This week was mostly exploring advantages and disadvantages of synchronous communications. There are a lot of great tools out there to use when considering synchronous activities like Skype, Google Hangouts, Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect, ect. And most of these tools are very intuitive, so even instructors in our class who did not have prior experience with these tools had an easy time picking up and using them.
I think the biggest challenge with using these tools wasn't necessarily "how" to use them, but how to plan for a synchronous activity. Many students including myself didn't connect with somebody in the class because times of the planned sessions changed last minute (which happened to me twice), or "life" got in the way. So my take away is to pick a day and time and stick with it if you are planning a synchronous session with peers, and if you are planning an activity for the entire class to participate in, try to use a tool that doubles as an asynchronous tool by way of letting you view past sessions (Blackboard Collaborate and Adobe Connect save all past sessions if you want them to).
No comments:
Post a Comment