Online Chats
Chats in online sessions can be invaluable. Of course, it is also important to be cognizant of the potential drawbacks to chat sessions such as slower typists not being 'heard' as quickly. However, chats can be very helpful; chat discussions have proven to be very valuable in clinical online learning environments (Silva, Furegato, & Godoy, 2008.)
Reference
Silva, E. C., Furegato, A. R., Godoy, Sd. (2008). Clinical case studies in mental health by means of the on-line discussion. Rev Lat Am Enfermagem. 16(3):425-31.
You have a good point. I have taught courses with an first assignment where everyone posts their bio and shares their background. In those courses, many of the discussions flow better after this introduction topic is completed and the students are more comfortable with others in the class.
Zachary,
I like this actually!! Giving students a feeling of comfort.
Shelly Crider
I like this idea too. It helps students become familiar with one another. Also, I think it must be difficult to build collaborative relationships with people and this can probably help.
One thing I do is ask students to treat the weekly discussion forums as opportunities to help each other with weekly assignments -- kind of like a troubleshooting forum. Not everyone does it, but it does help generate meaningful discussions.
Paul,
I had a class once that I would add....muddiest point.....where students could post where they were stuck and others could respond.
Shelly Crider
This works better if the instructor responds to each one of the welcome chats
Paul -
I do like that idea because it get's the student's involvement front and center. The way our discussions are set up, the Q&A's go into a Student Blog site and the students don't tend to visit the blog site to help each other out where they are "stuck". I encourage it by sending emails and posting wherever I can - and I can post additional discussion questions along with our weekly prompts - so I might try "prompting" a weekly "What do we think about this?" type of discussion. Great idea!
Thank you for the thought!
Mary Kay
Eric,
It does give the student a good feeling right from the start!
Shelly Crider
Live chats are very helpful to the students understanding of the material and provides a forum for which them to ask questions and get further clarification on the given material, assignments etc...
I love providing this feature, especially at the start of the course when students seem to have the most questions regarding the course. This is even more essential for those first time online students as I find they feel more comfortable talking through the navigation of the course.
Dawn Huber
Dawn ,
This is a great task to do at the very beginning of class!
Shelly Crider
