A tale of two mailing lists

This paper serves to report a research study on the use made of two separate mailing lists or listservs, for professional development—Oz-Teachers and UK-Schools. Both lists were, and still are, used by teachers in Australia and the United Kingdom, as well as by teachers across the globe, to communicate electronically with each other. The practice of this communication is typically characterised by text messages that pose questions or offer answers; by ‘threads’ of discussion based around single or combined themes; and by statements of information. In this context, two windows are opened in this study: one shows a dynamic picture of teachers at work and play in the technology of listservs, developing skills and practices in asynchronous communications. The other looks into the content of many of the postings, demonstrating the practices, views, ideas and concerns teachers have with using technology in traditional school and classroom environments. Whilst this paper provides a detailed overview of the study, the full report of the research programme, of which this study constitutes one part, can be found elsewhere, in Lankshear et al. (1997) and Wild (1999).