ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about using computers to facilitate good technical dialogue and using computers to facilitate 'real' dialogue in religious education. People's personal and People's professional development as a teacher of religious education can be enhanced through the enthusiastic and critical use of computers. Computers can help teachers in 'treating pupils with dignity, building relationships rooted in mutual respect'. The work of Julia Ipgrave is enormously helpful in describing the ways of developing good computer-mediated dialogue and the principles under-pinning this work – principles long pre-dating computer-mediated communication. There are computer-mediated 'hello' traditions, there are online materials that can be used to practice ethical and religious debating, and there are resources for exploring the end of life – what might be called 'goodbye' traditions. Using a computer, receive a message from a religious community regarded as being from a divine being, and explain how people would be affected by it if it is genuine communication from a divine being.
