Sychronous chat
We don't use synchronous chat in the course I teach. It made me wonder if me along with others who were instructors of this course divided up time slots if we could get any benefit from this, even though we would be interacting with each other's student's due to scheduling conflicts.
As a therapist I love the interaction of a group. I am looking forward to the challenge of an online sychronous chat.
We do not use synchronous chats in the courses I teach as well. From my personal experiences, synchronous chats can be inconvenient for most students. Feedback I have been given by students is that asynchronous chats are better tolerated because the students can choose a time that best suits their schedule.
The courses that I teach, require 2 hours of synchronous chats each week. The percentage of students who attend live is not high (25-30%); but the chats are archived and I know students do spend time listening to the archive. The synchronous chats are an excellent way for students to get questions answered and for the instructor to demonstrate applying skills through screensharing.
I see a great benefit to synchronous chats in a virtual setting because it enables the students and instructor to dialog and answer any questions related to upcoming assignments. It also foster camaraderie among those attending. While archived chats are useful the downside from the viewer is that they are not able to participate in the question/answer sessions.
Being a student, I personally do not like sychronous chat. I like doing online classes so I can do them at my pace. I know many of the other students in my class also like to do it at their own pace. I just had a fellow student that had a baby and he was in the hospital working on his homework. He did it when he could. To me this could be tough. I use to work 50 hours a week and would do my homework when I got home at 7. I never had time to workout. Now I workout before I go to work and I don't get home from work, depending on the day, between 7-9.
Personally, I don't think synchronous chat is necissary for the online environment.
I teach a class with synchronous chats twice a week. I agree with a previous poster, many student do not attend live and listen to archive. In any case, I feel it makes them more familiar with me, at least by hearing my voice and commentary. This is the best way to relate lessons to personal professional experiences, which I find to be a great tool to remembering facts.
It does go back to the statement you cannot please everyone!
That is very true. I think the multiple formats for on-line courses; video, animations, chats, references materials, etc. help all the students as they enjoy and get more out of some than others. If the course offerings are balanced, they have a greater chance of success.
I work in the same environment with very similar attendance. I use the chats to explain the more complex subjects and give examples, usually with a poweroint. I provide the PP in the resources as well so they can use it for notes or study purposes if they wish. I have gotten some great questions during chat and really enjoyed the interaction.
Agreed, synchronous chat is a useful medium. Better yet, pare it with live lecture and two-way discussion. Some faculty say the chat becomes distracting...and I understand that, but as with most things, we get better with practice and can make the chat function work for us. When managed properly all of these tools are the adaptations we use to create a rich learning environment.
We use synchronous chats and they seem to work well. Presenting a quick quiz is an easy way to keep the students engaged. We also have the ability to post a survey question which can be helpful. The hardest part is deciding when to have the chat. It is almost impossible to select a day/time convenient for everyone. I would love to have a participation requirement so that all students can receive the benefits of synchronous learning.
