Post-Millennium CMC

Technology has always been growing, but since the year 2000, communication technology has changed our world completely. Students have relied on the computer to communicate for years and do so on a daily basis. In addition to the forms of CMC discussed earlier, another innovation has surfaced that has aided in the success of education dramatically. Blackboard Academic Suite, and other programs like it have allowed students to easily communicate directly with each other and their professors. Though it was created in the late 1990s, Blackboard Academic Suite did not become refined and widely used until the new millennium (TelecomWorldWire, 2005). Blackboard was one of the first programs to offer one location for students to access multiple forms of communication.

Blackboard Academic Suite has multiple sources for students and professors to communicate with each other. There is a tab entitled Communication, and it is here where students and professors can click and find multiple ways to communicate with each other in one convenient location. Students can collaborate with each other via synchronous distributed communication such as instant messaging, and asynchronous distributed communication such as the discussion board or email (Burnett & Marshall, 2003). A new way students and professors are able to communicate on Blackboard is with voice. Once students click the Communication tab they will find that they can communicate using a voice activated discussion board, podcast, and email (Blackboard Academic Suite, 2009). This enables students to engage in faster and more personal communication.

Another CMC trend in education that has surfaced since the millennium has been the use of online courses and online schools. Instead of attending school in a typical classroom environment, students now have the option of taking one or all of their classes online. It does not matter whether or not students choose to take one online class or enroll in an online educational program; these virtual learning environments have transformed the way we look at education today. Online education allows students to become the researchers and are more engaged in the learning process (Rogers, 2004). These courses give students similar resources as typical classrooms do: lectures, videos, assignments, reviews, readings, exams, as well as a sense of community and a group identity (Hanrahan, 2009). The difference is that online classes require better time management skills and more determination from the student (Rogers, 2004). Since the turn of the century, the use of online courses and online education has grown each year. Approximately one million kindergarten through high school students are enrolled in online schools nationwide, and the number of students has grown twenty times in seven years (Mehta, 2007).

It is apparent that the use of online education has become a prevalent form of schooling and will continue to grow as long as the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

References:

Blackboard Academic Suite. (2009). Blackboard Acedemic Suite. Retrieved April 18,
2009, from www.asu.edu/myasu.

Burnett, R., & Marshall, D. (2003). Web theory: An introduction. New York: Routledge.

Hanrahan, S. (2009). ‘Interface: Virtual environments in art, design, and education.’ Arts
And Humanities in Higher Education, 8, 99-128.

Mehta, S. (1997). More students across US logging on to online classrooms. Retrieved April 20, 2009, from www.boston.com/news/nation/articles.

Rogers, G. (2004). History, learning technology and student achievement: Making the
difference? Active Learning in Higher Education, 5, 232-247.

TeleComWorldWire. (2005). M2 Communications. Retrieved April 20, 2009, from
www.m2.com.