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Online Team Communication

Online Team Communication
Online learning is now a reality, with distributed learning and blended learning becoming more widely used in Higher Education (Whatley, 1999). Online learning has many advantages and disadvantages. Teamwork in online environments is becoming a widely used tool, whether it is in business or education. A team working together has more and better input than individuals working alone. This results in better ideas and decisions and higher quality output. Virtual teams are a good way to enable teamwork in situations where people are not sitting in the same physical office at the same time. The effective team-building requires the combination of clear team goals, empowerment, atmosphere of trust within the team, authentic participation of every member of team, innovative approach to work and ability to manage risks, proper leadership and ability to make the constructive changes.
Clearly defined goals and objectives are essential so that everyone understands the purpose and vision of the team. A team leader might be surprised at how many people do not know the reason they are doing the tasks that make up their jobs, much less what their team is doing. Everyone must be pulling in the same direction and be aware of the end goals. Empowerment in terms of team building is clear definition of roles and especially of leader's role and functions (Krell, 2007). Clearly defined roles help team members understand why they are on a team. When the members experience conflict, it may be related to their roles. Team members often can manage this conflict by identifying, clarifying, and agreeing on their individual responsibilities so that they all gain a clear understanding of how they will accomplish the team's goals. Another issue is the authentic participation. If communication is the most important team characteristic, participation is the second most important. Without participation, there is no team; there is just group of bodies. Authentic...