Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. This is Linda with the eLearning and Instructional Support Team. This video is about two forms of online content delivery, asynchronous and synchronous. In this video, I will help you understand what these two terms mean and how they relate to eLearning. I'll share some of the benefits and concerns for both and show you some examples of asynchronous activities you can use in your class. Most people see eLearning as complex, interactive instruction, but in its basic form, eLearning is the use of electronic technologies to create learning experiences. We can break down eLearning, or any type of learning for that matter, into two main types, synchronous and asynchronous. Synchronous learning is a learning event where the learner and instructor are in the same place at the same time. So a face-to-face class is synchronous. When it comes to online instruction, meeting with your class in a web conferencing room allows for synchronous learning to take place. Of course, asynchronous is simply defined as not being synchronous, where there is no timing requirement for transmission of information. Mostly everything we do in an online course is asynchronous. So to review, discussion board activities, email, articles, and images posted in your course's learning management system are asynchronous. One good way to look at your course is having three main categories of activities for your students. AbsorbDoConnect is a formula for eLearning introduced by William Horton that is very popular today and has proven to be a successful formula for organizing activities in a course, whether face-to-face or fully online. According to Horton, Absorb activities inform and inspire. Absorb activities provide motivated learners with current information needed to do their jobs or continue their learning. In Absorb activities, learners read information, listen to a lecture, or watch a video. These activities may sound passive, but they can be active components of learning. While Absorb activities provide information, Do activities transform that information into knowledge and skills. In Do activities, learners apply knowledge by drilling and practicing, engaging in hands-on activities such as case studies and guided analysis, and participating in team activities, games, or simulations. Connect activities help learners close the gap between learning and the rest of their lives. They prepare learners to apply learning in situations they encounter in their personal lives. Additional learning efforts end at work through discussions, group critique, guided research, or rhetorical questions. If you go to Horton.com, you will find very thorough examples of Absorb, Do, and Connect activities that you can use in your class under eLearning examples. We recommend using a combination of asynchronous and synchronous content delivery, with an emphasis on using asynchronous for Absorb activities and a combination of asynchronous and synchronous for the Do and Connect. The advantages of learning online are many. Here are a few reasons why people take online courses as listed in an article by the Open Education Database. Variety of programs and courses, lower total costs, more comfortable learning environment, convenience and flexibility, more interaction, the ability to continue in profession life responsibilities, career advancement, greater ability to concentrate, improve technical skills, and avoid commuting. Of the ones listed, the three that stand out to me, convenience, interaction, and continuing in profession and life responsibilities, all require asynchronous instruction. There are many benefits of asynchronous learning. First and foremost, people tend to take online classes because they are primarily asynchronous. Learners have the benefit of being able to attend their class when they have available time. It doesn't matter which time zone a student is in because they have the entire week to complete the tasks put before them. From my experience as an instructional designer and an online student, the most problems I've seen in online courses center around communication. You must have clear instructional design, communicate your expectations clearly, and provide timely feedback, or else students can feel disconnected. Synchronous allows you to interact with your class in real time, which is helpful for group activities, live discussions, student presentations, and case studies. Problems with synchronous are much more difficult to resolve. As an instructor, you can't control that your students will be in different time zones, which makes scheduling a synchronous session that meets everyone's needs difficult. It can also be difficult to plan meetings around holidays, family responsibilities, et cetera, so that everyone can attend. Accessibility is a huge factor with synchronous. A person using a screen reader to access a meeting may get into the meeting. However, the materials you are posting cannot be read by that screen reader, causing the blind or visually impaired student to miss out on valuable instruction. So all the benefits of online learning that we discussed, particularly flexibility, convenience, allowing the learner to conduct their life and take classes around it, are removed when asynchronous learning is utilized as the primary or only method of instruction. You might be thinking at this point that asynchronous isn't very interactive. Well I have an example that can prove otherwise. The example is VoiceThread. VoiceThread is an online presentation tool that allows people to discuss media by making comments that combine voice, video, or text, and annotations. People participate whenever and wherever they want. These conversations aren't live, they just feel that way. VoiceThread is already available in your Blackboard course, so be sure to try it out. As you prepare your online course, here are a few things to consider. Keep in mind the reasons students take online courses. Synchronous instruction should not be the only way you disseminate information to your students. There are many asynchronous tools available for use in your online class through Blackboard. Simplicity is crucial for all of your content delivery. I hope you found this video helpful. To learn more about how to develop your online course, email the eLearning and Instructional Support team at elearning at umb.edu.