What are synchronous on-line courses like?

None of the on-line courses I took so far were synchronous. Deadlines appeared at the end of the week and I could complete work anytime within the week.

I am considering taking some courses, but found the school and program requires me to sign in at a certain time each week. What is a typical format for a synchronous course like? Is that usually like a live video lecture?

 

I did 4 classes through Harvard Extension School that was synchronous. We meet in the evenings once a week at a fix time. I was using Adobe connect and blackboard collaborate for the different classes. Stuff that would usually go on, lecturer would have an open discussion and everyone takes turns to chip in. There's a 'raise hand' feature if you need to voice your opinions. There's an option to break into smaller 'groups' for discussions and you type out a small presentation that can be screen through the platform for everyone else to see - and you present your case. My experience of a 'live lecture' is when the prof would show a couple of slides and go through with us.



It's like this. the left hand would be the list of students inside etc etc, the main screen is where you show your work and present to everyone. synchronous classes follow a strict weekly schedule so if you can't really commit, you might want to reconsider. it's really like a physical class except you do it online through a platform. I'm just relating my experience at HES, others might have different experiences of synch-classes.

Good luck !

 

Thanks for the detailed description! I think my computer would be too old to handle that. Do students use their keyboards to communicate, or microphones?

 

Both. You have the option to type and it shows up on the chat screen, or just speak through the mic.
My 8 year old laptop couldn't handle the load. lol.
I had to use my 2 year old macbook to do it.

 

I have a big "ditto" here. My experience with Cumberlands has been the same. I enjoy it. I teach online courses that have "voluntary" synchronous components. If students can make it, great. If not, no big deal. We use Blackboard Collaborate as well, and the great thing about it is that you can record sessions, and then students can log on and view them later.

-Matt

 

I did 1 class through Harvard Extension semi-synchronous. I hated it. There were some reasons, but mostly because it was too hard for me to carve out that specific time for lecture and group. Lecture was live-stream, however we could opt to watch it the following day if we wanted. The benefit to watching it live was the chat feature with our TAs. The group sessions we were required to attend were synchronous as well, but just chat. At group, the chat feature (how bad could it be?) was a nightmare. Too many people, no ability to follow discussions going on, people type slow...just all over the place. Group has fewer than a dozen people, so I can't imagine what that would be like in a larger class. Participation level was ok. That was around 2009.

I was a faculty observer of a new (then) technology class through my community college called ICN (Iowa Communications Network- fiber optics) which was essentially live streaming to multi-campuses. In a word: awkward. you had to push your button to talk, there were strange long pauses. You never knew if people could hear you. Remember "party line" phone calls in the 80's? It was like that, but in 1995.

I feel like it shouldn't be this hard to reimagine technology for this kind of teaching method, but in both cases it felt clumsy to me. I don't know, maybe your school is good at it? I'd be hesitant to try it again if I'm being honest.

EDIT: My class HES wasn't like Nyvrem's however I've done webinars exactly like that. Once as a moderator and twice as a guest. The platform name escapes me. Didn't like it either. Maybe it's just me.