#3. Review of Synchronous and Asynchronous CMC Tools

Please review one of the Synchronous CMC Tools AND one of the Asynchronous CMC Tools we looked at this week in class.  Please include the following in your blog post:

 

1) Brief descriptions of the tools and links to their websites

•  www.skype.com/: It is very useful site providing a good messenger and a application for smart phone. When you and your friends log in at the same time, you can have an opportunity to talk and chat face to face. If you pay communication expense for a certain period of time, you can call or send a text-message anyone who has a mobile phone even though you don’t have a phone, but you need to log in www.skype.com/.

• http://clear.msu.edu/teaching/online/ria/:  This site is for to motivate students to use this tool for improving their competence of language. If you are a teacher, you can record your voice and action and share that with your student. Also you can collect their project very easily. So it is very practical to appreciate some feedback on their work.  

2) Your thoughts about how the Synchronous CMC tool (skype) and the Asynchronous CMC (audio drop-box) tool (could support learning and the development of language skills.  Are there any similarities and differences in how they could support language learning?

 When you would like to utilize the Synchronous CMC in class, you need to ask students to make their own ID and password to log in and check recording tool like headset and webcam. The teacher can allow them to debate on the special subject or to do brainstorming for group work. Especially when they need to not only search and look into some material in jigsaw activity but also communicate with members of group, the Synchronous CMC tool can help students to save their time and work more economically. Because they can find something for group work as well as talk together. Therefore the Powerful point of the Synchronous CMC is to enable students do cooperative multitasking.

 

 When you would like to utilize the Asynchronous CMC in class, you need to tell how to use recording facilities. Because you tend to give them homework that is to make their own video or recordings. Compared with the Synchronous CMC, works from the Asynchronous CMC is more likely to be a individual project. Of course, if students can communicate on off-line and make project together in same place, the works can be cooperation projects.

 

 Both tools are sharing similarities. Firstly, that could provide organize large amounts of comprehensible input through both the Synchronous / Asynchronous CMC. Secondly, that would boost learning through comprehensible input by adding students’ own ideas. Thirdly that could train students in strategies that will contribute to language learning. It involves students to work on guessing from context, controlling the speaker, etc. Lastly that could provide opportunities for cooperative interaction. On the other hand, there are some differences between two kinds of tools. The Synchronous CMC tool tends to focus on supporting and pushing learners to produce spoken or written output in a variety of appropriate applications. By contrast the asynchronous CMC is more likely to use analysis, monitoring and assessment to help learners’ language and communication needs.

 

 

3) Some of your ideas of possible activities and ways that the tools could be used in a language class to supplement in-class content and instruction

 

  <Interview>: The teacher can ask students to log in the Synchronous CMC tool at the same time. And the teacher provide small-scale questions and get students involve to interview each others.

 

  <Visit and listen>: The teacher and the learners visit a place outside the school such as a zoo, a factory, a special school, or a fire station. They take notes and record video during the visit and when they return to the school, they upload their materials with using the Asynchronous CMC tool. And they share their experience about the visit.