ICT as communicative tool

Communicative tools are systems that allow easy communication between teachers and students or between students outside the physical barrier classroom. It is including e-mails, electronic bulletin boards, chat, teleconference and any more. Students email, blog, chat to discuss a topic, dissect an issue, dialogue and interpreting each others’ information. They use the tool to collaborate and to produce a product consolidated from individual contribution.

There are two types of communicative tools. The first one is called a synchronous communicative tool which included chat or video conferences enabling the users a real time communication. It is normally used for instructional activities that require a higher level of interaction to make the students understand. It also helps solve urgent problems or issues at a faster rate and with more convenience and without the need to wait for it.

 

This was the time when we had a google meet with our tutor and talked on the communicative tool.

The difficulties of this communicative tool are mainly of the multiple threads of discussions. This makes it hard to keep track of the discussions that are going on. Then if people are situated in places where the internet connectivity is very slow, it makes the learner lose their enthusiasm. Sometimes the one discussion may lead to many other side discussions and this will make the lesson diverge from its objectives. Also those learners who are slow at typing will take time to type their comments and this will lead to further frustration. 

The second is called an asynchronous communicative tool. This is a system in which exchange of messages between people are not ‘live’ but somehow delayed. This type of tool is most appropriate for activities requiring more time to think before responding. For example, the virtual learning environment is easy to use as it is primarily text-based system and the learners can take their own time at exploring the question and posting a good answer.

The difficulties with this tool are the frequency of participation from the learners is minimized because somehow having the time to think and post and read other learner’s comments makes one lose the count of task and forget it. Another is the amount of times one needs to check on the discussion done is an additional task. The learners need to maintain a consistency with their participation in the discussion and sometimes this leads to them losing interest in learning.