Trying synchronous activities is something I think I’ll put off until after I’ve made it through my first online class. I think it could be one of the best ways to bring a class together but one of the reasons students take online classes instead of f2f classes is because of the flexibility not to have a fixed schedule. Adding a requirement for students to be online at a certain time seems contrary to the desired scheduling flexibility, which is one of online’s advantages, but I may still try it in the future.
If you believe the studies, the majority of communication is body language closely followed by tone of voice, both of which are lost in emails, discussion boards, and most other asynchronous forms of communication. (Yes, I know there can still be a “tone” or “voice” in people’s written communication but it’s not the same as a live voice.) Thus, I think it would be nice to try synchronous activities but I’m hesitant to make them a requirement, although I may experiment with them at some point.
