Online Learning: Live Chat and Discussion Forum Comparison Analysis

This assignment delves into the comparison between live chat and discussion forums within the context of online learning, offering a student's perspective on their respective advantages. The author, a student, argues in favor of live chat, highlighting its real-time interaction and convenience, particularly for working students. The assignment references key literature to support the argument, including works by Dempsey (2017) and Suana et al. (2019), emphasizing the importance of instant communication and the ability to review chat transcripts. The author concludes that live chat offers a superior learning experience by facilitating knowledge transfer and providing a more immediate and personalized interaction for online students, making it a valuable tool for enhancing the overall online learning environment.

Running head: INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE LEARNING
INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE LEARNING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE LEARNING
Discussion
As a student of online course, live chat is typically more preferable than online
discussion forum. This is because, deadlines for discussion responses which fall within the
workweek tend to pose challenge for number of online students considering that most of them
are adult learners engaged in fulltime employment services. While live chat offers most cost-
effective solutions to global communication (Dempsey 2017). Furthermore, with continually
improving student and instructor interaction, live chat makes it extremely convenient for
current students to conveniently put forward their opinions or concerns. On the other hand, as
online student it can be highly difficult for working students to make constructive
contributions to their discussions related to week’s reading. However, to make it evocative,
lectures or any kind of content presentation requires to be submitted before the post which
does not really happen in online discussion forum.
While, being an online student, it is greatly useful to attend any session and access the
chat room by just clicking the Chat button on the left side of the screen. Since, written
transcripts are recorded to support chat sessions in majority of live chat sessions, chat session
instructors will be able to read transcripts of students even if the instructor does not remain
present with the student during live chat sessions (Suana et al. 2019). Thus, for online
student, live chat is more preferable to stay updated for knowledge transfer and deliver
information in real time. Moreover, live chat sessions create more of a one-to-one and
enhanced quality learning experience for online students.

2INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE LEARNING
References
Dempsey, P.R., 2017. Resource delivery and teaching in live chat reference: comparing two
libraries. College & Research Libraries, 78(7), p.898.
Suana, W., Distrik, I.W., Herlina, K., Maharta, N. and Putri, N.M.A.A., 2019. Supporting
Blended Learning Using Mobile Instant Messaging Application: Its Effectiveness and
Limitations. International Journal of Instruction, 12(1), pp.1011-1024.