Your Own Chat Group

In the preceding section we discussed organized chat groups associated with Internet Relay Chat. As noted there, such groups have potential applications in K-12 education, but one must separate the educational wheat from considerable chaff in most chat groups. An alternative that can ensure higher educational content in internet chat is to run a chat group from your own computer. This is relatively easy, as we now demonstrate.

Any Macintosh connected to the Internet and running TCP/IP protocol can be turned into a chat server simply by launching the shareware program Chat. Our discussion will use version 1.2. We will discuss only the basics; a more detailed set of instructions may be found in the Chat documentation; see also the Chat FAQ.

What is Chat?

Chat lets a Macintosh serve as a simple internet chat room. Once Chat is running, multiple users can Telnet to your Mac and have online discussions. Notice that Chat only needs to run on one computer (the "chat server"). The computers making connections to the chat server need only to run Telnet, not Chat.

Joining a Chat Session

We will assume that Chat is running on a Macintosh having the IP address homemama.rmt.utk.edu. Joining a chat session on that server is then a simple matter of launching NCSA Telnet (or any other Telnet application) and starting a Telnet session to that address: from the NCSA Telnet "File" menu select "Open Connection" and in the resulting dialog box give homemama.rmt.utk.edu as the "Host/Session Name", put a name of your choice in the "Window Name" box, and click "Connect" (see adjacent figure).

You should then get a window from the server that looks like the following figure:


Your Nickname

The server prompts you to enter a name. This is the nickname by which you will be known in the chat session. In the example shown here the user has chosen the name "ChatKat" (which was also the name chosen for the window when the connection was opened; in general these two names can be different). After entering a name and hitting "return", the server responds with a welcome, a statement that "/Help" will list commands available in the chat session, a list of persons currently in the chat session ("in the chat room"), and the "channel" for each participant.

In the example shown in the above figure, there are 4 participants in the chat room (Homemama, mikey, TheShadow, and ChatKat). The initial list gives for each chat participant the nickname, the channel, and the IP address. In this example, all 4 participants are in the same channel: Channel 1, which is labeled "General".

Channels and Changing Channels

The chat sessions are organized into channels which allow conversations on various topics to be conducted in parallel. Generally, chat participants see only the chat in the channel they are presently in, unless someone explicitly broadcasts a message to all channels (for example, by using the "/yell" command---see commands below).

The channels available to the chat session, and the number of participants in each channel, are listed in the "Channels" window on the server (see right figure). The current users are summarized in the "Users" window on the server (see left figure). Note: these two windows are not visible to the chat participants who have connected to the server by Telnet; they are windows displayed on the server monitor (homemama.rmt.utk.edu in the example we are using).

Individual chat participants may determine the channels available, and who is presently using them, by issuing keyboard commands, as described below. For example, the command /list will list all participants on your present channel, and /channel will list all channels presently available and the number of users in each channel.

Chat Messages

In essence, there are two classes of things that you can do in a chat session. (1) You can type message text using the keyboard that appears literally as typed, with a nickname tag indicating "who said it", and (2) you can issue commands that cause some action to be taken.

The most common user input is simply to type text. For example, the adjacent figure shows portions of a (rather inane) conversation, as displayed on ChatKat's monitor. ChatKat types the message "Hello all; ChatKat here". As soon as she does a return this message is displayed on all terminals connected to ChatKat's channel, preceded by the nametag "ChatKat:" indicating who said it (the message appears twice on ChatKat's terminal because she first typed it there, and then the message was echoed to everyone on the channel, which includes ChatKat). In this example, TheShadow and mikey respond with messages of their own, which appear on ChatKat's screen because she is on the same channel as they.

Chat User Commands

The other thing you can do is issue commands that cause some action to be taken. These commands are preceded by a slash ( / ), for commands generally available to all users, or by a backslash ( \ ), for administrative commands to the chat server. (Administrative commands, for obvious reasons, require that a password be entered before they will be executed, as described below.)

For example, the user command "/channel 2" will switch you from your present channel to channel 2, and "/listall" will list all users on all channels. The complete set of user commands can be listed by typing "/Help", as illustrated in the following figure.

Here is a more detailed listing of all available user commands.

Chat Administrator Commands

The preceding commands are available to all users. Administrative commands are more restricted because they are enabled by a password. An example of an administrative command is "\KILL pw user", which would kick the chat participant with nickname "user" out of the chat room, provided the proper administrative password "pw" is specified (the default password is admin, but this can be changed). Other examples are "\GAG pw user" which silences "user" and "\UNGAG pw user", which allows a previously silenced user to speak again. Such commands allow the administrator (you!) a general level of control for the chat session.

Here is a summary of administrative commands. Note that, as administrator, you can choose whether you are visible or invisible to chat partipants in the channel user lists when you are logged in (see the "\Hide" and "\Unhide" commands). Therefore, the administrator can monitor chat sessions either explicitly or anonymously.

Address Filtering and Remote Control

In addition to the set of administrator commands, there are IP Filter Options that allow the Chat program to block access from particular IP addresses, or entire sets of IP addresses.

Since administrative commands are issued by Telnet, the administrator can control the chat server from anywhere having internet access. Thus, for example, the administrator can leave the chat server running and log in remotely to monitor the chat (and to take appropriate actions to control the session, if necessary).

Some Ideas for Chat Groups

It is not difficult to think of potential K-12 applications for a chat server. For example, you could organize a student chat session every Tuesday night from 6pm-8pm on a selected topic (say, "current social issues"). You could even have various topics running in parallel, by assigning them to different channels.

Participation could be as limited as the members of a single class or school, or as broad as including students from other countries (time zones and language barriers may present a problem). The only requirement to access the chat session would be Telnet capability and a knowledge of the IP address where you have the Chat program running, the "ground rules" for the session, and the corresponding times. The address, rules, and schedule could be publicized locally, or more broadly by electronic means (email, mail lists, newsgroups, . . .). As administrator you would have the capacity to monitor the chat session and to block access if uninvited participants should show up, or to silence otherwise legitimate users who abuse the rules of the session.

Another example would be an organized chat every week between your class and one in another country. This could be with the same class each week, or with a different one, depending on how ambitious you were in contacting (by email, of course!) partner classes for such sessions, and dealing with difficulties like language and timezone problems. Here are some internet pen-pal links that may be a good starting point for organizing such activities.

So What Are You Waiting For?

These are meant to be representative examples. Surely you can think of better ones without very much effort! In essence, Chat can give you the equivalent of a free long-distance telephone service in your classroom that allows your students to converse in real time with their counterparts anywhere that the Internet reaches.


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