Asynchronous communication means that communication that can occur at different times that are convenient to the participants, so students’ schedules do not impede communications. This kind of communication includes email, mail list (listserv), and discussion. Let’s talk about email first. Electronic mail which is commonly called Email is becoming more and more popular to the internet users. It is offered by the ISP (internet service provider), the ISPs normally have servers and they set some space from their servers as email space. Internet users can access their servers through the internet, and they are allowed to register an account on their servers. These accounts are just like the mail boxes in real life. And each account comes with a pass word which is very similar to the key to a mailbox in real life. If an email user want to open his or her email box, he or she just need to access the sever and input the account name and pass word. As soon as the users get into their email accounts, they can read, delete, send, and/or even print emails. They can check their email as long as they can access the server in which their email accounts are. If the users do not have time to check their emails, the emails will stay in the server until they delete them. So this kind of communication is not synchronized. By the way, an email user can send one email to a group at one time, and also a group of people can subscribe to a certain email address and thereafter whenever they send email is going to everyone in the listserv (also called mail list). Email address is like youaccount@severname.net (or .com, or .org, etc).Second, discussion is another kind of asynchronous communication. Normally, the ISPs offer some space to the users to post some questions or information that allow other people to comment on or discuss about. Users can set the discussion anonymously or only open to a certain group of people. Or user can set the discussion to be private or public.
According to the book, the most popular email is Microsoft Outlook tools, however, I do not think so. The most popular email should be internet email that offered by some websites, such as yahoo, goggle, or others. And the most popular discussion types are BBS (bulletin board system), Facebook, ect. In fact, nowadays discussion can be both asynchronous and synchronous.
Synchronous communication means that communication that occurs at the same time, that is, the communicators should be online at the same time so that the communication can occur. This kind of communication includes chats and videoconferencing. Chats are offered by some ISPs and some internet sites that set aside a space in which two or more people can meet at a real time online. They can post what they want to say on the server which will be seen by everyone in that chatting group. This is like people talk together in the real life. Furthermore, ISPs provide chat rooms for people to have a private chat. And also there is another form of chat, called instant messaging (IM); this is a one-to-one chat that can be started whenever another user is online. The videoconferencing is very popular recently, which was from the idea that text, graphics can be delivered through internet, so can live voice and video images be as well. This kind of technology is becoming more advanced today. It is used very widely in business.
All these kinds of communication are used in education nowadays. For example, email is a very important tool for teachers now. Normally, students in one class will have an email list and they can discuss questions or share information. Teacher can also use email list to inform students assignments or reminder them to submit assignments. And also teachers can answer questions through email after class if necessary. Discuss board is also a good board to discuss questions and chat room offers more opportunities to have some private communication. Students can even find a study partner outside of the class, the school, or even outside of the country. I do not think videoconferencing is used a lot in classrooms in nowadays, however, it will be more powerful in the future in education area.
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Great article! I may have learned more from your interpretation than from the book. In my classroom, we do not really use these types of communication. The nature of the alternative school doesn't allow me to let my students chat or send email to other people. I do, however, use these tools in my personal and professional life. As you know, we are all familiar with email and listserv! I also use instant messaging to keep in touch with friends that live out of state - it sure beats paying for long distance phone calls! Both synchronous and asynchronous communication plays a vital role in my everyday life, from research to fun. I don't know how I ever made it without these tools!
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