Online Communication

This week we reviewed the number of tools that are available for communicating online.  Of course the blog is a popular way to communicate timely information.  Blogs are websites where the information is updated regularly.  For example; I am using the blog as a way to summarize my week in this class and it is used by the professor as an assessment tool.  Based on the information I post, my instructor can evaluate my understanding of the topic for each week. 
Chat is a tool that can provide the unique opportunity to discuss a topic in real time.  I say real time but it takes a special person to chat.  When you chat with another person it is important to take your time.  It takes some time for your thought to be read and for the recipient to respond so you have to be patient and allow for process time.  E-mails are available to all students and teacers.  E-mails allow communication to take place anywhere at and respond at any time.  That is the downfall of e-mail.  You never know when the person is going to e-mail.  I have three e-mail addresses and I only check one everyday.  That can cause a delay in response to what might be important information.  It is important to make sure that the e-mail address we give to our students and teachers is one that we read frequently.  Forums are when studens are posed with a question they are able to post their response and reply to other students.  As we have seen this is a great way to assess what the student understands about the topic.  As a teacher now, I have access to Moodle.  Moodle allows me to interact with my students in this way.  This communication tool allows me ot pose a question or an extension to some students to apply what they have learned and use the discussion forum as an opportunity to elaborate.  Students who need more processing time and even need the opportunity to review homework or talk to another teacher or parent, they can use the discussion forum as a way to hear their peers perspective and understand it in their words.  They can reply in their words.  Video chat is super cool!  Kids love to be able to use something like Skype to talk to somone else, anywhere in the world in real time.  This is great when we worked with vetereans and there are many students who have family members overseas.  
Although there are many options to use communication on line I find that I do not have a venue to teach my small groups all of the time.  With very little space I use a mobile little class that moves from hall space to hall space in whatever nook or cranny I can find to work with my students.  I also work in other classrooms with lead teachers and I am not always able to plan the lessono that I would find interesting.  Special Education teachers do not always have the luxury of technology in their lesson especially when it comes to online access.  Many of our students do not have access to internet for a consistent amount of time.  This is difficult to use the online communication as an option for graded projects.