Learning or Communication?

I am starting with a post from a blog found at http://www.distance-educator.com/blog/saba/?p=6. The blog considers the meaning of asynchronous and synchronous learning versus asynchronous and synchronous communication.

The blogger posed a question regarding students who experience delayed interaction due to a number of reasons. I can only imagine the reasons the blogger was thinking of...

...the student is late for a F2F class session, and struggles to catch up when he arrives, asking his friend what page, what chapter is being discussed, etc.

...the student who sits in a F2F class session, obviously not engaged by the activity taking place around her, doodling on a sheet of paper, or writing a to-do-list for after class.

...the students working in a chemistry lab, who experience a delay in their interaction with the content due to a series of equipment malfunctions with their microscopes.

Are these students considered asynchronous learners?

I don't think so. The delay in interaction wasn't planned for by the instructor or course designers when planning the course. There was no careful consideration of the activities that would be taking place, and no conscious decision to select an asynchronous technology to use to maximize the potential of the activity. If I were going to revise line 1 of the definition, I would revise it in the following way:

Line 1: Asynchronous learning- any learning event where interaction is planned to be delayed over time and use appropriate asynchronous technologies.

Having reached the end of the blog, I can see that the blogger is advocating for the use of the term asynchronous communication instead of asynchronous learning, and likewise, synchronous communication rather than synchronous learning. The blogger claims that they are not forms of learning, but forms of communication, which I guess would connect them to the technologies used.

I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree with the blogger. I'll have to do some more reading and check back again later.

Sarah