E-mail as a 'contact zone' for teacher-student relationships

Abstract

This article analyses email exchanges between students and teachers in a technological literacy project for urban Aboriginal students. The warm productive relationships established over email are explained with reference to the unique qualities of electronic communication and its contrast to normative oral discourse in classrooms. It is argued that incidental e-mail communication between teacher and student provides a new space - new in scope, location, time, mode and interactional protocols - in which to explore and build the key student/teacher core relationships.