A tutor's guide to teaching and learning at UQ - TEDI - University of ...

Section 4: eLearning 43Chat roomsChat rooms are a synchronous communication mechanism. This means that toparticipate everyone needs to be online at the same time. If there are large numbers ofstudents involved chat rooms can be difficult for students who cannot type very quicklyand/or are from a non-English speaking background. They can be used for many of thesame types of activities as discussion forums. If students are working on a collaborativeproject and don’t usually see each other face-to-face, they can be a good tool forstudents to utilise to get some decisions made quickly or do a group brainstorm.EmailEmail is also a mode of non-synchronous communication. Although you may sendemails to the whole group, you are likely to receive individual emails from students.If they are all asking the same questions you may be better to get them to direct suchenquiries to a discussion forum (bulletin board) where you can then answer to the wholegroup.There are a number of innovative educational uses for email –for example ‘emailgames’ (see link in the resource area below).ListservsA LISTSERV is a program that disseminates information via email to special interestand professional groups. People usually send an email to subscribe to the group andalso have the option to unsubscribe. Listservs can be an excellent way of locatinginformation from communities of practice on a global basis. The way the listserv is setup is important – you don’t want to be flooded by emails every day – so look at theoptions for managing your mail.BlogsA blog or ‘weblog’ is basically an online journal that a single or multiple participantscontribute to based around some kind of special interest or purpose. Blogs have beenfound to be useful for sharing information and opinions and can be incorporated into arange educational activities.