COMMUNICATION TOOLS

COMMUNICATION TOOLS

       Communication tools refer to three forms of electronic communication in distance education courses like e-mail, discussion groups, and other chat rooms. For example;  Facebook, WeChat, google meet, zoom and etc...

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How it helped me?

 It enables easy communication between the teacher and the students and among students beyond the physical barrier either by space, time or both of the classrooms. At this point, I learned a lot through communication tools during the pandemic situation. We were using various tools like, google docs, moodle, google meet, zoom, and other tools for the communication within ourselves as well with the tutors. It seems very effective as we can learn by connecting with everyone including the tutors through these communication tools and helps in clearing doubt as well as learning new things by communicating with one another. We can even see each other like in messenger and WeChat video calls whereby we are engaged in learning by keeping the track of every lesson. Moreover, we can even do our assignments through these tools by discussing collaboratively. Therefore, I learned a lot by using communication tools including the learning to use these tools at first and making use of it.

After knowing about the tool in more detail, I came to know that there are two types of communications;

1.            Synchronous communication

      

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  It is real-time in which users must be simultaneously connected, rather like a telephone call. It enables real-time communication. It even helps in solving urgent problems or issues by connecting with others. For examples; chat, telephone call, video conferencing.

 

    Mostly we use the easiest communication tools between our teachers and mates and the tools are effective and applicable in every way. For example, this is how we connect to one another in a video conference.

Difficulties of synchronous communication

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•   Multiple threads of discussion are difficult to follow
•   Slow connection distracts to keep the connection
•   Discussion lose the focus because of many side discussions
•   Quick comments are difficult to make 

     2.   Asynchronous communication

Unlike asynchronous, here it does not require the people communicating to be logged on the internet at the same time. It is more appropriate for the activities that require more time in thinking before responding. For example; we chat, G-mail, VLE discussion forum, blog, and many more.

Difficulties of asynchronous

• Discussion boards/ blogs/ vle posts fail to maintain the interest
• Checking the discussion boards/blogs/vle for posts is an additional task
• It discourages learner’s participation

How to use it in the classroom?

It is very important in learning because, without communication, the learning seems unauthentic and less effective however we referred the notes. Therefore, these tools are not only used for clearing doubts but also for submitting assignments and other activities. To use in the class, the teacher can create a group using any communication tools like, google meet, zoom, and messenger group or WeChat group for the discussion on any problems to be done. It is more of like face to face teaching where students need to watch and listen to the tutor. You can even make student submit their assignments through mails or in WeChat and Facebook. Teachers can even provide them with learning materials through mails which will be more convenient as well as effective learning will take place.