Day Two: Asynchronous Communication

Asynchronous Communication for Online Learning and Collaboration

Asynchronous is the term used to describe ways of interacting any time. This means the instructor and learners do not need to be online at the same time.

Advantages:
No scheduling
Flexible
Discussion organized by topic
Messages can be any length
Attachments possible
Responses are visible to all

Disadvantages:
Lacks spontaneity
“Low touch”

Use in online learning and collaboration: a few examples
1. Post readings and discussion questions; ask participants to post responses and comments to each other.
2. Post alternative points of view; ask participants to make a case for or against and support their claims with research or examples
3. Create team or small group writing projects using blogs or other group access sites

Free asynchronous tools:

>> Forums
Nicenet (online classrooms) http://www.nicenet.org/
World Crossing http://www.worldcrossing.com/

>> Social Bookmarking (Share lists of favorites with your participants)
Read “A General Review: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/april05/hammond/04hammond.html
FURL http://www.furl.net
Delicious http://del.icio.us

>> Concept Maps and Shared Concept maps
Cmap http://cmap.ihmc.us /.
ClaiMaker (http://claimaker.open.ac.uk /) is specifically
designed to construct and map arguments and debates.

>> Blogs:
Blogger (from Google): http://www.blogger.com/
Xanga: http://www.xanga.com/
DigitalDivide network: http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org/ (If your topic is in that topic area.)
TypePad: http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/ (Inexpensive options with no ads)

>> Collaborative web sites and other services:
Bloki http://www.bloki.com
Web Collaborator http://www.webcollaborator.com/

>> Wikis:
Wikispaces: http://www.wikispaces.org/
@ wiki: http://atwiki.com/
Seedwiki: http://www.seedwiki.com (free and paid options)

I'm a fan of asynchronous, and haven't felt a "low touch" effect. Synchronous as in chat has always seemed difficult and rather stilted to me. Asynchronous (to me) avoids the endless planning, difficulty with time zones and with different people's timetables

Hello Joanna - isn't it amazing how small the virtual world can be. Initially I felt as you do that asynchronous suited me best. I mean how many people do you know who want to chat at 5 a.m. in the morning? Yetthe world opened and my 5 a.m. is someone else's 5 p.m. Yeah.

Then as a newbie to the web, I would run into "learning blocks" so often. Yet when I went into instant messaging there was Frances ( I believe she doesn't sleep). Seldom was an answer forthcoming, but a gentle "mmmm...", or "what do you think might...?"

France's ubiquitousness gave me a feeling of connection. I invite my students to chat (text or voice) with me when they see me online. I believe these quick chats build relationships, move learning forward, and parallel the informal chats in the hall or cafeteria that occur in f2f learning places.

That being said it is critical that I respect an individual's choice to not use synchronous forms of communication.

I also enjoy the asynchronous exchange of information, as opposed to chat rooms. You can arrange your thoughts better, get your ideas and points set before posting. Chat rooms seem to get too speratic for me. Plus, with RSS and Atom feeds, blogs and forums are becoming easier to use and to keep updated on.

Keith

I would add www.livejournal.com to the list of blog sites. Livejournal is open source as well and has an extensive group of volunteer staff who help keep the site running and answer questions. Plus they have a free option for hosting accounts as well as communities.

I have to say in a world where email can at times be overwhelming, providing sites for asynchronous communication is incredibly helpful. I can't tell you how many times I seem to loose the thread on listserves and having an option to see information when I want to see it helps out immensely. I do have to say though that even though this is extremely useful, students I work with often ask to compliment these opportunities with real time opportunities or meetings.

- Xavier

I agree completely, Keith. In fact one of my close friends with a flaming preference for extraversion (MBTI model) calls email "i-mail" because he believes that individuals with a preference for introversion (like me) more naturally gravitate to email.

I appreciate the editing feature of asynchronous communication. I am not a natural "warm, fuzzy" person, so my initial feedback to a client/student may seem critical to the reader. I review the message, and edit the tone when necessary before hitting the "send" button. Of course, there have been times - to my regret - that I did not follow this practice.

While I agree there is much benefit to be found with asynchronous communication (witness the development of this very thread!), I would like to provide a counterpoint.

Sometimes it can be difficult to sustain a meaningful dialogue when there is not necessarily an expectation of a response by one or more of the parties involved. In a real-time conversation, I can dedicate the attention needed to discuss whatever the situation warrants; however, it can be annoying when you spend a good bit of time making a contribution to a discussion, then to have days go by with not so much as a hint of a reply from others.

This is why sometimes in web forums you see messages like "Is anyone still out there?" or the infamous *bump* (an empty posting to return a message thread to the top of the queue in forums that sort threads with most recent posts first)... which in my opinion can get in the way of a "real" conversation.

I think an enterprise needs to incorporate a variety of learning and communications styles into its strategy, with virtual and face to face being part of the mix.

At the end of this message I've posted a link to an outline of the way the T/MC seeks to integrate a variety of technologies into its strategy.

I feel that Asynchronous offers a tremendous advantage to chat and face to face meetings. Everyone can talk at the same time! In most face to face meetings dominent personalities do most of the talking. A good idea may be sitting at the table, but without a powerful voice to express it. In chat, you have similar constraints.

What's missing so far from Asynchronous is an on-going process of measuring the level of agreement the group has for any particular topic. At http://jordan-webb.net you can read information about group facilitation and decision support using technologies like www.webiq.com. So far, I've not been involved in too many meetings where there is constant voting using the technology to let the group know if they agree, don't agree, or are not even interested in the point being discussed.

Since I'm familiar with these tools, I cannot tell you how often I'm frustrated to be in a meeting with a great speaker, 100 people, and find that I cannot interact with the speaker, or the other 99 people. I attended a forum last night on affordable housing and the speakers were fantastic. Yet only a few people were able to ask questions and after that meeting it's unlikely that the same group of people will ever be in the same room again.

If the meeting had been web cast and supported by a chat and asynchronous message board, or blogs, all of the people at the meeting could have been posting questions to the speaker or to each other. And today, after the excitement of the meeting, we could be talking to each other about ways to use the information to address housing issues.

I think this integration of technology with problem solving and community building will come, but it will need to be modeled by organizations who are early adopters and who can get access to the technology and facilitation support needed to lead such process effectively

If you'd like to learn more about how we seek to address this, read the proposal at this link:
Tutor/Mentor Learning Network

The research on virtual communities in higher education indicates that asynchronous formats have one particularly big advantage: because there's no competition for the floor, and opportunity to think before "speaking", there's a much higher level of reflective thinking and deep conversation than in face to face or chat environments.

But my experience echoes Mirrorshades: very hard to initiate dialog. One reason, I think, is that in F-to-F situations silence is an enemy, and someone will always pipe up rather than tolerate the silence. But cyberspace is a vacuum. Questions or comments can sit out there, cold and lonely, unless there's incentive for others to respond. Anybody have some good strategies for dealing with this?

For what is worth, per Tutormentor's comment on measuring agreement on a topic, the Moodle platform has a simple polling device that seems to work quite nicely. It's a multiple choice set up, designed so that as soon as you vote, you see the tally of all votes cast for each option. It could be used for the Delphi method of decision-making (a series of blind polls that is something of a research standard) though I'm sure there are tools that handle the Delphi more adroitly.

Re: Coachman's question:

I agree that a huge challenge is building participation in on-line forums. I'd like to hear how others do it. I follow a couple of rules

a) the topic has to be of interest if people make time to participate

b) cast a wide net and you'll find more participants

c) perserverance works - if you keep sending invitations and hosting meeting, you'll ultimately build participation -- if what you're talking about is important to enough people

While this is a strategy for building participation in on-line forums, it's also a strategy for building participation in volunteer-based organizations. I've spent 30 years, leading two organizations, and creating a network of volunteers who would support the Tutor/Mentor Connection. Between 1974 and 1992 the first organization grew from 100 volunteers to 550 volunteers participating regularly. In 1992 I started a new organization with 7 volunteers. We not have nearly 100 supporting our Cabrini Connections program each year, and more than 100 others supportin the Tutor/Mentor Connection in various ways.

In each case growth was gradual over a period of years.

My hope is that we'll see the same growth in our on-line forums and eConferences.

Thanks for your comments! As the posts so far would show-- the key is to match the method to the purpose, and to the audience. Would a live session invigorate the lagging discussions some of you note?

In an informal threaded discussion, one can try reaching participants through another communication form to remind them of the topics being discussed. This could include a reminder email or messages in other organization communications.

It might also be a sign that the topics under discussion have exhausted their usefulness, and perhaps it is time to suggest a new topic or a new way of discussion. Perhaps a small group or team activity, a debate, or another tactic would be more engaging than the usual "I post the question, you post the answer" approach.

In terms of my personal and professional preferences-- I have long worked asynchronously, because my working adult learners and clients are in different time zones. But in the past year I have presented/facilitated/participated in a series of events using Elluminate and I love it. The voice feature gives a different dynamic. As noted in the thread on synchronous tools, I find it is most useful in combination with asynchronous tools.

Janet

Hello Janet and everyone,

My apologies, I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself yesterday. I am an instructional designer with Community Network for Youth Development in San Francisco. We're an intermediary organization that works to strengthen the field of youth development and help organizations build their capacity to serve youth through technical assistance, coaching, training, etc. (www.cnyd.org). I joined the organization last September after spending many years working in corporate training.

Over the last several months, we've been piloting a series of “blended learning” courses that combine Web-based asynchronous training modules with face-to-face workshops on various youth development topics and “practices”. The primary audience for our trainings are “youth workers” (adults who work directly with youth). It’s a very diverse audience – high school education through folks with post-grad degrees.

Our face-to-face trainings are experiential – include role-plays and other activities that give participants opportunities to develop and strengthen skills (e.g. communication, facilitation, program design, etc.) and learn from others in the field. Our online modules currently consist of static text pages, pdf downloads, self-assessment instruments (inc. links to Survey Monkey) and discussion boards. (we're using an open course content management system.) Before coming to class, participants complete 2 – 3 online chapters where they explore core concepts of youth development, reflect on their experience, assess their skills, discuss case studies online, etc. We'd like to add multi-media elements and other more dynamic strategies for delivering content and engaging our (multiple-intelligence) audience online. Of course, cost is an issue!

So far we’ve completed three pilot programs and are evaluating feedback from participants. We're exploring what we’ve learned about the effectiveness and possibilities of online and blended training. And we’re wrestling with how to better meet the needs of our very diverse audience, deal with the constraints on their time and encourage greater online participation. We’re also looking at how to use online tools to facilitate distance coaching.

I’d love to hear from other folks who are using online learning to deliver or augment “soft-skills” training (would also like to see examples). I have to go now, but will try to write more later. Thanks for hosting this forum! - Joanne

Hello all.

Asynchronous Communication is also possible using the SimChicago system http://www.SimChicago.com

There are a number of features like e-mail and even instant messaging, but the most important is file sharing. You can sign up for a free account and download the software, again for free. You will get folders on the server, one private (only you have access) and shared (you can share it with other SimChicago users). You can store any type of file you wish.

Again, it is currently available in Chicago (http://www.SimChicago.com), Houston (http://www.SimHouston.com) and Indiana (http://www.SimIndiana.com). It is also available (or soon to be available) in parts of South America and in Japan.

If anyone has any questions, please reply here or feel free to call me at (312) 558-1784 or e-mail me at steveb@simchicago.com

Thanks again for this opportunity to share and to learn!

A belated Hello! I just tuned in to this discussion today so my introduction is a bit late.

I am the Community Outreach Worker at PovNet an online service for anti-poverty advocates. I work with Penny who introduced herself yesterday.

I also am an online facilitator for PovNetU,our education and training arm. I have co-designed and facilitated 3 online advocacy courses and am just beginning a new project to design and pilot a course for self help advocates.

We have used asynchronous communication in all the sessions. I agree with most who say asynchronous communication allows for more "thoughtful" discussions. The learners and tutor can spend time crafting their remarks so the discussion may be more organized and thorough. What's more, as someone else remarked today, you are more likely to say what you mean if you have time to compose.

But, it can be slow and that can lead to a lot of dead air space - leading to boredom with the course. Even though coordinating times can be a problem for adult learners, I am willing to try real time discusssions to see how it works.

I have found that learners need to be encouraged and nurtured. I find that regular reminders to non-posters is helpful and does add to the traffic on the discussion list. The added bonus of a "certificate of completion" for those who complete all exercises and meet the minimun number of weekly posts tends to beef up the number of posts!...db