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Using Synchronous Tools to Build Community in the Asynchronous Online Classroom

Synchronous tools can help humanize the classroom.

Setting up open office hours

require students and instructors to be online at the same time.

specific hour. All students must be online at that specific hour in order to participate.

Asynchronous classes are just the opposite. Instructors provide materials, lectures, tests, and assignments that can be accessed at any time

You have decided that you have the money, time and materials to do this. What is next to know? How about the way the class will be held? Not all college online courses are the same at all.

a blended course,

Hopefully, this blended learning environment takes the best from both asynchronous and asynchronous.

Almost every sentence in the asynchronous discussions of the smaller group, and a vast majority of sentences in the larger group, were classified as content-related.

This is a remarkable result—imagine if learners on campus spent more than 90 percent of their time discussing issues related to course content

In addition, the learners reported that the video-based instruction was more memorable than the traditional text-based instruction

sing technology and learning collaboratively online included getting to know each other, respecting individual differences, negotiating meaning with others, and self‐regulating.

understanding of key design elements for online courses: a delicate balance between structure and dialogue in transactional distance, and the development of a sense of community.

  E-Pedagogy: Does e-learning require a new pedagogy?  5 The emergence of e-learning  As part of the technological revolution, the use of e-learning, or blended learning, isincreasing. This is particularly true of Higher Education, which offers most programmespartly or wholly online. In the future, e-learning is likely to be more widely used in thetertiary and school sectors. Another driver for e-learning is life-long learning, whichrequires on-going training and re-training of the adult workforce.In many cases, e-learning is delivered through a virtual learning environment (VLE),which is a custom built environment designed for online learning. VLEs, such as  Blackboard and Moodle , typically provide all of the software tools required for onlinelearning such as communication and file sharing facilities. These environments are oftenmodelled around the traditional campus, providing ‘virtual staff rooms’ and ‘onlinecommon rooms’. E-portfolios provide the digital equivalent to the traditional paperportfolio; these typically provide online storage for a range of media types (such asdrawings, photos and videos). Dedicated e-assessment systems, such as Questionmark ,facilitate large-scale online testing, providing many of the question types that arefamiliar to teachers.Some academics have pointed out the potential of e-learning to improve current practice.Garrison and Anderson (2003) write:“E-learning has significantpotential to alter the nature of theteaching and learning transaction.In fact, it has caused us to face upto some of the current deficienciesof higher education, such as largelecturers, while providing somepossible solutions or ways tomitigate these shortcomings. Seenas part of pedagogical solution, e-learning becomes an opportunity toexamine and live up to the ideals of the educational transactiondescribed previously.” New learning opportunities The changing environment facilitates new kinds of learning. Teachers have traditionallyfocussed on content; indeed, many consider the identification and delivery of learningmaterial to be their prime role. But it has been argued that the traditional skill of contentcreation is redundant in the information-rich learning environment. Some of this contentis very high quality, even world class, and certainly superior to a hurriedly producedhandout of the type often used by busy teachers.It has been suggested that the contemporary teacher should be more “guide on the side”than “sage on the stage”. The ready availability of information makes  facilitation moreimportant than direction . The pedagogic issue is not too little information but too much:the contempora

changing learning landscape poses fundamental epistemological questions about thenature of knowledge and how it is acquired. Dede (2008) writes: “In the Classicalperspective, knowledge consists of accurate interrelationships among facts, based onunbiased research that produces compelling evidence about systematic causes […]Epistemologically, a single right answer is believed to underlie each phenomenon […]The epistemology that leads to validity of knowledge in Web 2.0 media such as Wikipedia  is peer review from people seen, by the community of contributors, as having unbiasedperspectives. Expertise involves understanding disputes in detail and proposingsyntheses that are widely accepted by the community

hatever new theory of learning emerges in thenext decade, it will likelybuild upon thesepedagogie

misconceptions and myths related to the difficulty of teaching and learning online, technologies available to support online instruction, the support and compensation needed for high-quality instructors, and the needs of online students create challenges for such vision statements and planning documents.

Adding to this dilemma, bored students are dropping out of online classes while pleading for richer and more engaging online learning experiences.1 Given the demand for online learning, the plethora of online technologies to incorporate into teaching, the budgetary problems, and the opportunities for innovation, we argue that online learning environments are facing a "perfect e-storm," linking pedagogy, technology, and learner needs.

cation. In this study, Keeton interviewed faculty in postsecondary institutions, who rated the effectiveness of online instructional strategies. These instructors gave higher ratings to online instructional strategies that "create an environment that supports and encourages inquiry," "broaden the learner's experience of the subject matter," and "elicit active and critical reflection by learners on their growing experience base."12

A similar example occurs while learning to drive a car. Our conscious mind must be aware of three pedals, gas, brake and clutch. Also important are the rear view mirror and the steering wheel as well as what is in front of us. We learn to synchronize these complex movements and actions with great effort and attention. But in time, our mind frees the conscious mind from this effort, and we drive without thinking about it. Have you never experienced being it distracted and talking while driving and when you arrive at your destination you cannot remember the route you followed?

This illustrates the process of learning as: curiosity or interest, understanding, memorizing and internalizing. Through these steps learning moves from the conscious to the unconscious mind, freeing up conscious memory and energy; in other words you internalize the learning. Internalization of knowledge is an essential part of knowledge itself. What is internalized has great impact on future behavior and beliefs.

But, real learning only occurs when, motivated by curiosity, the person constructs knowledge by seeking those materials, techniques, concepts, methods and elements, which can produce her own internal theories that then undergo testing and are subsequently internalized. This is the never ending search for knowledge driven by the innate curiosity of human beings.

Classrooms become laboratories or studios, and yet content delivery is preserved.

the benefits of video in the classroom:

idea exchange

student–student (SS), student–teacher (ST), or student–content (SC) interactions

A strong association is found between strength and achievement for asynchronous DE courses compared to courses containing mediated synchronous or face-to-face interaction