Communication is the exchange of ideas, information and messages, as by speech,
visual, signals, behavior and writing.
Collaborative technology is defined as a technology designed to
allow a group of people to achieve common goal or to complete a common task.
So, I think collectively Communication and collaborative
technologies means technological tools used to communicate with each other for
personal or business application. Nowadays, such tools are wildly used in business
due to need of such a flexible communication system.
Choosing a tool for supporting our communication activities
depends on type of communication we want to do. Communication is divided into
two types:-
· Synchronous communication-means both sender and receiver
are communicating at the same time. In other words, it means you are sending a
message and receiving a reply message at the same time. E.g. - phone conversation,
Video conferencing (Skype, Google talk, Yahoo messenger), instant messaging.
· Asynchronous communication-means sender and receiver
are communicating at different times. In other words, it means sending of the
message and receiving of the message does not happen at the same time. E.g. -
voice mail, e-mail, discussion forms, blogs, and Google forums.
After knowing type of communication, we have to
select an appropriate tool for communication. Various collaborative tools are grouped
as follows:-
·
E-mail, instant messaging
·
Blogs, podcasts and wikis
·
Voice conferencing
· Video conferencing and video phones
· Web conferencing
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