Selecting the communications tools
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I knew pretty much from the beginning that the two tools I wanted to use were a chat and a forum. I’ve had experience in being a participant using both of these tools and I think they both compliment each other. The chat I’ve enjoyed if for no other reason than it lets me feel that I’m not alone. The feeling of isolation is one that I’ve struggled with throughout the MET program. Even a chat that doesn’t go particularly well can at least make me aware that there are other people in the class. A chat that goes well can be a really great experience letting you get instant feedback to points that have been made. Like a face to face class the chat can often quickly clear up any confusion I may have had about an assignment or some other aspect of the class. As for the discussion forums, I can’t see how you could have an online class without including discussion forums. This is where so much of the learning takes place, by reading and responding to what other people in the class are thinking about a particular topic. Before i made the final decision I did consider some other tools. I thought of making the asynchronous tool a Wiki, however in the end I realized that I would be using the wiki in the same way as a discussion forum so it didn’t really make sense not to just use the discussion forum. Even though Moodle has a built in chat I did look at some other chat tools. I liked the Google chat tool but I didn’t want students to have to leave the course site so in the end I decided to use the built in tool that Moodle. I experimented with both of the tools within the LMS site and they both worked well. I didn’t really like any of the four layouts of the Moodle discussion forum as much as the layout for the WebCt forums, but it’s not a serious flaw, it will work fine.