Asynchronous Tools
Asynchronous is any learning event where interaction occurs intermittently with a time delay. This allows learners to participate according to their schedule, and be geographically separate from the instructor.
E-mails
The most popular and easiest used communication tool is e-mail. Tutors and students can e-mail their sessions back and forth. The critical aspect of e-mails is for the directors to set specific time limits for responses. The disadvantage is that there is no record of either what was said, how it was said or how much time was spent. Again, tutors could be asked to print the e-mail correspondence. If tutors and students use the e-mails within a course management systems (WebCT, Blackboard, eCollege and others) or NetTutor’s Q & A Center or WebBoard, the sessions are more secure and are readily available for the director to review.
Discussion
Boards
Even though discussion boards are not simultaneous, they can be interactive with students responding to each other. A discussion is like an ongoing e-mail that allows students to log in at different times, post ideas, ask questions or give their response to someone else’s comments. A threaded discussion consists of all the postings to a particular discussion topic.
For tutoring, a student can post a question on the discussion board and a tutor answers the question within a stated time period. It is open to other students to view because it may answer their questions or they may ask for further explanation. The discussion board has various names: discussion group, discussion forum, message board and online forum.
The Course Management Systems and AskOnline all have secure discussion boards within their platforms. NetTutor has an Archive Center, which lists previously answered questions and provides a keyword search of the database of questions.
WebBoard, browser-based, has been around since 1996 and is a secure message or discussion board with four modes of conference:
1) Read only where information in many forms including PowerPoint is posted,
2) General forum where anyone with a password can read and comment,
3) Members only forum where a select group is permitted to read and comment,
4) Moderated forum where all comments are read before they are posted.
The discussions can be viewed in a linear or threaded style. An outstanding feature is that discussion postings can be directly e-mailed to group members as they are posted on the discussion board. As members comment to their e-mails, those comments are posted on the discussion board, giving students two means of access to the discussion.
Text Book Resources
Textbook publishers now offer supplementary material online to students who have purchased their textbooks. The marketers of each publisher chooses which texts are prime for developed online materials so there is some unevenness in these materials. Typically, online materials can include chapter outlines, chapter summaries, self-assessment quizzes, chapter quizzes in all formats, notes, animations, interactive activities, electronic flash cards, crossword puzzles and games, like Concentration.
Almost all of the publishers offer resource web links to other related, helpful sites, some very interactive and many belonging to college/university sites. Access also varies with the company. Many of these materials are free just by registering.
Tutors should be aware of and encourage their students to use these free interactive exercises and help their students access them.
Bedford/St. Martin's offers students free access by only registering to its Online Research and Reference Aids including TopLinks, The Bedford Research Room, The St. Martin's Tutorial on Avoiding Plagiarism and Diana Hacker's Research and Documentation Online.
http://bedfordstmartins.com/toplinks
http://bedfordresearcher.com/research_log/login/login.cfm
http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/plagiarismtutorial/
http://www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/
Exercise Central includes diagnostic tests, practical tips, hundreds of exercise sets designed to help students improve their grammatical concepts and practice editing their work for problems with grammar, style, punctuation, and mechanics.
Houghton-Mifflin offers the following online study resources: flashcards, interactive periodic table for chemistry, glossaries, key terms, practice tests and interactive tutorials. Students need a password which comes with the textbooks they purchase.
McGraw-Hill, allowing free student access to their texts, has developed an Online Learning Center for almost every one of its texts. Each chapter has a variety of activities - many of which are animations and interactive exercises. Math Zone, requiring a login, offers a series of video clips of professors teaching specific math topics by chapter.
Townsend Press offers an Online Exercise Center supplying exercises and quizzes in grammar usage, vocabulary and reading accompanying their textbooks in these areas.
http://www.townsendpress.net/apps/tpexercises/
Wadsworth-Thomson provides fun activities with their resource links. Their strong point is WebTutor e-packs for WebCT, Blackboard and eCollege through which teachers can post numerous tutorial activities including summary content, quizzes, web links, discussion topics, interactive games (bingo, quiz shows, concentration, crossword puzzles, interactive flash cards with audio), animated graphics, interactive videos and exercises.
Frequently Asked Questions: (FAQ)
FAQ’s are a compilation of answers to questions that have been asked repeatedly of tutors.
Tutorials
Many web sites have skills and drills for learning and practicing languages - French, Spanish, German, and English as a Second Language. The science subjects abound with online animations and videos explaining the principles and theories of the topic.
The following steps can be taken to find a variety of tutorials.
1. Use a search engine, like Google.
2. Enter: " 1 tutorial" with 1 being the subject - Spanish, physics, or ESL or any other subject. Using quotation marks will ensure that all the words enclosed within the quotations will be searched as a unit.
3. Explore the various sites listed as to their applicability.
Examples are too numerous to list and the URL addresses can change often. Of course, some sites present more accurate information than others.
