Synchronous communication blues

The 'highlight' of this week has been the Skype 'chat' with a group of six of us (the 'cool' group', chaired by Rory.It did take a fair while to get everybody 'on board', whether this was due to technical issues or just poor timing of some remained unclear. If however everybody adds the others to his/her contact list then this should not happen second time round.This has been my first encounter with such a live event as in the past I stayed well clear of IM and chat rooms assuming that this was more an area for bored teenage girls to hang around.So it is perhaps not too surprising that I found it a dramatically different experience to the discussion board from the previous week; it felt fast and furious, spontaneous and witty, disjointed in places and dialogical in others.It certainly feels like 'speaking' but with a handicap - the typing.Having been through this I'm not so sure about its usabiltiy and effectiveness as a teaching tool.However there are other synchronous communication tools out there which work in a quite different mode.There is of course the 'VoIP' version of Skype where the dialogue could be held in a more traditional way. However the 'phatic cues' will still be missing.Alternatively one could use video-enabled chat as in Skype or MS Live Messenger; here one would obtain visual cues but with some time-delay. This benefit may be offset by the destraction from the conversation coming from the talking head(s) in little windows.Finally there are of course the 'Virtual Worlds' which are essentially chat rooms (or IM comms if one chooses a one-to-one format). The emphasis here is transfered back on the text-side of communication with the avatars providing some but limited destraction.As added bonus though is the possibility of 'role play' or immersionism' which, depending on the context of the particular event, may provide some added impetus.It may be interesting to compare and contrast the perception and experiences of these live commication tools by the group in the coming weeks.