Hi Peter,
Yes – using the optional tool and including a forum and chat is one way to go, but it still might be better to just set a forum followed by a chat in the sequence – or vice versa - because students will be locked out of either option after clicking ‘finished’.
As the note says when you bring up optional activities:
Note: When you finish this set of optional tasks, you will only be able to revisit those individual tasks that you have completed. Any task that you have not completed will no longer be viewable for the rest of this sequence. If you wish to be able to come back to any (or all) tasks at a later stage, you must first complete them individually here before you click Finish for the overall set of optional tasks.
You can always just have a sequence that is a chat, one tool, or a forum, one tool.
In a number of distance education courses I’ve been involved with we’ve given students the opportunity to use chat when they want with great results - they just have to organize themselves to be online at the same time. One of our case study groups last year (Year 7 High School, gifted and talented students) did a LAMS sequence remotely as homework and managed to sort out chat meeting times themselves.
Some students of course may never take up the opportunity to use chat if it's optional – but it gives choice and supports different learning styles and needs which is good.
Re difference between chat and forum:
Chat is ‘live’ discussion, and good for helping motivate students – it gives a sense of immediacy, it’s usually fun, good place to build ideas – it gives a sense of belonging to a group that helps the dynamics of online study.
We’ve had outside experts (national and international) visit chat sessions –sometimes responding to questions students have posed on the forum prior to the chat session. The students have really enjoyed this – one course I’m thinking of is a fully online theatre studies course.
The forum is good where you can’t all be on line at the same time, you want more considered reflection or structure.
If you want to assess discussion I would be much more likely to assess a forum than chat – chat is very much a process tool.
(Sorry this is a bit long. Robyn)
Posted by Robyn Philip
