COMMUNICATION TOOLS

• Keep a record of the tools involved in their own communications (received and sent) for a week.
• Write an imaginary communication record for a child in another society or historical period, and compare it with their own.
• Use a variety of writing tools, and time their performance with each to see how new technology speeds up communication.

Comments to the Teacher

• To encourage awareness of the tools we use for communication, have students keep a record of their own communications for a week. Ask them to note down ways they send and ways they receive language messages. Their records should include such diverse tools as pencils, loudspeakers, neon signs, and the telephone. Compare records in a classroom discussion, and talk about how recently each tool came into use. Tie this activity into U.S. history or culture studies by asking students to write imaginary communication records for a child their age in 18th century America, or in one of the societies you are studying. You can even try writing on clay tablets. How does the difference in technology affect the way people communicate?
• Stress the fact that new technology speeds up communication, using this classroom experiment: Choose a simple message. Have ready a set of "scratch pens" (the kind you dip in ink) and washable ink; a set of ball point pens; and a typewriter. Pass out scratch pens, ink, and paper. Teach students how to use the pens. You may want to bring in some samples of the elegant old fashioned handwriting done with these pens (a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence is a good example). Assign a couple of students to be timekeepers, as everyone copies your message with scratch pens. Then, pass out ball points and time the writing again. If no one in your class types, invite a secretary to come in and type the message, also timed. A final step might be to time the photocopying of the typed message. Have students graph the timing results. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each writing tool. Is it always important to communicate quickly?
• We often assume that "newest is best." Encourage students to evaluate new inventions by concentrating on the qualities of a much-hailed older invention, such as the camera. You may want to study the invention itself in a science lesson, by constructing pinhole cameras. Look at a variety of old and newer photographs. Discuss ways the camera is used, and improvements that have been made. When the camera was first invented, some people thought it would naturally replace painting. Go through your textbooks, or other books that include photos and artwork as illustrations. Talk about the value of photos in some cases and artwork in others. Ask students to think of how the feeling or message would be different if what was presented in a particular case by a photo had been a drawing, or if a painting was replaced by a photo. The same can be done for advertisements.
• In science classes, you can explore some of the advantages and disadvantages of modem developments in communication. Some examples:
  • Space satellites÷and their variety of uses in such areas as message communication, weather forecasting, and more accurate mapping. How do these new developments help us?
  • Citizen Band radios÷especially if you have students who are intrigued by them. What advantages would they serve, say, to a truck driver traveling alone for days at a time, or to a community facing a crisis, such as a storm or a lost child? Are there disadvantages (interference with TV reception; possible choking of air channels)?
  • Use the Reader's Guide or New York Times Index to read to the class the latest scientific developments in earthquake prediction. Then tell the class that in China, and a few other countries, people have looked to the behavior of animals for earthquake warnings (cows won't graze, animals are agitated, etc.). If you lived (or do live) in an earthquake zone, which would you rely on for warning and why? (No matter what answer the students give, you should be able to build toward the generalization that modem science technology is not a magic wand that automatically solves problems or improves our lives.)