• allow people to connect together at each person's own convenience and own schedule.
• useful for sustaining dialogue and collaboration over a period of time and providing people with resources and information that are instantly accessible, day or night.
• advantage of being able to involve people from multiple time zones.
• helpful in capturing the history of the interactions of a group, allowing for collective knowledge to be more easily shared and distributed.

• require some discipline to use when used for ongoing communities of practice (e.g., people typically must take the initiative to "login" to participate)
• may feel "impersonal" to those who prefer higher-touch synchronous technologies

• Discussion Boards

Discussion Boards within Blackboard (WebCT) but also maybe in a Wiki for a discussion board within a group in Facebook.
Examples in Training Sandpit

• VoiceBoard

Within Blackboard (WebCT) but using voice rather than writing.
Examples in Training Sandpit

• Journal

Within Blackboard (WebCT) or could use a blog as a journal tool.
Examples in Training Sandpit

• Blog

Can use to collect resources/evidence or a journal tool - within WebCT or outside (wordpress, edublogs, blogger, blogspot).

(from www.commoncraft.com)

Check out the Blogs page on the wiki.

• Email

Email within WebCT, Groupwise or other email system (eg google, hotmail).

• Twitter

Use of hashtags.


(from www.commoncraft.com)

Check out the twitter page on the wiki.

• SMS

Mobile Technology - also using SMS function in WebCT (still currently on trial)

Check out the Mobile Phones page on the wiki

• Synchronous tools possess the advantage of being able to engage people instantly and at the same point in time.

• they require same-time participation - different time zones and conflicting schedules can create communication challenges.
• they tend to be costly
• may require significant bandwidth to be efficient
• needs fairly good technical expertise
  

• Virtual Classroom (eg Elluminate)

See WebCT shell for Facilitate in Elluminate

• Skype

(from sayitvisually.com)

Skype
Skype Screen Sharing
Pamela for Skype

• Second Life

Virtual Environments Enable New Models of Learning from Second Life Website

• Live Chat

Can be done through Blackboard (WebCT)