Re: Getting chatty

Lynn Alford wrote:

"hat has been a function of online communications for a long time.
Whether
you find chats useful or enjoyable depends a lot on the participants. On
average, crowded rooms get annoying, but I've had a couple of good chats
in
rooms with 2 to 6 people in them."

Chatting is becoming an increasingly popular means of communication.
Whereas I agree that it occationally is rather difficult to participate
in and make sense of chat-sessions in overcrowded channels, IRC offers
excellent functionality for moderated chat sessions. In addition to
this, one always has the option of creating one's own private channels.
Chatting is also relatively economical, at least compared to the
horrifying telephone bills incurred when keeping in touch with friends
and colleagues abroad. 

Our company is presently examining how chatting may be put to use in
remote education, more specifically with regards to student-group
interaction, Q&A, virtual classrooms etc. If one accepts that virtual
classrooms should be based on commonly available, based on an Internet
platform without the use of additional equipment or applications, I
believe chat solutions offer an attractive alternative to the use of
expensive teleconferencing equipment and bundled ISDN connections.

Jan Erik Harvei
Managing Director
FunkWeb Ltd
e-mail: jan.erik.haarvei@funkweb.no

Received on Tuesday, 27 April 1999 06:17:08 UTC