The Power of Written Words

As we work through our implementation plan for increasing the use of our Blackboard Learning, Content, and Community systems we often get lost in the minutiae of administration and lose track of what is happening on the end-users side. I have used blended online learning environments as a teacher and as a staff development instructor for 11+ years. The tools available to a teacher and the students are awesome. Discussion boards have been the backbone of online courses. They still are. At time I get so excited with the video and VoIP that I forget the power of the written word.

First words written on paper are not ethereal like spoken words. They are momentary, only for those within earshot but are there for the length of the course and maybe beyond. Discussion boards allow students to process thoughts, organize ideas, write and rewrite the words to match the thoughts and ideas. Of course it takes a good, persistent teacher to help students devop those skills.

Today at meeting the conversation came around to how Bb is impacting teachers. Several teachers user were present. The comments were encouraging and brought back memories. One high school English Lit teacher said she has never had such good face to face discussions as she has in Bb discussion boards. The biggest bonus is everyone has to participate as a speaker and an evaluator of other students thoughts. Her students are excited to be in the virtual environment. Another teacher told how his middle school students are creating assignments as documents, presentations, and multimedia and sharing them through discussion boards. An elementary teacher has her students creating podcasts that are evaluated by other students using discussion boards.

The world is changing. In talking with a teacher last week, one who is not enamored with technology, the topic came around to Web 2.0. The only thing this teacher could see is that personal communication skills were being seriously eroded by all this blogging, texting, wikis, and other such nonsense. Yet I see it as developing communication skills that I didn't dream would exist as a teenager. The world is shrinking but my voice won't carry my words to India (to my sister there) but between Twitter, Skype, Facebook, and email we keep in better touch then we she lived in town two miles from me.