Louise Rosenblatt seeks QtAznBoi@aol.com for LTR: Using chat rooms in interdisciplinary middle school classrooms

Abstract

A group of teachers use Internet chat rooms to explore the role of computer-mediated technologies in the lives of their students…
\nOnline student-teacher interactions like this one are no longer uncommon. A few of these encounters forced us to think about the use of computer-mediated technologies. We reflected on both overly optimistic stances towards technology and stances that position our students as aliens and cyborgs. In our work with eighth-grade students in New York City’s Chinatown, we have come to see technology and cyberculture as viable and unique cultural forms in our students’ lives outside of school. Yet the appropriation of Internet Communication Technologies (ICT) in classrooms is more problematic than we anticipated.