Limitations of Synchronous e-learning

The next two posts will outline some of the important contentious issues with synchronous e-learning and a few of the main benefits. After reading these posts, I hope you are better able to make an informed decision about whether the benefits out-weigh the negatives and whether to use synchronous e-learning in your classroom.

Studies that have tried to determine which e-learning style is ‘better’ (synchronous or asynchronous) have generally yielded ‘no significant differences’. Thus, it is more important to work out when, why and how to use different types of e-learning (Hrastinski, 2008). It is also important to remember that users determine how they will use each medium, so often the differences between synchronous and asynchronous e-learning is negligible. Nonetheless, it is worth looking at the positives and negatives of each to determine which style is better suited to how you like to learn and how your students learn.

I have broken down the limitations regarding synchronous e-learning into three main components: problems with technology, lack of flexibility, no time to think/reflect (quantity rather than quality).

Technology:

Anyone who has been involved in a Skype chat session will be aware of the problems that can arise: difficulty hearing, people talking over each other, line ‘dropping out’, background noise, etc. These tend to lead to halted conversations and participant frustrations (perhaps leading to a keyboard through the monitor...). It is often difficult to continue a conversation for more than five minutes. I am sure that everyone could tell similar stories about technology problems in their schools and classrooms. I lost count of the times a student ‘forgot their password’ or the system was down. Without the proper technological structures in place, e-learning – and in particular synchronous e-learning – is nearly an impossible task.

Furthermore, the advance of e-learning in developed countries inevitably increases the ‘digital divide’ which is already so apparent. The growth of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), globalization and the digital divide likewise, have together put new pressures on developing countries to accelerate their development to meet these demands (Paul T. Nleya, 2009). This puts further pressure on struggling economies and educational systems.

Lack of flexibility:

One of the major benefits of e-learning is that it allows for flexible study. You can fit study around your other responsibilities and just jump online when it best suits. E-learning has made distance education possible. For example, Open Universities Australia allows students to ‘study online and graduate with a degree from a leading Australian University. With over 90 courses & 1000 units to study, there's something for everyone’. The problem with synchronous e-learning is that it is not ‘open’ in the sense that you can do it whenever you want. As I wrote in a previous post, synchronous e-learning imitates a classroom, connecting people via streaming audio, video or text through a chat room. The difference between this and regular study is that instead of going to class, the class comes to you via your computer.

No time to think/reflect, quantity rather than quality:

The time taken to reflect and think before responding to a statement or question is severely limited in a synchronous e-learning environment. In his research, Stefan Hrastinski found that in an asynchronous e-learning environment a person’s ability to process information is greatly increased. A receiver has more time to comprehend a message because an immediate response is not required. Therefore, people have time to find some more facts and do some research. Conversely, in a synchronous e-learning community, the focus is often on quantity rather than quality. Participants often write something down quickly before someone else writes a similar thing. Synchronous tools definitely enable communication, though communication does not necessarily mean that participants stay on task.

This idea of quantity rather than quality is expressed by Yun Jeong Park and Curtis J. Bonk (2007) who has found that some researchers have expressed concerns or are openly hesitant about available synchronous tools and choice options: for instance, Marjanonic (1999, p. 131) stated that “…the majority of synchronous collaborative tools enable communication (such as textbased chat systems or video teleconferencing) rather than... collaboration.”

These are just a few of the limitations of synchronous e-learning, though research suggests that the benefits of synchronous e-learning far outweigh the negatives. I will be looking at some of the benefits in my next post.