Unless I’ve missed something important, there seem to be three distinct uses for real-time online commmunications. The following table represents a first attempt at clarifying the discriminating characteristics of these three:
| Web meetings | Webinars | Virtual classrooms | |
| Primary purpose | To solve problems and make decisions | To share ideas and experiences | To facilitate learning |
| Secondary purposes | To provide updates | To promote the speaker or organiser | None |
| Face-to-face equivalent | A short business meeting | A session at a seminar or conference | A classroom session |
| Who’s in charge? | The chair of the meeting | The host and/or presenter | The teacher / trainer |
| Typical activities | Presentation of situation updates and proposals; discussion of proposals; decision-making; action planning | Presentation of ideas and experiences; demonstrations; polling of audience opinion; Q&A; discussion; participant-to-participant text chat (back channel) | Ice breakers; presentation of formal content; software demos (for IT training); group exercises and activities; discussion; formative and summative assessment |
| Visual focus | Participant webcams; shared documents; slides | Slides; presenter webcam; text chat; polls; website tours | Slides; electronic whiteboard; questions/polls; shared applications; website tours; text chat |
| Auditory focus | Participants’ vocal contributions | Host / presenters’ voices; possibly also participants’ vocal contributions | Teacher/trainer’s voice and participants’ vocal contributions |
| Most frequently used interactive devices | Voice; text chat | Voice; text chat; polls | Voice; text chat; electronic whiteboard; questions/polls; application sharing; break-out rooms |
| Tangible outputs | Agreed actions / minutes | Recordings; participant feedback | Recordings; participant feedback; assessment scores |
If you believe there are other, distinct forms, or feel you could refine or add to this table, I’d love to hear from you.