A friend of mine enrolled in an online degree program this year, which is primarily asynchronous. As a life-long and avid reader, she is also a strong writer.
When she began the course, she emailed me with the subject line “idiots” to say that all her classmates were frustrating her to no end. They didn’t engage with her at an educated level, she complained. One of her classmates wrote an essay riddled with grammatical errors, and she was appalled to have to give feedback on it. And the professor, she complained, wasn’t holding the class to high enough standards.
Her reaction made me feel both sad and angry. I could understand her frustration, but it bothered me to know that her classmates were not idiots. In all likelihood, they were simply inexperienced writers.
I wrote back (some of this is paraphrased, and any identifying information has been removed or altered):

“I am really sad to hear how annoyed you feel toward your fellow students. About the paper with the poor grammar, sure, the student’s writing is sub-par, and her paper topic needs a complete rewrite, but more than half of all students at all universities can’t write well. Most of the time they know it, too, and they feel self-conscious about it.
“Disregarding your classmates because of their poor writing will only close you off from learning from the people around you. Most of them I’m sure don’t have solid writing skills, which can become a pain point in an online course where the majority of the discussions are written. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have something to contribute or significant ideas to express; they just have an extremely difficult time expressing those ideas, as well as thinking them through clearly. But that’s what they are there to learn.”

So if you are new to teaching or learning in an environment where most of the communication is written (chatting or instant-messaging, asynchronous postings, email), please be sensitive to the fact that many many people can’t write well and don’t enjoy writing. Help them think through their ideas and express themselves more clearly by asking pointed questions. Show genuine interest and care in how you phrase those questions. The worse possible outcome for an inexperienced writer who is joining an online course is to feel beaten down by his or her inability to write.
When people feel ashamed of how they write, they stop contributing to the conversation, and the whole class’s level of engagement suffers. Keep these people engaged and moving forward. It doesn’t take much. All you have to do is show interest and sincerity.