communicate with peers and have continuous contact with
their instructors after school hours. Teachers are also able to post information
that may have been missed in class, send out announcements and upload academic
content. Edmodo has numerous advantages over email in that students can ask
questions that are visible to their peers and can refresh themselves on course
content hours after having learned it. Studies have shown that students’
perceptions towards Edmodo are positive as it is quick and easy to use and
facilitates effective communication and learning (Al-Said, 2015). Like any
other technological application, Edmodo does have some limitations. However,
students and instructors generally have positive reviews towards the
application and find that it promotes student engagement and learning.
Below is a brief description of Edmodo which includes an overview of the many features the application has to offer.
References
Al-Said,
K. M. (2015). Students' Perceptions of Edmodo and Mobile Learning and their
Real
Barriers towards them. TOJET: The
Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology,
14(2).
Kane, G. C. (2015). Are you part of the email problem?
MIT Sloan Management Review,
56(4),0.
Levenstein,
J. (2013). Email statistics report, 2013-2017. The Radicati Group, Inc.,
Palo Alto,
CA.
Purnawarman,
P., Susilawati, S., & Sundayana, W. (2016). The use of Edmodo in teaching
writing in a blended learning
setting. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(2),
242-252.
No comments:
Post a Comment