Week 5 Synchronous and Asynchronous collaboration

Reflect on your own ability to collaborate in asynchronous and synchronous online environments . .for learning or for professional contexts.


"Synchronous online classes are those that require students and instructors to be online at the same time. Lectures, discussions, and presentations occur at a specific hour. All students must be online at that specific hour in order to participate." (Retrieved from:  http://www.elearners.com/online-education-resources/online-learning/synchronous-vs-asynchronous-classes/)  When I think about collaboration online I think about Google Docs.  When I was introduced to Google Docs, now called Google Drive, it stirred up such excitement within the online educational community because multiple users were able to log into the same document and add comments synchronously.  The Google drive documents allow the users to use the same document while they also are working on only one document rather than every student having their own document.

When I think about synchronous online environments I compare them to regular brick buildings that you have to drive to and be in class together. While you can do synchronous classes online, everyone still must be online at the same time.  Skype and other web conferencing tools allow the students to set up online chat sessions and to speak to each other at the same time from various locations throughout the world.

"Asynchronous classes are just the opposite. Instructors provide materials, lectures, tests, and assignments that can be accessed at any time." (Retrieved from:  http://www.elearners.com/online-education-resources/online-learning/synchronous-vs-asynchronous-classes/)  Asynchronous online environments are like the courses that I'm most familiar with both at Liberty University and University of Phoenix.  These are environments that allow the students to collaborate on projects using things like LiveBinders which allows multiple users to work in the same online environment but when their schedule permits. Blackboard is another tool that can be used for students to keep up with their schoolwork using email and message boards for communicating with each other. Asynchronous collaboration allows the users to leave messages for others and while the students may have to wait on their answers this method of learning can be most helpful to those who would benefit from a more flexible timed learning environment.