With so much emphasis on online education these days, good communication is essential. Often, intentions and attitudes are misconstrued due to the limits of a typed ' conversation.'

Educause Quarterly has published an interesting study on methods to improve non-verbal education.

The study is quite fascinating, with thoughts and tips both educators and students should consider:

Nonverbal communication adds nuance or richness of meaning that cannot be communicated by verbal elements alone. Given time and experience, some of the same richness of real-time, face-to-face communication can occur in a virtual, text-based medium. The following actions can foster this virtual communication.

• Encourage the use of nonverbal elements. More encouragement and use of nonverbal support in the orientation and emergence phases of group building can aid in building rapport in groups.

• Consider size when designing an online support group. In smaller groups, more students take an active part. They tend to want to express feelings as well as content.

• Develop incentives to encourage participation. Because of the voluntary nature of this course's chat, we could encourage participation but not give any incentives for taking part. This could have affected the nature of the contributions.

• Consider providing help for those new to the environment. A number of students logged on but took little or no part. Perhaps just as in real-time conversation, it is sometimes easier to wait and listen. However, it can also signify an unwillingness to enter unfamiliar territory.