Examples of how chat has been used in classrooms

The following examples are direct quotes from teachers, teacher-librarians, education advisors and Learning and Development Centre – Technology coordinators.

• My students have travel buddies with classes on the east coast of the US. We chat real time with them, making the experience authentic and purposeful as well as fun. It wasn't until the real time chat that the students really understood that it was actually happening and their travel buddy was living with children from a different culture.
• We have an exchange with some children in an aboriginal community in Western Australia. It was great to chat live with them. We even used cameras.
• Our students talk to experts without having the expense of bringing them to our school.
• In the 'Read Around Australia' Project students 'chatted' with authors and illustrators.
• My students will be participating in a chat session with a scientist as a follow–up to our science unit. The scientist was unable to visit the school for a face–to–face meeting but was able to spare 45 minutes to answer the students questions in a chat room.
• My district is one of the smaller and less remote rural ones, so chat is an easy and instant form of communication.
• While the anonymity factor is the publicised danger in the newspapers, it works well for us if we want to have a chat session with the character of a book – particularly if it is within one school.
• Santa (far north Queensland principal) 'chatted' to his year one students.
• High school students can discuss issues that are interesting to them. Some high schools have set up chat rooms (with rules) on set topics such as tech tips, science network, social problems.
• A Guidance Counsellor will be running a chat room at a large highs school over the next month. This is only at his school so he can follow up if necessary with face-to-face talks, but the students still have anonymity if needed.
• At the Ipswich Festival of Children's Literature the students asked the author questions and then the author replied or, in the case of Andy Griffiths, got the children to write and they developed a short story together.
• The Netdays project had a range of chats and forums over five weeks. In 2000, the students spoke to guests of different cultural backgrounds. In 2001 students chatted with charity groups.
• Year 7 and year 9 students discussed the Napster debate with a lawyer, as part of an action research project in Discovering Democracy.