A few weeks ago, we were all required to take part in a synchronous chat. We were given choices of which tools to use, and chats were scheduled. One of the tools I chose to use was Elluminate, and I have to say I was very disappointed. Not because Elluminate seems "bad," but because the version we used seemed to have many features greyed out. I'm not sure why, and neither was our instructor. The result was that we really couldn't see what kinds of things Elluminate could do. I have used chat tools for years, in fact, I got to know my husband predominantly via chat tools. There are many simple ones available for free through companies such as Yahoo, Google, ICQ, and Facebook. There's also Skype, which I enjoy as well. One problem with all these chat tools are that everyone has to have the same one or else communication can't occur. Then you have to remember which friends have which chat tool! Another problem with using these tools is time zones. I use Skype to talk to my sister in New Zealand, and it's EXTREMELY difficult to set up a time when we're both available. A contributing factor is that my Internet connection is very, very poor, so I really need to Skype from my office. That of course reduces the window for chatting even more.
Aynchronous chats have their place in education. They are useful to create community, to offer answers to questions quickly, and to allow students to work together from great distances without having to wait for responses. I'm still not sure I'd want to enforce them in a class; after all, one "benefit" of online learning is that you can organize your time around it. If a lot of synchronous chat was desired by students, wouldn't they simply take face-to-face courses?
No comments:
Post a Comment