ICTS : NOF Training : Unit A : Electronic communication

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Electronic communication

This section is intended to give you lots of ideas about how to use electronic communications to enhance your professional development and teaching. Some scenarios in this section will examine professional development issues, while some will focus on pupils using electronic communication.

Communicating by electronic mail

The Internet provides a fast and inexpensive method of communication through electronic mail (email). Email will be one of the services provided for you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) who will give you your email address and the communications software you will need to send and receive messages. The large computer (the server) at your ISP stays connected all the time so that messages written to you can be stored there until you log on (connect) to the Internet and collect them. When you post a message to a friend it goes first to your ISP, who then sends it on to your friend’s ISP where the message stays until your friend logs on to collect it.

Messages can be composed off line (not connected to the Internet) and sent when you are ready. The time taken to post and receive simple messages is short, so there is usually no need to spend much time online. Calls are usually charged at local telephone rates even if the eventual destination is the other side of the world, so email can be a very economical method of communication. Because messages can be posted at any time and then picked up at the convenience of the receiver, it is particularly useful for communicating across different time zones.
Email addresses start with an identifying name, then the @ sign followed by the name of the Internet Service Provider e.g. breakfastnews@bbc.co.uk or helpline@freeserve.co.uk.

Email addresses must be written precisely, with no spaces. The electronic postal service will not make guesses, so if you type an incorrect address it will be sent back to you as undeliverable mail. However, to save time and mistakes, addresses that you use frequently can be added to the Address Book of your email software. Then you can select them with one click rather than having to type them out each time. Some communications software has a prediction facility so that you do not even have to open the address book. As soon as you start typing the address it searches its store for addresses that you have used in the past beginning with those letters. All you have to do is click on the correct one.

When you log on to collect mail from your ISP, new messages appear in your Inbox. The message should have a subject line so that you can tell what it is about without opening it. If you are not interested in it (you may find you receive inappropriate junk mail or ‘spam’) you can delete it without opening it. If you suspect you have been sent email containing a computer virus, do not open it without first seeking advice. If you decide to open a message you can reply to it, save it for future reference, forward it to someone else, or delete it.

writing an email message in Outlook Express

When you send a message it stays in your Outbox until you decide to log on to your ISP and post it. An economical way of using electronic mail is to compose several messages off line and then send them all out together. Electronic mail also saves time because you can copy the same message to any number of addresses and send them out with one click. You can even set up a group list of addresses so that when you click on the name of the group the message is sent out to everyone in it, making communication between large numbers of people fast and inexpensive.

Scenario 2 - Sending and receiving an email

A school has recently been connected to the Internet and members of staff have all been given email addresses. One teacher was particularly anxious about using the technology so the ICT Co-ordinator suggested she began by sending a message to herself. One morning before school she opened up the communications software on the computer and clicked on the icon for composing a New Message. A blank message sheet appeared so she typed her email address into the Address Line, being careful to copy it exactly. Then she needed to put something in the Subject Line so she typed, ‘my first email message’. In the message part of the sheet she just wrote ‘Congratulations!’ When she had finished she clicked the Send button, logged onto the Internet and selected the icon that sent the mail to the server. That evening, after school she logged on again, opened up the communications software and clicked the Receive Mail button. She was thrilled to see her message appear in the In Box. She opened it up and there was her message – ‘Congratulations!’ With a longer message, she would probably use the spelling checker within the email software to check her message before sending.
my first email message

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above example are:

logging on to the Internet
launching email software
sending an email message
receiving an email message

The key equipment is:

a computer linked to the Internet
email software


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