Serious conversations using "chat"

Serious conversations using "chat"

by Susan Jeffers -
Number of replies: 4

I'm teaching a course called "Preparing to Teach Online Using Moodle" which sometimes feels like the blind leading the blind because there are a lot of moodle features I've never used even though I've taught quite a few moodle courses.

Yesterday my class got together to try out the "Chat" and had a great time instant messaging back and forth for an hour -- but we were left with the question of whether this format could be useful for serious discussion, or any other pedagogical purpose other than just checking in to say "how ya doin" ---

Does anyone out there know of examples of how Chat can be used more productively?  It would be hard to get all the students together at one time... I could see letting small groups arrange their own chat time, but what would be the purpose?  Most of our students are very short on time as it is, I wouldn't want to bring in yet another activity unless it really helped.

Thanks!

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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: Serious conversations using "chat"

by Michael Penney -
 I've seen some good uses of chat for bringing in a 'guest chatter', for instance inner city teachers chatting with suburbanc teacher credential candidates.

However the window is small, and especially for larger groups forums provide for more measured abd/or serious discussion, IMO.
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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: Serious conversations using "chat"

by Joshua Lieberman -
I have seen chat used to good effect in two ways. First, when a decision needs to be made between a small group of busy people, they can watch the decision developing while doing other work (e.g. teleconference) and only join in when something concerns them. Second, the result of a chat conversation can  be saved, sent around, preserved as documentation of decision-making, more easily than by assigning someone to keep minutes of an audio conversation.
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In reply to Joshua Lieberman

Re: Serious conversations using "chat"

by Hansruedi (Lori) Lorenz -

Any worthy discussion is suitable for chat and a controversial question can light up a chat session. You could also use a “phantom” student to guide the chat. Providing literacy is not an issue, chat offers a lot of potential for constructive learning

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In reply to Susan Jeffers

Re: Serious conversations using "chat"

by Debora Weber-Wulff -
Actually, I do a lot of very serious teaching by chat. I have published a short paper about the didaktics of teaching by chat:

# Teaching by Chat. In: Digitaler Campus. Vom Medienprojekt zum nachhaltigen Medieneinsatz in der Hochschule. Michael Kerres, Britta Voß (Hrsg.). Band 24, Medien in der Wissenschaft. Waxmann Verlag. 2003. S. 366-375

I would attach a version in pdf, but it is 200 KB, so this doesn't work. Why so small, forum owner?
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