Teacher education: Modes of communication within asynchronous and synchronous communication platforms

New tools for teaching with distance education afford students with a variety of modes of communication. This study examined students' interactions during an online science education course. All interactions that took place with Elluminate Chat, Elluminate Voice, and Moodle learning platforms were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Interactions were coded according to the target of the interaction, the content, and the type of interaction (comment or question). Results showed that the different modes of interaction provided distinctly different opportunities for communication and served different purposes with the instruction. Furthermore, there were individual differences in students' behaviors across the communication modes. The implications of the study for synchronous and asynchronous distance education of teachers are discussed.