Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) are electronic tools that are used to create meetings with students without being face to face. These tools come in all different forms. They can be asychronous where "students read material and post discussions on their own time schedule" or synchronous where "students engage in online discussion that occurs in real time" (Paloff et al., 2001). CMC can come in many forms. These include WebCT, FirstClass, CentraOne, teleconference, streaming audio / video, and chat. The purpose of these tools is to develop a sense of community and to create a positive learning environment.

My preference for CMC is WebCT. It is useful for distributing course syllabus, expectations, and procedures. As well, it allows for posting discussions, class emails, and class chat. As for collaborative (synchronous) learning, I prefer using CentraOne as it allows for small group discussions. It also has a whiteboard used to report on notes made during group discussions. These tools used in combination allow students to read, post ideas during the asynchronous portion of the course and allow for discussion of the ideas in the during the synchronous portion of the course.