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Live chat sessions form the core of Scholars Online education. Teacher-led discussions of the material challenge the student to grapple with ideas and their application to real-life situations.

What is chat?

Chat is a text-based method of communication. Every member of the chat session can see and reflect on what other members are typing into the main chat window. Our browser-based chat software was specifically designed by Dr. Bruce McMenomy to work with the Scholars Online environment and procedures and provide a reliable, low-cost, accessible method of class participation for all students regardless of platform operating system.

Interactive chat sessions meet in real time on a regularly scheduled basis, usually once or twice a week for an hour to ninety minutes. Some classes may meet more often or have extra sessions for course or standardized test preparation.

Chats are not lectures. Students can easily and more efficiently read teacher-written lecture materials on the course websites. Chats are usually lively discussions of the material, a chance for students to ask for clarification of textbook and website materials, get help with homework exercises, gain experience explaining what they have learned to their peers, and interact at a social level with each other and their teachers. Participation in discussion forces students to learn to "think on their feet" and see the materials from several different perspectives. Teachers may enhance the chat experience by leading students on web tours of related or useful sites, using pictures, diagrams, and even interactive models to help students visualize and engage with the materials presented in the course.

Why do we continue to use text-based chat, when other technologies are available?

We are committed to continuing to use text chat as our primary mode of class interaction. (This does not prevent teachers from using sound files, podcasts, video clips, or other such materials to supplement the class experience — but they will not be delivered through real-time conference software as the primary form of the class.)

We've given this a lot of thought. Here are our reasons, some of which are technical, but others of which have more to do with the pedagogical underpinnings of the process itself. The latter issues are really more important to us, since though technology is constantly evolving, in most respects human learning remains a constant.

We also hasten to recognize that this is something you need to figure out with your own students. Here as almost everywhere else, one size really does not fit all: there are students for whom this extremely verbal (but non-spoken) mode of communication is liberating and energizing, and those for whom it really is not the right medium. We'd much prefer for you to go somewhere else if that's going to produce the best pedagogical outcome for your students. Watch your students; think about how they learn; pray about it, and make the best choice you can for them.

Technical reasons:

Audio or video conferencing is not yet so broadly available as to enable all of our prospective students to use it. Some require specific computer platforms; virtually all require high-speed connections (DSL or better) to support streaming sound or video.

Despite continuing progress in the field, we're not generally persuaded that this technology is stable enough to be more of a help than a hindrance. When a text chat is broken up by router problems on the Internet, and the pieces come in somewhat fitfully, the whole meaning of the discussion is retained. In an audio chat, this is far less likely to be the case.

Pedagogical reasons:

In composing written text, one is engaged constantly in writing practice. This may seem trivial in any given case, but the cumulative effect is considerable. We try to insist on proper usage in class to reinforce this. The constant return to the written word as a baseline of our discourse makes it less strange and strained for the student.

In written communication, there is slightly less tendency to "shoot from the hip". The amount of time it takes to write a line or two, consider it, and hit "Enter" affords more opportunity for reflection. Studies in a number of contexts have shown that this can have a positive effect on a student's experience.

One can continuously see the shape of the discussion as it unfolds. Both the student and the teacher can verify that what's currently being discussed really has to do with what has been said before. Nobody should ever have to ask, "Can you repeat the question?" It's still right there, a line or two above. Similarly, there's no issue of debating what was said: "But you said..." -- "No, I didn't." When communication problems arise (as they will in any form of communication) we can instead attend to what was meant and how to clarify the phrasing used to say it.

Though any one given student almost certainly cannot type and enter new material more quickly than he or she could speak it, in groups the dynamics of this are interestingly altered. If six students simultaneously enter answers to the same question, all those answers are still discrete and comprehensible.

Though few if any typists can actually type things more quickly than they could be spoken, it's possible for a teacher prepared with materials and questions for a discussion to insert material into a text channel more quickly (and for a student to read and assimilate it more quickly) than would normally be the case in audio or video chat. The net result is that (contrary to expectations) more material can actually be conveyed in the same amount of time.

The text of the discussion is something permanent. Some of our teachers still occasionally look back at class sessions from five or more years ago, adapting questions that arose there to the use of current classes. This allows the latest students to benefit from the experience and the ideas of earlier students.

Example Chat

To give you a better idea of the dynamics and content of a real chat session, here is an excerpt from the log of a class chat session:

• AP Biology session

Because we recognize that education is a community effort, all students are expected to attend all scheduled class sessions, to notify the teacher (in advance if possible) when a session will be missed because of illness or other unavoidable reasons, and to make up any work missed during absences. Individual instructors may grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

Chat support

We have developed a secure, browser-based chat that runs in most standards-compliant recent browsers (we recommend FireFox on Windows or Linux and Safari on Macintosh) and requires no separate software installation. Chat rooms are enabled as part of each individual Moodle course, and participation in course chats limited to students enrolled in the course, ensuring student security and reducing interruptions. Chats will be automatically logged by the school's host server, and the logs will remain part of the course site, available to course members throughout the year.

Learning to use the Scholars Online chat

Orientation sessions during the summer and early fall familarize students and parents with our chat features as well as chat etiquette.