It has been interesting for me to think about synchronous and asynchronous communications in three areas: a) professional development for myself (UBC MET), b) in struggling with developing appropriate LMS content for my Gr. 4 students, and c) in designing a course for adult volunteers.
I chose the UBC MET program for a few reasons, but one of the main determinants was the ability to complete the degree on-line while working continuing full-time. For me, the on-line nature of the degree presumed that it would be asynchronous in terms of the communications (for the most part), and so far, this has been the case. i am definitely in the group of “those who are adamant that they have chosen on-line learning alternatives to avoid the time constraints imposed by synchronous or paced learning activities.” With the exception of one group assignment, the asynchronous nature of the course has been the most appealing, and in this first term – and in fact, invaluable due to emergency time commitments to family that arose for me. I also appreciated the effort and opportunity (though I was unable to participate) in synchronous Collaborate sessions that were recorded (“canned”) and offered for viewing later.
In the context of teaching my Gr. 4 students (and elementary school aged students in general), I believe that within the parameters of our school operations, most synchronous communication would have to take place within school hours under the supervision of a teacher. This is due to two factors: a certain level of supervision required for students, and dependent on that, the availability of students and a parent/guardian at the same time – and given the extracurricular activities that students have after school, I don’t believe that this would be well-received, nor consistently engaged in. My students are currently using Google docs to synchronously share and provide feedback to one another during class time.
The course that I am currently designing for my Moodle assignment is geared toward adults in a non-profit setting, and given the non-credit volunteer nature of this course, I believe that asynchronous communication would provide the most welcomed flexibility. The synchronous aspects of the course would be conducted through F2F meetings with a volunteer coordinator and volunteer orientation groups.
Anderson, T. (2008b). Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University.
Hi Caroline,
Interesting use of Google doc. It made me think about pan pals. While I was in elementary school, that was extremely popular and everyone was writing letters. That was, of course long time ago ☺ Maybe that kind of communication can be experimented with as an asynchronous model with your grade 4 students?
Natasha
That is actually a great idea and the interesting thing is that my teaching partner (the other grade 4 teacher) and I were thinking along the lines of pen pals from another country – though not with Google docs. I think that pen pals with another class would be relatively easy to find – it would be mostly a matter of finding a responsible teacher who is timely about sticking to a schedule, as I find that what makes pen pal projects unravel quickly is when one side doesn’t hear from the other side… Using Google docs is a way to speed this up considerably, while allowing self/peer/teacher edits. I will let you know if we implement this with our students!