By Deborah Adams and Ashley Carbone
Florida Virtual School
Social Studies Instructors Connecting with students online is only possible through communication, which exists on many levels in the online classroom. Both student-to-teacher and student-to-student communications are essential parts of online education. Types of communication can be divided into two categories: synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous communication is interaction that happens immediately. Some examples include a telephone call, chat session, whiteboard session, or an instant message. Asynchronous communication is contact that can wait. Examples include Email, discussion question, or voice mail messages. Teachers work to engage collaborative learning among students and to support independent learning by each student. Student team projects are formed in classes. By the end of the project, they have chatted, emailed, and spoken on the phone with each other as well as their teacher several times. With synchronous and asynchronous communication, the opportunities of connecting with students are endless in online education. They connect through many ways of assistance.
