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Assignment 5 Discussion – Conversational Differences Discuss some of the differences between a face-to-face conversation and an online conversation. What advice can we offer students that will help maintain the integrity of online conversations in an online classroom? Be specific.

Conversations: Online and Face-to-Face Comparison  In this assignment, I will compare online and face-to-face conversation. Different learning strategies need to be used. In addition, advice will be offered to help learners maintain online conversations with integrity.  One of the challenges to online communication is the lack of visual facial expression, tone and pitch. An online instructor will need to develop strategies to compensate for these differences in comparison to traditional face-to-face conversation. One aspect in common for both types of instructors is to clearly convey expectations to the students. Participation is a must. The online participants must be responsible to rely to weekly posted discussions in writing. The traditional learners can simply raise their hand in the teacher’s presence and be acknowledged as a participant. Advice to online learners is to respond in writing to both professor and peers in a dignified respectful manner. This level of professional approach will go a long way toward positive feedback and accomplishment of the tasks at hand (Bender, 2003).  Conversation in the traditional classroom has set times of meetings which are traditionally during the week day. On the other hand the online classroom conversation may have a project due date or discussion thread among team learners which falls on the weekend. One can clearly see the flexibility of the online classes’ time frame. In the case of the online learner who is scheduled to respond on the weekend there may be a religious belief that may prevent these learners from participating in the discussion or meeting the assignment due dates. For example, various learners practice their in Sabbaths’ on different days. Some may participate on Sunday others on Saturday. My advice to online team leaders and instructor is to take into consideration the fact that there may be learners who cannot participate on particular days due to their religious beliefs. The online community must recognize that to set meeting dates that are not flexible may interfere with ones religious practice.  There is clearly a difference in learning with regards to online and face-to- face learning regarding technology. The traditional learner in general does not need to be concerned with technology integration. It is essential for the online learner to be familiar with technology integration. My advice for the online learner would be to make sure that a prerequisite course is taken which would provide the technology know how with regards to online learning (Palloff, & Pratt, 2005).

 References Bender, T. (2003). //Discussion-based online teaching to enhance student learning: Theory,// // practice and assessment. //Sterling, Virginia: Stylus Publishing. Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2005). //Collaborating online: Learning together in community.// San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.