What do the terms “real-time” and “asynchronous” mean?
Real-time activities are “live” and immediate. In the context of an online course, a real-time session is one in which all participants are logged in at the same time and interacting at more or less the same pace as they would in a face-to-face setting. A familiar example of real-time communication on the Internet is live chat. Asynchronous activities, on the other hand, are those in which participation is not concurrent or live. One member of the class, for example, might post a message in the morning, and another might not read or respond to it until later that day or even several days later. Electronic mail is the most common form of asynchronous communication, but there are many others as well. The course instructor usually determines the proportion of real-time and asynchronous communication in an online course. Some instructors may require a certain number of pre-scheduled real-time sessions, while others may organize their classes completely around asynchronous learning.
Real-time activities are “live” and immediate. In the context of an online course, a real-time session is one in which all participants are logged on at the same time and interacting at more or less the same pace as one would in a face-to-face setting. A familiar example of real-time communication on the Internet is live chat.
Real-time activities are “live” and immediate. In the context of an online course, a real-time session is one in which all participants are logged on at the same time and interacting at more or less the same pace as one would in a face-to-face setting. A familiar example of real-time communication on the Internet is live chat. Asynchronous activities, on the other hand, are those in which participation is not concurrent or live. One member of the class, for example, might post a message in the morning, and another might not read or respond to it until later that day or even several days later. Electronic mail is the most common form of asynchronous communication, but there are many others as well. The course instructor usually determines the proportion of real-time and asynchronous communication in an online course. Some instructors may require a certain number of pre-scheduled real-time sessions, while others may organize their classes completely around asynchronous learning to give t
