Enhancing Telecommunication in Teacher Education

Abstract

The School of Education at California State University—Los Angeles set up an electronic bulletin board service (BBS) in 1989. This article presents the results of a study on the use of this instructional resource by students and faculty. By providing modem access to instructors and students, use of the board was facilitated: the daily average number of calls increased by 3.25 each month. Course-related messages represented 55% of all messages and 43% were student messages to faculty, thus verifying the effectiveness of the BBS as an instructional medium. The BBS appears to foster faculty and student interaction outside of the classroom.

Keywords:

• telecommunications
• teacher training
• electronic mail
• communication