Internet Chat Groups

Educational Chat Groups | Going Further

Chat Groups, like newsgroups and mail lists, connect students and teachers with similar educational interests through the Internet. In contrast, chat groups have the potential to be more dynamic, because they allow participants to converse with each other by typing messages that appear on other users' screens.

This can be troublesome in an educational setting because real-time conversation can often stray into banal chatter. There is also the risk of becoming a participant in a chat group that is "inappropriate."

Nevertheless chat groups that are properly used and monitored can be an important component of education. One way to increase the educational potential of chat is to find a group with similar interests. It is surprisingly easy to do, and in the following pages we'll show you some of the places to look.