The text is authentically produced student material and therefore comprehensible and relevant to most students in the class. Students can participate in an online chat session in groups or as an entire class. Groups of four to five students seem optimal because it provides the right amount of input. Students will have trouble following a conversation in which too many students are participating. If several separate discussions took place during a class, every group's final discussion text can be distributed to all students giving students the opportunity to share their ideas with the entire class.
Teachers can create their own private chat room for their classroom.
Be aware that online chatting via the Internet can be painfully slow depending on network traffic. If a lab tends to have slow access to the Internet, a local chat server can be utilized instead of a remote server. The technical aspects of an online chat session are fairly simple. I have found the simplest and fastest method of completing your first classroom online chat session is through the use of a freeware program called OTchat . As for the rest of the networked clients, you can use a Telnet or MUD client to enter and send text.