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Tips for chats
Brigitte Parry 08 February 2004
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| In the online world, to chat means to send quick, informal, text messages to one or more people. The Internet allows people to chat together while sitting in front of their computers at the same time in any part of the world. An online chat may allow two people or hundreds of people to talk together. Chatting can be compared to phoning several people at the same time, talking at fast speed using short familiar sentences. |
It is a very popular form of text-based communication, full of advantages, fun and dangers. As the Internet develops, more and more mobile devices allow people to chat together and even use their voices instead of text.
The most common chat tools are called:
ICQ
Yahoo Messenger
MSN
AOL
Trillian is a special chat tool that allows you to communicate with friends that use any of the chat tools among the four mentioned above.
Advantages and dangers
Advantages:
Taking part in chat provides the thrill of instant simultaneous communication across all borders with people of all kinds.
It feels like a great window open on the whole world, a lot of life and activity everywhere.
Dangers:
The dangers are direct consequences of the advantages.
The window is open on the world with all of its nice and not-so-nice people who can pop in, make friends with you, fake their identity and start very dangerous relationships between children and older people looking for friends for reasons that may not be the right ones.
It is impossible to be sure of whom you are really talking to when you chat.
Some useful definitions
Chat room: a special online space where people can talk together privately. Chat rooms usually deal with topics of interest common to the people involved.
Nickname: Before entering a chat room you must provide a nickname. In the case of a chat between schools, it is recommended to use the following nickname: “name of school_name of pupil or teacher”. During a chat, all the participants’ nicknames appear on the screen next to the chat window.
Be careful in a public or non-school chat! You shouldn’t use your real name as a nickname.
Emoticon: To express emotions, Internet users have created many little signs that you can add to your text when you chat. The most common are:
:-) for a smile
:-( if you are upset
;-) as a wink
Hundreds of emoticons can be used but make sure that the other people know what they mean!
How to use chats at school
To keep your pupils or partners safe during a chat organised at school it is crucial to use the model of the “moderated chat”
A moderator is someone who is (sometimes silently) present during the whole session and who has access to the administrative tools that allow him/her to get rid of participants using rude language, behaving in an antisocial way or appearing to be suspicious.
Do’s and don’ts
When you enter a chat room, say hello, who you are and where you are from
Never mind spelling mistakes, everybody types very fast when chatting
Write short sentences, if you have longer messages to send it’s better to use email
Stick to the topic of the chat if there is one
Don’t give your email address, address or phone number to anyone in a chat
Don’t trust people in a chat unless they are people you know personally
Don’t click on URLs and attached documents in a chat, they may carry viruses or other dangerous programmes
Try it out at European Schoolnet
Open a chat room
Send your name, school’s name, the topic, the time and dates of your chat to
eschoolnet@eun.org
Take part in a scheduled chat
Check the myEurope and eSchoolnet calendars to check which chats are scheduled for European teachers
Firewall
When you want to connect to a chat server there might be problems because you are behind a firewall that protects you from viruses and other malicious attacks. People that are in charge of the network (system administrators) can usually help you when you have problems connecting to a chat server.
If you have problems connecting to a EUN chat room please contact Mourad Etbaz (mourad.etbaz@eun.org) or Thomas Maier (thomas.maier@eun.org).
Update (January 28th, 2004):
Brigitte has just discovered an excellent page discussing chats in education:
www.chatdanger.com |
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| Web Editor: |
Thomas Maier |
| Author: |
Brigitte Parry |
| Published: |
Monday, 20 Oct 2003 |
| Last changed: |
Sunday, 8 Feb 2004 |
| Keywords: |
communication, communicative competence, hands-on activities, nonverbal communication, practical work |
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