Rapid Instructional Design: Learning ID Fast and Right, 3rd Edition

Chapter 10

Synchronous e-Learning Design

This chapter will help you to

• Discuss various advantages, disadvantages, and myths concerning synchronous e-learning, and their basis in reality
• Determine when synchronous e-learning is the best delivery system to use
• Design, redesign, and repurpose materials for synchronous e-learning
• Repurpose leader guides and learner guides for the synchronous environment
• Create effective media for synchronous classes
• Effectively implement a synchronous e-learning class
• Differentiate between synchronous e-learning and online learning

............Synchronous e-learning, sometimes referred to as online learning, and more often currently as virtual classrooms, has been rapidly evolving into a delivery system of choice for many companies. This is partially due to its real advantages, and partially due to some perceived advantages that are not necessarily so, and that can cause a great deal of difficulty for you as an instructional designer.

ADVANTAGES

Its obvious major advantage is that neither learners nor the instructor needs to travel to a certain location to work together (“Getting Ready for Synchronous e-Learning” by Jennifer Hoffman in The AMA Handbook of e-Learning). Instead they interact through the mediation of a computer and computer network, most often using a specially designed software package. With synchronous designs you still have the ability to create learner-facilitator and learner-learner interactions, very much as in a classroom, ...