Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder.

Jonassen, David H. (1996). Computers in the Classroom: Mindtools for Critical Thinking. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

What Is Computer-Mediated Communication?

There is a tacit assumption of most educational institutions, from kindergarten through graduate school, that the best way for learning to take place is for a fixed number of students to spend a fixed amount of time per year in face-to-face communication with a teacher. While interpersonal communication with teachers is an important part of a person 5 education, computer-mediated communication (CMC) begins with a different set of assumptions about learning and instruction~including the assumption that learning need not necessarily be conducted face to face.

CMC facilitates (and mediates) communication between individuals or groups of people. It relies on computer technologies to enable individuals who may or may not be proximate to each other to share computer files and programs and to work and learn together. This is accomplished through computer networks, which are sets of computers connected to other computers through telephone wires, coaxial cable (like that which delivers cable television programming), fiber-optic cable, microwave antennas, and even satellites, which allow data (ones and zeros encoding messages, databases, graphics, and even video) to be passed back and forth, across a room or around the world. "Internet" is a generic term for the tens of thousands of local, regional, national, and international computer networks that are all interconnected. It is the metanetwork that interconnects millions of computers around the world.

CMC is often associated with distance learning initiatives, which connect learners in remote or distant locations to each other, usually through electronic mail (e-mail). However many of the services provided through CMC can prove just as useful to learners and teachers in the same classroom or building. To an increasing degree, as computers are integrated more into learning and as time becomes a more precious commodity, teachers and learners will pass ideas and information back and forth via computers.

One of the most important distinctions in CMC is between synchronous and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication (also known as real-time communication) occurs most often face to face with two or more people communicating with each other at the same time (and typically, though not necessarily, in the same place, thanks to telephones, video conferences, etc.). Synchronous CMC occurs when two or more people are connected to each other via their computers and communicating

at the same time. Asynchronous communication (not at the same time; also known as delayed communication) occurs when only one person can communicate at a time. Telephone answering machines and faxes are asyn-chronous. One person leaves a message, and the other returns the call, often having to leave an asynchronous message for the original sender.

Synchronous and asynchronous communication also refers to the technical connections in electronic communication. Synchronous connections are open to each other, while asynchronous connections are not open both ways at the same time. The latter are simpler and cheaper to maintain. Most CMC is asynchronous, where users leave notes, papers, plctures, or any other type of communication for each other that can be encoded into digital form, transmitted, and later decoded. CMC does support synchronous communication as well, but it is more expensive because it requires more active, available communication links.

CMC supports synchronous and asynchronous communication in different combinations: one person working alone accessing information, one person communicating with another, one person communicating with many people, and many people communicating with many other people. As shown in Figure 7.2, one-alone communication is supported by information retrieval processes and produces notebooks and files for the individual. One-to-one correspondence is supported by e-mail and results in messages and lectures and conversations (asynchronous) or real-time conversations (synchronous). One-to-many communication is supported by email and bulletin boards and produces lectures and postings, while many-to-many communication is supported by both bulletin boards and computer conferencing, resulting in postings, online journals, and conferences and colloquia.

In the next section, I will describe the types of activities and systems CMC affords, followed by a description of the products of CMC. Products are the artifacts or archives that are created by engaging in CMC processes. Finally, I will briefly describe the means by which CMC is accomplished. This part becomes a bit technical, but, as you will see, the technological overhead is worth the effort. Refer to Figure 7.2 as often as needed to understand the relationships between processes and products.

Types of Computer-Mediated Communication

Information Access and Retrieval (One Alone)

Retrieving information is a common activity in schools, especially for supporting research papers. Online information retrieval greatly expands the number of available resources. Information is stored ever,ywhere on the Internet, and these archives are rapidly proliferating, and CMC has made it possible to access thousands of archives around the world. Individuals of library catalogs, organizational databases, text files, games, and graph-with a computer and a modem in their home, classroom, library, or office can access many of these databases or information pools around the world

to find information on nearly any subject. These remote databases consist ics that various organizations maintain on bulletin boards or in databases.

Information pools on everything from the president's daily schedule to the contents and descriptions of the Wellington, New Zealand, zoo are a few mouse clicks or keystrokes away.

Another frequently accessed database is the library catalog. You can log on to your library's computer and search the holdings of your library or groups of libraries (see Figure 7.3), or you can search remote databases such as the Educational Research Information Clearinghouse (ERIC), almanacs, encyclopedias, and literally thousands of other knowledge bases.

Information access is supported through file transfer sessions using helpers (known as clients, described later) such as Archie and Gopher or through remote logons (TELNET). File transfer protocol (ETP) sessions enable you to connect to a remote computer on the network and search for and retrieve any unprotected files. In these sessions, you can look up information or download files, that is, copy them through the network from the remote computer to your computer. When you TELNET to another computer, you can log on remotely and work as if you were directly connected. So, I can Sit at my home computer in Pennsylvania and work on a computer in the Netherlands, just as if I were there. FTP sessions will enable you to access remote computers and log on as an anonymous user. When you do this, your access to the computer's files and applications is usually restricted.

E-Mail (One-to-One)

The most common CMC process is to send and receive e-mail. E-mail consists of messages that are sent through networks of computers from your host computer (school system, university, or commercial service, such as Prodigy or CompuServe) to another computer, anywhere in the world. You use a mail program on your computer to compose a message, and the computer sends it through the network to an address on any other com-puter connected to the Internet. That is, you ask that your message be deposited in someone's mailbox, which is really dedicated file space on their host computer. Addresses can be complicated, but typically they observe the following pattern:

user@host~computer.institution.domain.network or country code

Sending a message to user335@psuv~.psu.edu would direct a message to the person identified as user335 through a network to the IBM main-frame (known as psuvm) at Penn State University (psu), which is in the educational domain (edu). A message to president@white~house.gov would presumably direct your message to the president on the White House computer, which is in the government domain.

Messages can include any form of text characters and be about any subject. Most e-mail programs also allow you to send formatted documents and files to the recipient's address. You can also send graphics or applications programs after they have been converted to a binary file (encoded into ones and zeros).

E-mail can support a number of learning techniques, such as learning contracts, mentorship and apprenticeship, and correspondence study (Paulsen, 1994). Learning contracts are formal agreements between teacher and learner that set out learning goals, methods, and timelines. Each of these is facilitated by the direct correspondence between teacher and learner that e-mail affords. Likewise, teachers may continue to mentor or apprentice learners through e-mail. These tele-apprenticeships resemble face-to-face apprenticeships (Levin, Haesun, & Reil, 1990). Finally, correspondence study is greatly enhanced by e-mail. Rather than playing telephone tag for weeks with a tutor, students in many courses at England's Open University receive fairly rapid and direct feedback from their tutors via e-mail. E-mail generally ensures that messages are received, and those messages are typically more directly related to students' questions than those tutors would receive in a classroom.

Bulletin Boards (One-to-Many)

Bulletin board services (BBSs) are special-purpose computer programs that enable individuals to post messages to a bulletin board (]ust as you might pin a notice to a physical board) or to read messages and copy them to your computer. BBSs are usually established to disseminate information about a finite topic or set of topics, although there are a growing number of NetNews services (BBSs that provide access to newspapers and magazines). Large BBSs are also available to support special-interest discussion groups oriented to a wide range of topics, from computers to sexual deviancies. Many of these also contain computer application programs, such as games, that can be copied (downloaded) to your computer.

There are six main functions of BBSs: e-mail, conferencing, chat (online conversations), questionnaires or polling, file access, and random access of databases (Hudspeth, 1990). While e-mail is the oldest and most frequently used, many BBSs are used more for conferencing and file access.

BBSs may be supported by large organizations, such as universities (on large mainframe computers), or by individuals on their personal computers. Mainframe services offer a greater variety of topics and services. If you would like to host a bulletin board, however, it is relatively easy to set one up simply by connecting a dedicated microcomputer to a dedicated telephone line (usually) and loading bulletin board software on it. This software manages access to the computer and receipt and distribution of files. These types of bulletin boards have grown rapidly to support teaching in remote parts of the country and world, where teachers can ask their computer to call up the bulletin board computer in order to get or send such things as innovative teaching ideas or lesson plans.

Computer ConferenCing (Many-to-Many)

As new technologies and issues confront education daily, individuals want to discuss them with each other. With travel costs soaring, however, physically assembling to discuss them is becoming increasingly difficult, so professionals often connect to computer conferences in order to discuss ideas. Computer conferences are asynchronous discussions, debates, and collaborative efforts among a group of people who share an interest in the topic. These virtual conferences connect people who may be continents away from each other as if they had come together for the discussion. This form of knowledge sharing is grati~ing and informative. Technically, there is little, if any, difference between bulletin boards and computer conferences. The differences are in the intent and form of the communication.

Computer conferencing also supports efforts to create virtual classrooms. Virtual classrooms are communications and learning spaces located within a computer system (Hiltz, 1986). The Electronic Information Exchange System was created at the New Jersey Institute of Technology as a classroom without walls, in order to supplement existing courses and deliver entire courses and simulations through CMC.

Computer conferencing asks why it is necessary for students to share the same physical space with a teacher in order to listen to the teacher, ask questions, get assignments, and otherwise communicate with the teacher. Most of those forms of communication can easily and effectively be medi ated by the computer, enabling students at a distance to join classes they would otherwise be prevented from attending. Urban universities, for example, could effectively create virtual classrooms through computer conferencing, thereby reducing traffic, pollution, and parking costs.

Computer conferencing also supports long-distance collaboration among learners. Whether on different continents or at the school across town, learners can correspond and collaboratively construct newspapers, newsletters, or other documents, solve problems, conduct experiments, debate, or simply share ideas and perspectives. As will be discussed later, when learners have a wider audience for their writing or other scholarly activities, they tend to invest more effort in the process and learn more.

Computer conferencing has given rise to numerous online interest groups-people with a common interest who convene in electronic conferences about that interest. Over 2,000 such groups send hundreds of thousands of messages to each other daily (Howse, 1992). Many of these groups support teachers and education, such as the electronic Academic Village at the University of Virginia, which links public school teachers, teacher education students, and university faculty with teachers across the United States and in foreign countries (Bull, Harris, & Drucker, 1992).

In addition to discussion groups, computer conferencing also supports debates, simulations, role playing, and collaborative construction of knowledge bases (Paulsen, 1994). Debates are natural applications of computer conferences, with teams of learners assigned issues and positions to argue. The research skills engaged to develop arguments that will adequately present the group's position are considerable. Many business simulations are mediated by computer conferences in which individuals are assigned roles and interact with each other. Effective simulations require a well-structured set of activities and very careful monitoring of the contributions, but the experience can be very powerful.

Role plays are like simulations in that learners may assume a variety of roles and attempt to reason like the individuals they represent. For example, the University of Michigan involved schools all over the world in an Arab-Israeli conflict simulation in which students were assigned roles as either the combatants, the United States, or the former Soviet Union (Goodman, 1992). Other students represented the religious interests of the Muslims, Christians, and so on. These types of interactions are more engaging than hearing only the teacher's perspective, and they enhance multicultural awareness among the participants. Students can also conduct experiments or observe the environment and collaboratively contribute to a common knowledge base. Examples of this are described later in this chapter.

Computer conferencing is technologically accomplished in three ways: bulletin boards, e-mail, and special conferencing software. BBSs can be used to support postings about ideas in special~interest folders, but they often lack some of the functions that are desirable in a conference. Computer conferencing is most commonly conducted via e-mail, which supports conferencing through LISTSERVs. Individuals can subscribe to a LISTSERV much as they might subscribe to a newspaper. Any message that is sent to the LISTSERV mailbox is automatically forwarded to every other subscriber to the service.

LISTSERV conferences are usually focused on a single topic or issue. They are effective because they do not require more sophisticated software and do not use much storage space on the host computer. Once like-minded individuals have located one another through the general conference, they can correspond individually or in small groups by sending personal messages to each other.

Computer conferencing is also supported by special conferencing software, such as VAXnotes, Caucus, or CoSys. This software requires users to log on to a remote computer in order to post and receive messages. These systems provide more functions to support the conferencing process.

Products of Computer-Mediated Communication

The processes of information retrieval, e-mail, bulletin boards, and computer conferencing produce a variety of artifacts.

Files

Information retrieval from remote databases and e-mail services involves transmitting files of data. The files that are transmitted are most often text files, consisting of words and numbers. Text files are converted to ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange, a code used to represent alphabetic and numeric characters on any computer without formatting) characters before they are transmitted. Graphics files (pictures), sound files, and even video files (motion graphics) can also be digitized and transmitted as ASCII characters through the networks. Formatted files (word-processing files with special codes embedded in them as text-formatting characters), executable files, and graphics, sound, and video files travel as binary (zeros and ones) or hexadecimal files (codes converted to base 16). Every form of asynchronous communication creates a file of some kind.

Messages

The most personal and perhaps most meaningful CMC application is e-mail. This service allows you to write a message or send a text, graphics, or video file to one person or a group of people. It is the most direct CMC service, because the sender addresses his or her message to the intended audience. Only those individuals whose mailboxes are listed in the header of the message will receive the message. If the header cites a LISTSERV then all of the subscribers to that LISTSERV will receive the message.

Bulletin Boards and Online Journals

Electronic bulletin boards function like physical bulletin boards, for posting announcements and information that is accessible to anyone who looks at them. While both physical and electronic bulletin boards are publicly accessible, electronic ones tend to be more specialized. Postings on bulletin boards can be messages, articles, replies, reviews, pictures, games, applications, or any other type of computer file.

The cost and time delays of publishing and distributing printjournals-especially academic ones with a limited number of subscribers-are forcing many to consider electronic publishing. Posting articles on a BBS and restricting access to them through subscriptions allows articles to be published much more quickly (often within hours as opposed to months or even years). Electronic journals also support more collaborative authorship between distant authors. Authors may send versions of the article back and forth, cowriting and coediting the article up until its publication.

News Networks

More than 2,000 news networks-NetNews or Usenet services-provide news and announcements in a bulletin board fashion on many social, recreational, computer, or alternative topics. Over 500 Usenet groups provide information and discussion space on computer issues, such as data compression techniques, computer languages in common use, computer platforms and operating systems available, and software sources. Usenets also list jobs, items for sale, and services such as tax preparation and investment guidance. More than 300 groups provide information on topics as diverse as baseball, poetry, model railroading, and Star Trek memorabilia. Cultural information on more than 100 countries can also be accessed. Many nationally prominent newspapers offer their news online, and there are numerous "talk" groups focusing on current issues such as abortion and gun control. It is likely that any topic you have an interest in is serviced by one or more Usenet groups. These services enable you to post a question to be answered, give your opinion about a topic, or make friends with like-minded individuals. Unlike bulletin boards, news networks are updated continuously.

Lectures

Transcripts of speeches or lectures may be posted to bulletin boards, news networks, or computer conferences so they will be available for additional reflection and/or analysis. The full text of nearly every speech delivered by the president is immediately available through the Internet. If you missed a class lecture or a presentation by a prominent speaker, you may be able to obtain the lecture immediately on a network. Such a lecture may be more comprehensible to visually oriented learners than the live lecture, since it can be reviewed and scrutinized more easily and does not require note taking.

Discussion Groups/Colloquia

Computer discussion groups provide a public forum or communication space in which anyone who is a subscriber or member of the conference can contribute ideas to the group. Groups may start with specific contributions in the form of a lecture or an article and then be opened up for discussion, interpretation, and argumentation by the members of the group or class. Discussion in most conferencing systems may be held at the whole-group level or be broken up into more specific or user-focused discussions of subtopics. Individuals may comment on the original ideas or on comments by other participants, thus creating an electronic discussion of ideas.

These groups are open to individuals who may be great distances apart, and ideas can be added at any time of day or night, both by the teacher and by the students. In fact, the teacher who monitors an electronic classroom discussion has much better access to how each of the students is thinking about the topics than in a face-to-face class. As Romiszowski and de Haas (1989) point out, these interactions are more democratic because all students have the same tools for communicating their ideas. These authors also mention that there is increased potential for deeper or more thoughtful classroom interaction because individuals can reflect on and think over ideas-or even look up information-before responding (typically not possible in real classrooms). Perhaps most important is that learners end up with a complete record of the discussion, reducing the anxiety that one will miss something important in note taking, which often disrupts the communication process.

Means of Computer-Mediated Communication: Telecommunications

CMC relies on sophisticated technologies for connecting computers together. Computers all respond to the same binary, digital language; how-ever, different programs and operating systems on different computers must agree on a protocol (see discussion later in the chapter) and a syntax for sending and receiving messages and files so that any computer can read those files or pass them along to another computer. Using CMC involves a combination of transmission technologies, as illustrated in Figure 7.4.

Networks

Networks are groups of computers that are connected to each other for the purpose of passing data back and forth. There are different levels of networks. Local area networks (LANs) are used to connect computers within an organization or a local area. They are frequently used to connect all of the computers in a school or lab so they can share programs from a server, which has a large disk drive for storing programs. LANs may be connected by fiber-optic or coaxial cable or special high-capacity telephone lines to wide area networks (WANs) or metropolitan area networks (MANs), which connect all of the computers in a community or region.

A personal computer can be connected to a host computer either directly (hardwired) through a network or through the telephone line via a modem (see Figure 7.4). A modem (stands for modulator-demodulator) is a device that converts binary code into sound for transmission over telephone lines. A direct connection is usually through a coaxial, fiber-optic, or twisted-pair cable. Such a cable may form a LAN that is connected to all of the computers in your school building or to a central host computer connected to the Internet.

A host computer is identified by a specific locator name to which other computers may address files. The host computer is connected to other host computers (which are also dedicated as servers) directly through fiber-optic or coaxial cable, special high-capacity phone lines, microwave transmitters, or satellites; or indirectly through normal telephone lines.

These host computers are interconnected in larger, regional WANs. Networks such as PREPnet, BITNet, NSFnet, and ARPANet in the United States and national networks in many foreign countries each consist of hundreds or thousands of interconnected host computers. These networks are interconnected throughout the world in one giant meganetwork, the Internet. When you send an e-mail message to another computer, routing patterns are worked out by each network, which passes your message file from your host computer to other switching computers, which receive and pass along your message to other computers. As your message leaves the network to which your computer is connected, it goes through a gateway to another network, which passes it along to another network, and so on until your message arrives at the destination computer, much like your local phone company is connected to a variety of long-distance telephone networks that connect to other local systems. "Gateway" is a technical term used to describe computers that translate messages into different protocols. BITNet- and Internet-connected computers operate on different languages and command sets. Once a message is received by a host computer, it is held in the users' mailboxes until they log on to the computer and retrieve it or delete it from the computer's memory. This process is typically completed in a matter of seconds, depending on the required switching, how busy the networks are, and so on.

Protocols

Computers, like humans, need to speak the same language in order to understand each other. At the most basic level, all computers understand zeros and ones, just as humans use alphabets to depict sounds and words. However, the particular arrangements of those zeros and ones affects the meaning of the message, just as the arrangement of letters in different languages affects the meaning. Networks have established conventions, or protocols, for addressing and interpreting files. Protocols define how computers will act when talking to each other. They allow communication between computers made by different manufacturers and using different software. The referent standard protocol for file transfer on the Internet is TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol). There are versions of TCP/IP for virtually every kind of computer available. So, your personal computer transmits a message to the host computer, which converts it to TCP/IP before passing it along through the network to its destination computer, which reads and interprets the TCP/IP-encoded message. Although there are many other protocols used, TCP/IP is the most common.

Clients

Clients are special-purpose software programs that provide the CMC capabilities. Client programs reside on individual personal computers. They create a connection between your personal computer and a server, accept input from users, reformat it into a standard such as TCP/IP send the input to a server, accept output from a server in the same format, and reformat the information for display on your personal computer. Client programs are available for every kind of personal computer and workstation. Information retrieval clients, such as Gopher, developed at the University of Minnesota, have done more to increase the use of CMC than any other innovation. Gopher (named after the Minnesota mascot and the "go-fer" function it serves) client programs enable you to search a vast network of computers throughout the world for useful and interesting information by simply navigating layers of menus.

Servers

Servers refer to special-purpose software loaded onto central host computers (which may or may not be dedicated to functioning solely as a server) that support the types of CMC described earlier. Servers provide the services, archives, and files that clients allow you to access and retrieve. Some servers provide bulletin boards, while others, such as Confer and CoSys, serve computer conferencing. Still other servers support the transfer of e-mail. Servers send and receive data to and from client programs on individual personal computers or other servers. Putting it all together, clients are connected to servers, which pass information to other servers, which are connected to other clients.

Examples of Computer-Mediated Communication

The applications of CMC are too numerous to recount. Wells (1992) briefly describes nearly 100 educational applications of CMC, including the following:

• Athabasca University offers a master's degree in Distance Education via CMC.

Earth Lab is a LAN in New York that supports collaborative work among sixth graders.

FrEdMail connects teachers and students in large- and small-group discussions in the United States, Argentina, and Australia.

Kids Network, funded by the National Science Foundation and National Geographic, connects 4,000 children at 200 sites to support data collection on acid rain.

Students throughout Europe gather and share data on weather and pollution through the Pluto Project.

The following descriptions of selected applications provide a more detailed description of the potentials of CMC.

Learning Circles

Developers of the Global Learning Circles Project, in which classrooms in the United States are connected to classrooms around the world via the AT&T Learning Network, believe that when students write for a larger, networked audience of peers, they are more motivated to perform than when they write only for their teacher's red pen. Cohen and Reil (1989) found that papers written to communicate with peers were more fluent, better organized, and clearer than those written merely for a grade. Col-laboratively authoring newspapers and booklets by collecting articles from partner schools around the world also results in better use of grammar and syntax (Reil, 1990).

The Learning Circles Project facilitates collaboration among small groups of classrooms (therefore learning circles, rather than large, amorphous groups of readers). Collaboration, of course, requires closer communication and is easier with a known audience than an imaginary audience. The project staff has worked with elementary, middle, and high school students by outlining group tasks and time lines, with each school managing one project around its curriculum for the group, which as a whole produces a publication. This is a good example of a global application of reciprocal teaching (Palinscar & Brown, 1984). Classes in each learning circle agree on a project, and the students become authors, reporters, poets, and researchers, responding to requests from the other classes in the circle regularly via e-mail. Joint publications are planned and carried out, and students reflect on the experiences they have had. Reil (1993) described a number of learning circles, such as the following:

Elementary students in Saudi Arabia sponsored a project on solutions to the Gulf crisis. Together with their partners in different countries, they discussed world dependence on oil, kingdoms, democracies, and conflicts between political and religious beliefs.

Intermediate students in West Virginia have sponsored a project in which inmates are answering the questions of students in the Learning Circle about a range of social problems from their personal life experiences. The inmates' reflections on their life decisions have had a very strong effect on students, who live in a range of social settings and conditions.

Students in British Columbia sponsored the "Environmental Investigator" as their section of their collective newspaper, The Global Grapevine. They asked the eight schools in their Learning Circle for essays or poetry centered on local environmental issues.

High school students designed studies of the homeless, illiteracy, or substance abuse, or explored differences in family patterns or causes of suicide across cultures.

Students in Belgium sponsored a research project on waste caused by

excessive packaging of goods. Students collected and compared the packaging of many different types of products and assessed the best I and worst examples in different countries.

Learning Circles are designed to expose students to different points of view, enhance multicultural awareness on a global scale, and develop cooperative skills for dealing with people in different cultures (Re il, 1993). These are powerful learning outcomes by anyone's standards.

In-Service Teacher Education

In Catalonia, Spain, the Department of Education has set up a network, XTEC, to provide databases of educational resources for teachers and a computer conferencing service that enables students to get to know students and teachers in other schools and to consult expert teachers and students in other schools (Sim6n, 1992). Courses on educational innovations such as spreadsheets and online retrieval (Mindtools are popular in Spain, too) are offered through conferences to teachers all over the region. Tutorial instruction is supplied by the conference, with teachers by submitting their assignments to the tutor via a file transfer system. Teachers then engage in "tele-debates" on suggested teaching methods via the conferencing system. Both students and teachers think the technology is exciting and effective because of the individualization afforded by the system~specially the e-mail correspondence with distant tutors.

In the United States, the Beginning Teacher Computer Network was begun at Harvard in 1987 to provide support and mentoring for graduates in their first year of teaching (Merseth, Beals, & Cutler, 1992). The network enables rookie teachers to ask questions, make comments, and request materials. Conversations on the net have included questions on teaching methods, such as collecting homework and fostering classroom discussion; values topics, such as how to counsel a sexually active teenager; content suggestions; case studies; and content discussions. The new teachers are spread all over the country but find it helpful to maintain an umbilical link to their teacher-preparation program during that crucial period.

Collaborative Writing

One of the most common uses of CMC is to support collaborative writing, with several individuals contributing to a common project (this is one of the goals of Learning Circles). The Daedalus system at Texas Tech University enables first-year composition students to respond and critique each other's writing and encourages "community brainstorming." With students critiquing class work, instructors may assume different roles as coaches and guides. The Daedalus system supports text sharing by managing multiple copies of works, handling critiques, and providing real-time conferencing among students for sharing ideas (brainstorming).

Situated Language Learning

Perhaps the most frustrating job in education is teaching foreigu-language courses, such as German and French, to junior and senior high school Students in the United States. The subject is academic and decontextualized, as the students have little opportunity or encouragement to speak the language outside the classroom. The cultural isolation of students in the United States makes it difficult to make real-world use of a foreign language, an opportunity regularly available to learners in Europe, Mrica, and Asia. However, the Internet can support electronic pen pals, social forums and comparisons, discussions of issues, or just plain gossip between learners in classes all over the world. Rather than studying language textbooks that contain outdated articles or literature that is "foreign" to students in different ways, students can engage in dialogues with learners in their native tongues. A French class in the United States, for example, can compare fashion, customs, or favorite rock stars in French with a class in Lyon.

Communicating with others via CMC has been shown to be a reflective and constructive activity. Harasim (1990) found that learners perceive themselves as reflecting more on their thoughts while computer conferencing than when engaged in face-to-face or telephone conversations. Carefully considering and constructing responses to issues involves more analytical thinking. The "need to verbalize all aspects of interaction within the text-based environment can enhance such metacognitive skills as self-reflection and revision in learning" (Harasim, 1990, p.49). These are important thinking skills.

As described in Chapter 1, meaningful learning results from reflective thinking, which results in knowledge construction. These are construc-tivist activities, which engage learners in meaning making. No Mindtool described in this book better facilitates these constructivist processes than CMC, because it supports reflection on what one knows and, through communication of that with others, may lead to conceptual change.

Most of the computer-mediated activities I have described facilitate forms of constructive thinking. For example, e-mail often supports collaborative writing, personal negotiation, and collaborative problem solving. Computer conferencing supports the social negotiation of ideas about the content that is being studied, as well as the collaborative construction of new knowledge. As groups of individuals provide different perspectives and interpretations, debate, argue, and compromise on the meaning of ideas, they are deeply engaged in knowledge construction. Knowledge construction also involves acquiring ideas. The information retrieval capability of CMC supports potentially vast amounts of knowledge acquisition as individuals search the thousands of databases of information available to them. All of these processes are important to meaning-making among learners.

Yet, not all learners are inclined to take advantage of these resources. In fact, when usage is voluntary, participation is usually low. More mature students, particularly graduate students, are most inclined to participate in CMC options (Wells, 1992). Also, students more accustomed to independent study and distance learning are more likely to benefit. CMC is not an immediately comfortable learning strategy for most students, who have been directed and spoon-fed for most of their educational careers. On the other hand, dedicated and capable extraverted learners may prefer live interactions to computer-mediated interactions, believing that CMC removes many interpersonal communication cues.

Evaluation of Computer-Mediated Communication as a Mindtool

1. Computer-based. The Internet is the largest computer-based communication network in the world, connecting millions of computers.

While it is not yet as widespread as telephone networks, it accesses a lot more information. All of the capabilities described in this chapter rely on computer networks.

2. Readily available, general applications. The range of services, including e-mail, conferencing, bulletin boards, and information access, are available to almost any educator through his or her school district, university, or other educational agency. In addition, access to all of the services described in this chapter is available commercially.

3. Affordable. Most of the software required to access the Internet is either in the public domain or will be bundled with any communications equipment you purchase. The only costs that you may incur are for the computer modem and the account. High-speed modems are commercially available for less than $100. Commercial communications services will charge a monthly fee for connecting and accessing the services described in this chapter. If you can get an account on a university or agency computer, this cost is typically borne by the institution.

4. Represent knowledge. CMC is a communication tool that does not represent knowledge directly as do other Mindtools. Rather, CMC is a vehicle for allowing individuals to transmit the products and representations of other Mindtools and (more importantly) to collaboratively negotiate knowledge representations with other individuals. In this way, CMC provides access to multiple interpretations of ideas, which leads directly to an advanced level of knowledge acquisition and representation.

5. Applicable to different subject domains. The Internet provides access to information on nearly every subject.

6. Engage critical thinking. These skills are described in the next section.

7. Facilitate transfer of learning. Knowledge acquisition and negotiation of meaning are among the most fundamental and important learning processes in education. They can be applied in any content domain and related to any kind of problem. It is critical that learners become self-directed and acquire and use these skills always.

8. Simple, poweiful formalism. Communication is the most common and important meaning-making medium available. Facilitating meaningful communication enhances that process.

9. (Reasonably) easy to learn. The new generation of client servers has eliminated the need to learn a process before engaging in many CMC activities. The process of correspondence is more natural and available to learners. The programs that facilitate that correspondence are so friendly and easy to use that learners will enter the exploration mode very quickly.

Critical, Creative, and Complex Thinking in Computer-Mediated Communication

Tables 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3 evaluate the critical, creative, and complex thinking skills engaged by the three major computer-mediated activities: information retrieval, e-mail, and computer conferencing. The skills in each table that are marked by an "X" are those that are employed by each process, based on an information~processing analysis of the tasks.

Information retrieval involves interacting with computer networks to identify and retrieve relevant information from notebooks, news networks, or other information sources. It is like using a giant reference library, so it primarily involves using research skills and evaluating information. E-mail refers primarily to manipulating text to support one-to-one correspondence. Computer conferencing refers to using LISTSERVs, bulletin boards, or special conferencing software to interact with others in a conversation about specific topics.

The bulk of critical, creative, and complex thinking skills results from computer conferencing, probably because it engages the most complex forms of communication. As indicated in Table 7.1, however, information retrieval also engages a fair number of critical thinking skills. Locating and evaluating the relevance and usability of information that is found on the Internet engages mostly evaluating and analyzing skills, though almost no connecting skills. Being able to select relevant information is a very important skill in all forms of problem solving and higher-order thinking.

Depending on the nature of the correspondence, e-mail may or may not engage many critical thinking skills. Assessing what the sender provided and identifying its assumptions are the primary activities. Computer conferencing, on the other hand, engages every evaluating and analyzing skill. Analyzing and evaluating the issues being discussed and connecting those ideas with others in the conference are necessary for meaningful participation.

Creative thinking is most commonly used in computer conferencing and, to a lesser degree, with e-mail correspondence (see Table 7.2). Computer conferencing engages learners in elaborating on ideas and then synthesizing various positions. E-mail uses fewer elaborating and synthesizing activities, presumably because of the specificity and intentionality of the correspondence. If one is corresponding with a known audience, the effort in developing and explaining issues is not as great.

Complex thinking skills are most required for information retrieval and computer conferencing (see Table 7.3). Information retrieval involves designing queries and some problem solving and decision making in determining search goals, routes, or sources of information. Computer conferencing also involves a fair amount of problem solving and decision making, as those are the primary goals of many conferences that seek collaboratively developed answers to difficult issues. Again, conferencing is more complex because of the multiple interactions and the differences of opinions and perspectives that are typically represented in most conferences.

Related Mindtools

CMC is perhaps the most independent or unrelated of the Mindtools, probably because its direct purpose is not to represent knowledge. CMC is able to act as a vehicle for delivering and sharing the products of any other Mindtool. It is also able to act as a medium for collaboratively constructing any of the other Mindtools, but the ends of CMC are not directly facilitated by any other Mindtool.

Software Tools

A large variety of communications software is currently in use, and many other types of programs are being investigated to aid the CMC process.

Communications Software

Essential software for many CMC projects includes communications packages that are installed on a computer. This software sets up a conversation between your computer, the modem, and the remote computer. The modem converts your files into a series of tones that are sent from your computer, through the modem, and on through telephone lines to a modem connected to the remote computer, which converts them back into digital information.

Communications software is typically bundled with the modem. Modem programs provide important functions, such as alternative FTPs and the capability to emulate different types of terminals that are commonly connected to the remote computers. They also support the uploading (sending) and downloading (capturing) of data files and, most importantly, dialing the phone and connecting to the remote computer (this is a complex process-called "handshaking"-between your computer and the host computer). Setting up your modem and communications software by identifying speed, parity, and protocols can be very confusing, though after it is configured to run properly, communications software is normally easy to use. A detailed description of these processes is beyond the scope of this book and fairly specific to the hardware that you purchase, so read the documentation carefully and ask a lot of questions.

Client Programs

Client programs are special-purpose application programs that support different CMC processes, unlike communications software, which enables a variety of telecommunications activities. You need a client program to use the telecommunications described in this chapter. They are usually available from the computer center to which you apply for an account in order to connect to the Internet. There are e-mail software programs for nearly every type of personal computer. Programs such as Eudora combine a simple interface with all of the mail functions that anyone would need, making e-mail a simple process. As mentioned earlier, Gopher has made file access and retrieval a matter of navigating menus.

In addition to programs such as Gopher, most library services support menu-based access to databases, such as those in Figure 7.3. Client programs such as Archie, Gopher, Veronica, and Eudora are public-domain programs you can obtain by downloading them from networks. Perhaps the most powerful and friendly client yet is Mosaic, which is a mouse-driven hypertext interface (see discussion of hypertext later and in Chapter 8) to the World Wide Web (W\VW). The WWW is a large set of thousands of especially powerful servers that are connected to the Internet. Mosaic lets you click on topics and navigate through the web, create your own set of servers that you can access simply by clicking on their names in your own personalized list, and automatically download audio, graphics, or video files by simply clicking on the file name. Mosaic is a powerful client that provides access to the most sophisticated set of servers in the world. It is definitely a harbinger of things to come in the CMC field.

Conferencing Software

Computer conferencing can be managed by special-purpose conferencing software, such as EIES, Confer, Caucus, COM, VAXnotes, and CoSys. These are typically mainframe-based systems that support a variety of conferencing functions, such as synchronous and asynchronous correspondence, file transfer, and multiple sections and layers of conferences for large numbers of participants.

Since conferencing can also be supported on bulletin boards, keep in mind that setting up a bulletin board is relatively easy. As mentioned earlier, all you need is a dedicated PC, a phone line, bulletin board software that supports all of the connections with other computers that call in, and the patience to carefully read the documentation.

Problem-Solving and DeCision-Support Tools

CMC assumes that learners can naturally collaborate with each other, yet research shows that cooperative skills are undeveloped in most learners. Difficulties in collaborating are often exacerbated by CMC because learners often do not share physical space, nonverbal messages, or a common background. A potential solution to some of these problems is the use of decision-support systems. These are typically implemented on LANs to assist groups in negotiating, decision making, and communicating with each other. They are especially effective for facilitating brainstorming. Alken (1992) found that decision-support systems implemented on a network produced greater student participation because of the anonymity afforded by the system. The system also improved group synergy by generating many more divergent applications of ideas. The use of such systems may significantly enhance the effects of CNIC.

Hypertext

One of the major difficulties encountered by users of computer conferences is keeping all of the ideas, issues, and positions straight. In a conference, numerous argument threads can develop, making it challenging to the reader and contributor to understand them all and contribute to the correct ones. Hypertext may be used to ease this problem.

Hypertext is a method for structuring text in a nonlinear, user-controllable form (see Chapter 8 for a more extensive discussion). Hypertext is chunked into nodes (information chunks of various sizes) that are linked to each other, allowing the user to navigate through the text in any sequence (1onassen, 1989). Recently, hypertext is being used more as a means for structuring knowledge-construction environments than as media for disseminating information. For example, Dunlap and Jonassen (1992) developed a hypertext shell to facilitate argumentation of issues in an advanced seminar. The hypertext was inspired by the IBIS hypertext-based, collaborative problem-solving environment (Conklin and Begeman, 1987), which provides an argument structure including issue, position, and argument nodes that can be added or edited remotely through a networked computer system (see Figure 7.5). The hypertext supported a CMC seminar on comparative instructional design models, though a similarly structured conference could be run on any topic.

Each model included premises, theory base, applications, processes, and assumptions. Individuals in the class attached issue node to each of these content nodes. To each issue node, individuals could add personal position nodes, which might represent personal opinions, research perspectives, or positions presented by someone else in the literature. To each of these position nodes, individuals could link argunient nodes, which would provide reasons for or against the position represented in the position node. The purpose of this collaborative hypertext was to model and scaffold the argumentation process in the conference. Collaboratively, students generated questions about the models, provided suggestions for improving or applying the models, and received feedback and comments from peers.

The results of imposing this type of formal argument structure onto the collaborative construction of a class text include more elaborate class discussions and better-argued class papers. Collaborative hypertexts are among the best methods for communicating the complexities, multiple perspectives, and interconnectedness of knowledge in a content domain. They are not constrained by limitations on the size of the text fields in other Mindtools, such as semantic nets and databases. And the abilities to search text fields for specific words or phrases and to navigate through them affords them greater power and economy than other Mindtools.

How to Use Computer-Mediated Communication in the Classroom

Information Retrieval

Information retrieval from large numbers of complex, remote databases often presents problems for learners and teachers alike. Learners have difficulty selecting appropriate databases and forming queries in those databases. Teachers have difficulty managing large numbers of students in a telecommunications system using databases (Collis, 1992). After becoming familiar with the technology, the teacher must identify and locate all of the relevant databases that may support learning. This is no small task. The success of information retrieval through any means is always dependent on the availability of useful, relevant information. Teague, Teague, and Marchionini (1986) provide teachers with a number of suggestions for facilitating this process:

1. Be sure that you are comfortable with all aspects of the telecommunications system before engaging students in its use. If you are not, try to find the brighter, more computer-literate students to lead the way.

2. Conduct blackboard and paper simulations of the process before going online (or use simulation software).

3. Be sure that an uninterrupted phone line is available.

4. Demonstrate the actual searching process to students. Teach them information-seeking skills.

5. Organize students in pairs or small groups so they can assist each other while searching databases.

6. Remain present during searching to provide assistance.

Computer Conferences

The facilitator or moderator of a computer conference plays a very important role in ensuring the meaningfulness of an electronic discussion, just as a teacher manages a classroom discussion. It is important that participants maintain a view of the structure of a discussion-that is, what are the issues and the positions on those issues-while avoiding definitive statements that may impede discussion. Teachers as conference moderators need to be coaches, not sources of knowledge. Several themes may emerge in a conference, with different aspects of the themes being discussed by different individuals. Several activities are important (Romis-zowski & de Haas, 1989; Romiszowski &Jost, 1989):

1. Assure students that they can really communicate with the system. Motivating learners and overcoming phobias and anxieties may be the most important process. Welcome each new user to the conference.

2. Ensure that learners have access to the computer network through directly connected computers or computers with modems so they can log on frequently.

3. Provide active leadership. Start by playing host, welcoming participants to the conference and establishing a nonthreatening climate.

4. Periodically summarize the discussion and make sure that it does not drift off the theme or become too fragmented. Ask participants for clarification of their ideas, and resolve disputes or differences in interpretation.

5. Periodically prompt nonparticipants to contribute ideas or reactions to the conference and reinforce at least the initial contribu tions. You may want to send students private mail that provides feedback or other interpretations. Periodically throw out engaging questions or issues that can clarify ideas or become a new focus for discussion.

Eastmond and Ziegahn (1994) have developed a design model to sup port CMC courses. To them, it is important to apprise learners of the role of CMC in the course activities and requirements. In addition to staffing up such a course, including designer/developer, system administrator, and moderator/instructor, they recommend apprising learners in the syllabus about their

required participation~in lieu of attendance

CMC learning strategies~becoming interactive, dealing with multiple threads and perspectives

effective online ~0~~unications~recording notes in appropriate threads, keeping track of threads, and conveying messages in proper tone and length

conference structure-including course area, personal area, and course map

computer use, training, and support

Eastmond and Ziegahn go on to recommend a number of CMC instructional activities, such as

instructor-led discussions to introduce the group, the topic, and themes

brainstorming lists of ideas related to the topic

a guest lecturer to lead discussion on a special topic

short small-group discussions moderated by students

individual presentations of term projects

off-line activities, preferably consisting of real-world experiences

face-to-face sessions with members of the group

textbooks and media to support topics under discussion

We are only beginning to learn how to maximize the effectiveness of CMC learning experiences. In the next few years, these processes should become well researched and reliable.

Fostering Collaboration with Computer-Mediated Communication

CMC is a naturally collaborative technology. It fosters co~aborative meaning-making by providing multiple perspectives on any problem or idea.

The result of most CMC activities is the creation of large knowledge bases of perspectives. Making sense out of those perspectives may require the participation of the entire group.

1. Form the teams. CMC affords more flexibility in forming the groups than any other Mindtool. E-mail combines people based on need, common interest, and friendship. Bulletin boards or news groups attract members according to interest. Computer conferences may benefit from people with different backgrounds or perspectives. You may want to intentionally combine people with op posing points of view. The communication that results from different combinations of learners will vary according to the kinds of groups that are formed.

2. Clarzfy the group goal. This can be done from within the news group, conference, or bulletin board, although these types of CMC are usually formed to support a particular goal or purpose. That is, the purpose is defined by participation in the group. It may be necessary, at least initially, to structure the communication by suggesting topics or issues to be discussed. Inserting a controversial issue (e.g., 'Abortions should be available on demand" or "The school year should be extended by 20 days") usually ignites discussion. The course itself should afford a meaningful context for the discussion, so avoid selecting a topic just to engage a discussion. For example, the topic "Political correctness poses one of the greatest threats to a democracy" will work in classes like sociology or political science but would probably be distracting and meaningless in biology or industrial arts.

3. Negotiate tasks and subtasks to be completed. Let the students know what role they are expected to play in the conversation. Are they to respond from their own perspective in order to be true to themselves and push the limits of their own knowledge, or should they play a role in the conversation? If the latter, are they supposed to take a conservative view or a liberal view? Many computer conferences are oriented by an instructional game or simulation that assigns roles. For example, Goodman (1992) describes a CMC simulation of the Arab-Israeli conflict in which students assume the role of negotiators or advisors for each country. You may also want to include requirements for a certain level of participation, especially with the more diffident members of the group.

4. Monitor individual and group performance. Most conference services provide a record of student logins or messages or correspondence left, so you have a comprehensive record of what and how much each individual has contributed. A personal message to those whose participation is low may be all that is needed. It will be interesting to see which stu-dents assume leadership roles in the discussions.

5. Reconcile differences in interpretations or approaches to the

goal. The major purpose of CMC is to provide a forum for negotiating differences of opinion or interpretation regarding the content or task being learned. CMC is a less constrained mechanism for that negotiation. As a teacher, you simply need to ensure that participants do not get carried away, that the discussion remain intellectual and not acrimonious.

Advantages of Computer-Mediated Communication as a Mindtool

The primary goal of education, according to many theorists, is to socialize youth. Typic~ly that process occurs only at a local level. Networked computers, however, are an even greater agent for the propagation and dissemination of social skills on a local, regional, national, and even international level (Margolies, 1991). In fact, those who perceive e-mail as important for their social life use it more.

Hiltz (1986) found that CMC classroom interchanges produced more interaction and involved more exchanges between students than did face-to-face interchanges. This is probably because individuals have the ability to remain anonymous, so they reduce personal fears while enhancing academic efficacy (note that not all CMC applications afford anonymity). Hiltz also found that undergraduates felt they had better access to the instructor and that CMC courses were more interesting than traditional courses.

CMC will likely enhance the effectiveness of collaborative efforts among learners, because it improves access to other group participants, eliminates social distinctions and barriers between those participants, contributes to a sense of informality, and fosters a stronger group identity (Pfaffenberger; 1986).

CMC provides opportunities for professional growth through computer conferences and information access without having to travel to conferences. Intimate electronic dialogues can also be established and maintained.

Berge and Collins (1993) discuss the independence of time afforded by CMC. Unlike face-to-face meetings, computer conferences are open and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Time can ~so be allocated to reflecting on a message before responding, in order to develop one's arguments or position. Students may do their work when it is conve nient or when they are most alert. In establishing CMC in your educational setting, it is essential to facilitate such convenient access.

Students may argue and disagree without involving excessive conflict (Phillips & Santoro, 1989). This is especially helpful for introverted, shy, and reflective people.

CMC facilitates collaborative learning. When working in groups through CMC, students accomplished more task objectives and participated more uniformly (Scott, 1993). Planning documents collabora-tively enhances the writing of apprehensive and nonapprehensive writers (Mabrito, 1992). CMC is an effective means for teaching collaborative problem solving and other tasks.

In comparison to a traditional classroom, where the teacher contributes up to 80% of the verbal exchange, online computer conferencing shows instructor contributions of only 10 to 15% of the message volume (Harasim, 1987; Winkelmans, 1988). Allowing learners to generate questions, summarize content, clarify points, and predict upcoming events is applicable to other educational tasks. When performed online, these types of activities can facilitate the discussion of various structural relationships within the subject matter.

Limitations of Computer-Mediated Communication as a Mindtool

Lefevre (1977) warned of the elitism and coercion that may result from controlling access to information through the networks. Since information is often equated with power, access to different computerized sources of information could initiate a class-oriented information society in which the information-rich become richer relative to the information-starved.

The technical complexities of CMC and the resulting difficulties in connecting to the system and learning how to use new software are often very frustrating and anxiety-inducing. There can be high frontloading of technical skills in order to become a user. Networking issues are complex, and the jargon is inscrutable to the novice. Seek software that optimally combines user-friendliness and resources. And be patient and keep asking questions.

Users must be somewhat skilled as communicators; that is, they need facility with the language. Unfortunately, not all learners have this facility.

The primary mode of input is text, which means that users must be moderately skilled as typists. That is problematic for many, particularly since the text editors for many CMC clients and applications are comparatively primitive.

The user interfaces in much of the software are unfriendly and difficult to use. The state of the art in software design is improving rapidly, however, so this should become less of a problem in the near future.

The most common form of CMC is asynchronous, that is, when users are not online at the same time. This results in communication delays between sending messages and receiving replies. These delays vary with the state of the network (usage) and the frequency with which users check their e-mail. Conferencing or direct communication between individuals on different continents several time zones apart can appear to be delayed for hours or even days. The delays may reduce the impact of certain messages or feedback.

Participation within groups of users varies. While full participation in electronic communication is as desirable as full participation in classroom discussions, technophobia or communications anxieties can prevent a number of individuals from participating fully in electronic communications. People can become "lurkers" when they post an idea and nobody responds or even acknowledges it, or when they are harshly or rudely treated.

In group decision-making situations, computer~mediated decision making produced more polarized decisions than did face-to-face situations (Lea & Spears, 1991). Decision making takes longer and may result in the use of stronger, more inflammatory, and more personalized expressions (Siegel, Dubrovsky, Kiesler, & McGuire, 1986). Moreover, anonymity may increase rather than diffuse anxiety.

CMC often amplifies social insecurities. These communication anxieties are especially common when communications are not acknowledged (Feenburg, 1987).

The absence of social context cues can make discussion somewhat more difficult. Nonverbal communication is not available to help interpret the message.

Hardware and communications lines and equipment are not 100% reliable, which may cause a loss of work or delays in communications. Such problems tend to frustrate users and may reduce participation.

Conclusion

CMC is a different kind of Mindtool than the others described in this book. It is not a software tool that produces personal representations of knowledge. Rather, it is a medium for communicating with others to access information that has been contributed by others, to send personal messages to others, and to discuss and debate ideas with others. It is in this latter mode that CMC is most like a Mindtool. Meaning-making is largely a process of social negotiation. CMC affords learners the opportunity to negotiate meaning with individuals through e-mail or with groups of individuals through computer conferences. That negotiation process is supported by a vast array of information that can be retrieved from the network. This combination makes CMC the fastest growing and potentially the most powerful of all Mindtools.

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