Ed in ETEC

Synchronous and Asynchronous Communication

In choosing my communication tools for my LMS course site, I strive to use tools that are i) simple to use, and ii) offer significant pedagogical value to the course. From scholarly literature and my personal experience taking various online courses, I have settled into using “forum” and “chat” as my two tools. Sadly, financial constraints played a large role in my decision-making process.

As an educator who has worked in an inner city school for over a decade, it is important to point out that, although most students now have access to the internet at home, a significant number of students are from families who cannot afford high-speed internet services. As a result, although I can expect students to use a LMS as a supplementary component to their courses, it is also very important to build a LMS that would not have a very high demand for internet capacities from my students. This is a big consideration when I am choosing the various synchronous and asynchronous communication tools – I need to keep the communication tools simple to allow every student access to the LMS at a reasonable speed. This is the reason why I have chosen the synchronous chat function, as well as the asynchronous forum function in my Moodle site.

From the course material, it is clear that the exclusive use of either synchronous or asynchronous communication tools would create educational deficiencies for students. Using exclusively synchronous communication tools, for example, would prevent students from having the time to reflect carefully on their responses. From the Anderson’s article, I would argue that this would even prevent discourse from happening altogether. On the other hand, if a LMS relies exclusively on asynchronous communication tools, students very likely would feel disconnected to the learning community, and that is not an ideal situation either. In light of these potential pitfalls, I have chosen to combine the use of a synchronous and an asynchronous communication tool. I believe the two would complement each other, and would address the shortcomings of each individual communication tool.

It is also worth noting that, if a LMS is used as a complementary learning tool to a f2f class, the problem of an asynchronous communication tool such as forum is reduced quite significantly. When students have the opportunity to interact face-to-face during class time, the time they spend on a LMS asynchronously may actually enhance and deepen the discourse that educators are trying to instil.