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7/30/2003
I recall sweating it out to see if I would be among those who asked to participate, who would be invited to do so. About 150 of us were chosen to participate, and the format was that of several online chat rooms – from a large, central virtual lecture hall to a number of small foyers. In each, the professor’s lecture would come in as typed text (slowly typed) in a standout color, while others in that chat room could comment and share conversations with each other. If we had queries for the professor, we could send those to an address where a teaching assistant filtered and prioritized queries, which might be answered by the professor.It was great fun and interesting, but the very best part of the whole thing was the chat and conversation with fellow students in the chat rooms.
Since then, I’ve had many opportunities to engage in “chat” while doing other things. Staff meetings, for example: I admit to having used chat with other staff to marshall, underground and real time, arguments and support for certain perspectives even as the verbal discussion was going on above the table! You can be mighty persuasive if you get the right kind of coordinated verbal support from others at the table in a large group discussion.
Even here at the Syllabus conference, just as at the NLII conference I attended last winter, the front rows of the plenary session ballrooms were set up with long tables at which attendees like me could use the ubiquitous wireless to be online, take and send notes, check our URLs, while we listen to and watch the presenters.
How cool would it be if anyone in the room could select a group chat to join and the comments, suggestions, and thoughts stimulated by the presentation were captured and shared. And how cheap! That’s “now” technology and easy to implement.
As recently reported in the New York Times, chat is facing a variety of reactions as it enters the classroom in unplanned ways. Maybe what we need to do is plan for it and make it happen. It’s cheap, and it g'es a long way toward offering a higher level if interactive collaboration in the classroom setting and I, for one, could be easily persuaded that it s “proven-to-be-best” technology if it’s planned for.
About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society
for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.
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