Getting acquainted with the tools

Objective #1: To acquaint preservice FL teachers with the myriad of communications technologies available to them

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     In the good old days of FL teaching, "communications" meant the phone (the one in your classroom, if you were lucky) and "technology" meant the 16mm movie projector and the slide carousel. If you could run those, you had it made. Well, things are different now. Emerging technologies make what we learn today nearly obsolete by next week. The point of this particular objective is to discuss new communications technologies that are available via the Internet for use in your FL classroom. In this lesson, you will become familiar with all those terms that the "techies" throw around so you can be reasonably conversant with just about anyone on the communications technologies that you will be using in your classroom. You may still have to run the 16mm movie projector and know how to change and rewind those big reels, but you will also know about much, much more that will enhance your instruction and make your FL classes really come alive for your students.

     This lesson is easy: you just have to read and take a quiz. Just like being a student--but then, we're all life-long learners so we're always students, right? Below you will find links to information on a myriad of communications technologies available to you as a FL teacher. The best part is that the explanations are in real people-ese and not techno-ese. Many articles and books exist that explain all of these technologies and concepts in great detail. You can find them in the

    reference section

and you are welcome to investigate them at your leisure. For now, just learn what's here on this page. The quiz comes after.

Electronic mail

Electronic Discussion Groups

Usenet Groups

Gopher

FTP & Telnet

World Wide Web

Internet Relay Chat

CUSeeMe

MOOs

     Now you have acquired some basic knowledge about several electronic communications technologies. Let's see if you can apply that knowledge to come practical situations that you may encounter as a classroom foreign language teacher. Remember at the beginning when I said the quiz comes later? Well, later is now!