Thread: The Role of Electronic Communication

This is the research assignment in its finished copy. It's scored an 80%, mostly due to technical faults. It means I get to skip the exam and do another assignment instead, which is much better to me.

Comments from the marker were:
"A very persuasive report demonstrating a range of research and report writing skills. A thorough and well structured account."

Thanks to all those the contributed and helped out



Introduction

Authorization

This report was commissioned by the Western Australian Department of Education and Training to examine the role of electronic communication in self-expression, and to recommend whether or not learning how to use electronic communication appropriately should be implemented as a compulsory part of the English curriculum in schools.

Limitations

This report was limited in its depth by the requirements of briefness; more in depth study would yield further information. The absence of a long-running study into the possible effects of any proposed education program is also likely to decrease the accuracy of the report.

Scope of report

This report will examine whether electronic communication is important enough to be considered a priority for the English curriculum, and why this is or is not the case, as well as problems that must be overcome.


The Growth of Electronic Communication

Electronic communication is the newest medium for the transfer of information. Its usage has been on a steady increase for the past five years to the point where it is in many cases the chief means of interaction between people, and not just over long distances either. It is particularly prevalent among the younger members of our state’s population. The new generation has openly embraced this new form of communication at an unprecedented rate. A staggering number of children and young adults now regard it as their preferred form of communication between both their friends and the rest of the world, and as an essential tool for their own self-expression.
According to the American Pew Internet Study, quoted in The Justice student newspaper for Brandeis University (S. Tuck, 2003), 42 percent of college students use the Internet to communicate socially, as to why college students use the internet as opposed to other, more antiquated forms of communication, 85 percent of students cited its ease and convenience. This statistic is not just unique to the United States, the same trend is occurring here. According to a study by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) between February 1998 and November 2000, the percentage of Australians with access to computers and the internet is steadily on the rise (refer to table 1, Appendix A), “6.9 million adults, or 50% of all adults in Australia accessed the internet” during 2000, and that households were almost twice as likely to access the internet if they included a person under the age of 18 (see table 2, Appendix A). By today, these figures will be much larger. A 2003 ABS study stated that the number of Internet subscriptions in Australia was 5.2 million at the end of September, 135000 more than at the end of March. Our own research found that at one Perth High School the year 12 students created an email list to keep in touch with each other, more than 70% of the grade had email accounts on this mailing list. More and more Western Australian students are becoming Internet users. This is a fact that cannot be ignored and must be addressed by the Education Department.


Problems with Electronic Communication

Before the new generation can fully take advantage of electronic communication, they must learn how to use it appropriately. Electronic communication is a very powerful tool and can have undesirable consequences if not used in an appropriate manner. Most people learn from experience, but this can lead to problems. Because of the nature of electronic, text based communication; messages are very easily misunderstood. S. J. Soukup writes in an e-journal article (1997), “Whether it results from the medium, from the way we write electronic messages, or from the way we scan them, misunderstandings occur and sometimes lead to angry responses, hurt feelings, and damaged working relationships”. Users of electronic communication must be very careful to ensure that what they write is interpreted correctly by the recipient. This knowledge is often only gained after the user has experienced it for themselves through their own undesirable error. With the medium becoming exponentially more popular, places of mass discussion and self-expression are popping up on websites all over the world and have thousands of users pass through them daily, making this an important issue.


Importance of electronic communication in self expression

Introduction

So why is it important for the students to learn to use the electronic medium, particularly as a method of self-expression? Electronic communication and is potential for self-expression is revolutionary. It has made the world remarkably smaller and allowed an enormous freedom of information and expression to be made possible. There are countless testimonies from Internet users about how the ability to express themselves online through the electronic medium has helped them as an individual both mentally and emotionally.

Examples of Benefit

One American college student said “Obviously, yes I do find it important. E-communication has helped me in just about every aspect of life. It allows an easy and relatively secure access to people's opinions that I wouldn't have without it.”
Another explained how the use of electronic communication allowed her to gain skills that enabled her to get a job she enjoyed. “If I hadn't volunteered my 'skill', I'd be stuck doing boring work, day in, day out. A bit of knowledge got me something entertaining to do.”
A member of an online discussion board said he used electronic communication to express himself differently “you guys seriously wouldn’t recognize me if you met me in person. The way I express myself here is completely different from real life. Online comms have allowed me to vent on several occasions.”
A user of livejournal.com, online journals being a very important part of electronic self-expression, said the ability to express himself online had been immensely helpful to his writing “The internet has been very helpful in helping me express myself. I have been writing for the past few years and I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere at the rate I've gone without the Internet. It provided a way to show my work to other people without the embarrassment I might get from showing people I actually know.”
These research participants, as well as many others, all agreed that their school training them in effective of use electronic was beneficial to understanding these advantages that they could acquire, and being able to make use of them. Those whose schools did not, believed that things would have been made easier for them if they had – they learned the skills, but believe had their schools helped them, they would have had a substantial head start. “I just think a lot of people use the Internet, but don't really say anything” one student said. This is what the education department must help to prevent.

Potential for users

Teacher Bertram Bruce said on the website www.teachingonline.org (1998), “This desire to teach about oneself, as well as to learn and to express one's ideas, feelings, and values, is at the heart of the computer experience for many adolescents. They do this through chat rooms, which for many have replaced the telephone as a means of daily communication; through e-mail; and through multiuser games now percolating through the Internet.”
These are just a few examples of how helpful electronic communication can be to everyday people, and why it is so important that this potential of the medium not be ignored or underestimated, but addressed by the education department.


The Responsibility of the Education Department

Should the education system somehow assist in helping students learn to use electronic communication? Yes. It is the duty of schools to give students the start they need in life. The ability to use electronic communication effectively is fast becoming “…a necessity for any job more complex than flipping hamburgers” as stated by an American college student. Electronic communication is also a vital skill for any student to learn for educational purposes. Information can be gained via the electronic medium and be used to assist in a students learning much faster than conventional means, although both are important, but to get the most out of this, the students must be taught to use it to its full potential. It would be a folly for the education system not to instruct students in this regard at least. Students need this skill to succeed in life. They could learn it themselves, but what of those who do not have their own computers? Those households earning less than $40000pa are significantly less likely to own a computer or to have access to the Internet, according to the ABS study. Their school is the only place they can. We cannot leave these West Australians behind, Mr. Director-General, otherwise the gap between rich and poor will only widen. What of self-expression? Electronic communication opens up the world to students, allowing them to communicate with people and share ideas that they would never have had the chance to otherwise. “Through proper use of e-communication, a student has access to thousands of "teachers" and support from unlimited sources. Engaging in communications online increases writing, reading, and critical thinking skills and provides the opportunity for extremely effective networking” as stated by a message board frequenter. This is the function of the education system. Our children and our children’s children need all the help they can get. Bertram Bruce (1998) told the chairman of the board at a school she was teaching at “…that their students could learn about people all around the world by communicating through e-mail. Electronic communication would open up vast opportunities to learn about the world and other cultures” The chairman replied “That is good, but can our children also use these tools to tell the rest of the world about themselves?” This is how the Western Australian Education Department should look upon the new medium. Self-expression via electronic communication has no boundaries as to its potential to help students taught how to use it appropriately. Just as one citizen said “The role of education is preparing students for competitive futures, right?”


Student’s Appreciation of the English Language

But before we walk, we must learn to crawl. Before students enter the world of electronic communication and self-expression they must appreciate the English language and learn how to properly “…communicate verbally and have confident written skills before hand. I personally think, yes kids need to learn about computers and technology to keep up with it, but they more importantly need to learn social, verbal and written skills at a higher level then what they are, first.” writes a New Zealand mother of two. This is very true and echoes the findings of this report. Online, self-expression is littered with the damaged remains of the English language, Internet shorthand has become a normal occurrence as we “sacrifice eloquence for speed” as stated by a top high school student speaking on the subject. Some abbreviations and acronyms have their place online, but it is becoming excessive as grammar, spelling and punctuation fall by the wayside. The education system must stress the importance of maintaining something resembling the English language when expressing yourself online. One student’s “English professor made it very clear that we were not to write in the gibberish that has come from IM programs like 'o mI god, u r 2 gr8!' in our essays. I don't believe that she would have warned us unless it had been a problem in the past.” This is the extent of that problem, and the education system must take steps to lessen its impact by teaching students how to appropriately use electronic communication.


Conclusion

It is the findings of this report that the education department should take a more active role in teaching students how to use electronic communication appropriately for the betterment of themselves as individuals and that of society as a whole, particularly through self-expression. The research conducted supports the notion that prompted the commissioning of the report and we are confident that future reports into the issue will shed even more light on the subject as a result of our research. As a product of this report, we advise that the following recommendations be considered.





Recommendations

The Education Department should apply for state and federal government money grants to upgrade the IT systems of public schools, both in quality and quantity of hardware, software and infrastructure within the school’s system. This will enable the school to give better access to more students at once.

A compulsory technology class be implemented for upper primary students and lower secondary students to teach students the basics of electronic communication and how to use it appropriately. Skills such as how to use search engines, messages boards, emails and any other form of expression.

Teachers be asked to encourage students to display their work online for public or private comment and to allow them to gain feedback and improve their work.

Start a program that will encourage secondary students to begin working in an online environment and expressing themselves on it. Create class message boards, and discussion forums with other students in the state, allowing students to discuss issues related and non related to their work in their own time. The staff from school around the state could discuss with the students as people, not as teachers and students, and learn from each other. Encourage the students to go out and find opinions about current events online and come back and report their findings to the class and how it affected their point of view.

It is also strongly recommended that these new programs do not come at a cost to the students more conventional education, and that students must first develop advanced verbal and written communication skills.

If implemented correctly students will gain a skill for life and continue to use it into senior school and beyond, and gain the benefits of those in the report.



REFERENCES

Bertram, B.C. 1999, ‘Learning through Expression’ Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Retrieved March 20th 2004 from a reprinting at http://www.readingonline.org/electro...ec_Column.html

Cosentino, V.J 1994. ‘Virtual Legality’ Byte.com Retrieved March 23rd 2004 from Byte.com

Internet Activity, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics (11:30AM 20/02/2004). Retrieved 23rd April 2004 from Australian Bureau of Statistics

Online Communication: Everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask, Retrieved April 20th 2004 from http://www.lts.rmit.edu.au/

Serpentelli, J. ‘Conversational Structure and Personality Correlates of Electronic Communication’ Retrieved March 20th 2004 from http://www.zacha.net

Soukup, S.J, 1997. ‘Ethics@E-Mail: Do New Media Require New Morality?’ Issues in Ethics Volume 8 Retrieved 24th March 2004 from Santa Clara University

The People Speak Retrieved March 23rd 2004 from http://www.theps.net

Tuck, S. 2003. ‘Choosing our face, away from others’ The Justice: Student Weekly of Brandeis University. Retrieved March 23rd 2004 from The Justice website.

Use of the Internet by Householders, Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics (11:30AM 16/02/2001). Retrieved 23rd April 2004 from Australian Bureau of Statistics

Personal email and discussion board communication with anonymous online individuals between 7th and 26th April 2004

is it ok if i reference this for a school paper?