The field of online learning is so broad that it defies responsible generalization. The canonical "online course" is one where all interaction between students, their professor(s), and course content takes place over the internet. Outside of the odd phone call or even face-to-face office meeting, the course is conducted online and mediated through internet-based resources.

But arguably, many face-to-face (F2F is a common acronym, and we'll use it in this course) courses have at least some online components that did not simply replace some pre-internet, pre-digital actvity. Between an online and F2F course lies a spectrum of coursework that involves some work online, and some in a classroom or other setting that Anthrozoology professor Paul Waldau playfully calls "primate-to-primate." Often, courses that involve a mix of substantial online and F2F components are called blended or hybrid courses.

If we can graph the online-F2F range as an X axis, we might consider synchronisity a Y-axis. Some courses online are fully asynchronous, meaning there are no components where students and faculty must be present at the same time, either in a brick-and-mortar space, or a virtual space on the web, such as a web meeting or conference. These are more flexible, since students must meet deadlines but need not schedule meeting times on their calendars. By contrast, synchronous courses have some regular meeting times. For example, a fully-online course is highly synchronous if the professor and students convene a web meeting each week on Thursday at 6:00 pm. While the students might be scattered all over the world, they must be at a place and time each week on the internet. Again, there's a range: a professor might insist students meet weekly (or more frequently) in a web meeting, or might wish students to attend only, say, three web meetings in a fifteen week semester.

Synchronous Web meetings inject a lot of warmth and personality into a course. You and your students see and hear each other, somewhat similar to a F2F class. On the other hand, if your students are busy professionals or parents, you might spare them having to join weekly web meetings, and find other ways to make yours and their human presence felt in the class.