E-Conferencing for Instruction: What Works?

42 Instructors have many tools to consider when offering online courses: chat rooms, discussion boards, and interactive Web environments, to name a few. The selection of applications for instructional purposes can be a complicated task as the number available grows. Not only must the application work, but it also must have a pedagogical purpose or serve an instructional requirement. The investigation reported here looked at synchronous online application selection in the e-conferencing environment. We studied 23 instructors who used e-conferencing in their courses for two semesters. The instructors were surveyed to determine which tools proved effective in accomplishing specific instructional tasks. Although the project is ongoing, this preliminary research provides a framework for future studies and for implementation in other learning environments. A forthcoming paper will describe the overall effectiveness and impacts of this project.