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Computers spend very little time computing. Most of us -- and most of our students -- use their computers not for adding, subtracting and finding square roots, but for email, word processing, instant messaging, and web surfing. These four are tasks of communication, not of computing. To many people, it's not a PC (personal computer) but an IC (interpersonal communicator). The growth in computer use by the general public is not in solving math problems, but in communicating with each other. Computers (ICs) enable us to communicate with more people, in more different ways, at more times and places, and much more efficiently, than all the other forms of communication that we have invented over the last 10,000 years.

Therefore, professions that are built on the act of communication, such as teaching, need to consider how best to take advantage of these new communication capabilities. Teachers communicate ideas. A central task of education is to effectively gather information from a variety of sources, process that information, and then distribute it to the people that need it to do their work. This can be any kind of information -- from attendance records to student opinions, from the text of a historic speech to the basketball schedule, from the science curriculum plan to the 4th-grade math test. Those who communicate well succeed.

Thus we see a growing interest in instant messaging, webcasting, email, radio, blogs, discussion boards, and the other things that characterize today's IC users. These tools, and technologies like them, have changed the ways that other professions communicate -- banking, political fund-raising, journalism, retail sales, and so forth -- and we are now confronted with how they will change the profession of education.

Here's a brief summary of each of these tools of communication, and how they might apply to what we do in school.

Instant messaging.

Good morning, Dottie, types Mrs. Brooks into the IM box, do you have a copy of Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea down there? We need it for our 8th grade literature class this morning. Dottie, the librarian, types back, Just a minute... A few moments later she enters Yes, I found it and it's here on my desk.

Why, do you think, did your survey find such resistance to no-smoking laws? typed the 11th-grade social studies group into the IM box. After a few moments of heated discussion, their counterparts at the French lycée typed back, Because French people believe more strongly in the rights of the individual than you do in America. (A cordial but heated exchange of views among the corresponding groups followed this simple beginning.)

Instant messaging, known as IM, or AIM for AOL Instant Messenger, or MSN, or ICQ, lets me type a message into a box on my computer and displays it instantly on the computer of my correspondent. It's like a telephone call in text. Instead of talking, we type back and forth. More and more of the Internet's traffic consists of instant messages like the ones described above, reflecting a rapid growth in the use of this technology by the public. With IM I can communicate with one person at a time, or set up a conference call and work with several at once. This multi-party messaging is sometimes called an online chat. It's interactive, immediately responsive, but uses writing rather than voice.

If as an administrator or teacher you have used the telephone to accomplish your goals, consider how you might substitute an IM session or a chat for the phone call. IM is less intrusive -- it does not ring and interrupt what you were doing, you need not answer if you don't want to, you can do other things while you IM (yes, I used the acronym as a verb, reflecting current usage among my students), and you have a written record of the conversation. And people tend to think more before they write, than before they talk. So the quality of an IM is often higher than a vocal conversation.

Webcasting

Welcome to the 2005 academic year at Dismal Seepage School District, said Superintendent Smith. Rather than bring you all together in the high school auditorium, we are webcasting this year's opening day inservice to all of you in your various schools. Mrs. Brooks looks closely at the video image on the computer display, and then leans over to whisper to her neighbor, I think she's coloring her hair.

The night-vision camera connected to the webcasting station picked up the turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs. Watch how they each stake out their own nesting spot, said Susan to Rick as they observed on the laptop in the back of the 6th grade classroom. It's 2 AM in Malaysia, according to the clock in the corner of the webcast.

In this form of communication I broadcast my message to a large audience, using the World Wide Web for distribution. A webcast can be like radio, with voice and music; or like television, with video and sound. Like radio and TV it can be live or pre-recorded. Anyone with a computer connected to the Internet can see and hear the webcast (if I want to let them; I can protect it with a password if desired.) Instead of traveling over the airwaves or through the cable, the webcast is carried over theIinternet. CNN, ABC, and Sports Illustrated, among others, carry frequent webcasts. Companies use them to communicate with stockholders, and scientists use them to conduct research symposia (See A Synchronous Online Seminar at http://www.powertolearn.com/articles/teaching_with_technology/
a_synchronous_online_seminar.shtml)

You can webcast to a single person, a small group, or the whole world. You need neither an FCC license nor a powerful transmitter -- you can do it from your own computer. (To serve thousands of listeners, you need a server with a solid connection to the Net.) This democratization of the mass media of radio and TV holds interesting promise for the profession of education.

Discussion Boards and Blogs

Our group's survey found that most people support the smoking ban, read Rick from the discussion board for the 12th-grade government class. Immediately he clicked the Reply button and typed, Our team found just the opposite. How did you word your survey question? He posted his response, and reminded himself to come back later that day to see the reactions.

The problem with moving American literature to the 10th grade, wrote Mrs. Brooks on March 25, is that it would no longer link with the U.S. History course we teach in the 11th grade. Two days later we see that Mr. Rivers posts to the Dismal Seepage Curriculum Blog, The books we read in this class are more appropriate to the 10th graders, while the world literature selections are better for the older students.

Do you remember the Democracy Wall in Beijing in the early 1980's, on which the Chinese citizens posted political messages for others to read? I post one message, you read it and then post your own response next to it. It's similar to Letters to the Editor in a newspaper, except that there's no editor to control what gets posted. The online discussion board works in the same way. I type my ideas, and they are posted on the board for others to see. And to respond to with their own postings. Blog is short for Weblog, a discussion board that looks like a web site -- it's actually a web site made up of the postings of its contributors. Some discussion boards and blogs are open to anyone who connects; others are only available to registered users. Some are censored by an editor; others let all postings remain, no matter how irrelevant or obscene.

Blogs are similar in function to the Internet newsgroups of the late 80's and early 90's, a way for people with a common interest to share information and ideas. I communicate daily with the Pearson 27 discussion forum, a group of about 100 people around the country who own the same model of sailboat. Anyone with access to a web server or ISP can set up a discussion board or blog, using commonly available software. See Blogwise (http://www.blogwise.com) for some examples. These are simply new ways to communicate information; nothing in the technology guarantees the worth or quality of the content.

(As I have been writing this, I received five emails, three instant messages, and checked in once with the Pearson 27 blog. But no one called me on the phone. I am lost!)

Do it yourself

The question for educators is how to capitalize on these new capabilities of communication, and to incorporate them appropriately into the ways we teach and learn. And the best way to begin seeking the answer to that question is to use these new technologies yourself, to try them out, to see how they work, and to reflect on how they might contribute to your work. You can download AOL or MSN Instant Messenger software free from aol.com or msn.com; iChat comes free on all new Apple computers. You can use your browser to find and connect to a variety of blogs and discussion boards in your areas of interest. And you can find audio and video webcasts throughout the Web. If you can't figure it out, ask one of your students to help you get started.