A Model for Content and Communication Management in Synchronous Learning

Asynchronous web-based learning environments are not usually as interactive or adaptive compared to traditional classrooms. The use of synchronous communication tools may be a solution to recreating the link between students and professors. However, synchronous collaborative learning environments are often restricted to a set of communication tools and they do not offer any strategy to organize interactions and communications among users. This paper proposes a model called CCMS (Content and Communication Management System) to structure synchronous collaboration activities within a group of distributed learners. This model represents synchronous communications and organizes interactions in a way suitable for both network oriented implementations and pedagogical strategic development. This view aims to offer an understandable representation of synchronous collaborative activities for the different communities. This article provides the specifications for the implementation of a system according to our proposed model. It also analyses the drawbacks of some web-based learning environments and describes how the nature of the model provides new opportunities to overcome these problems. Upon implementation, educators would be able to structure communication and to define interaction strategies for their synchronous activities according to the representations of the object model.