Chat is real-time, text-based conversation among multiple persons conducted over the Web. Chat logs are the text record of chat sessions. Chat is synchronous communication; bulletin boards are asynchronous communication.

One way to assess effectiveness is to examine the text of chat sessions to identify cognitive, social, and teaching presences in a community of inquiry and then analyze discourse episodes to ascertain the stages of critical thinking (for access, use name = tltc and password = Mg7845) attained in each.

A model for critical thinking is the reflective judgment model (King, P. M. and K. S. Kitchener, Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994).

Everything else being equal, higher stages of critical thinking are preferred to lower stages. Social presence enters the picture because participants must trust each other enough to let themselves be intellectually vulnerable, and trust develops through social interaction. Teaching presence includes all the behaviors intended to organize, stage, and facilitate the discourse. Ensuring sufficient teaching presence to attain learning outcomes is the teacher's responsibility although any participant may engage in them.

An episode usually contains the following phases, in sequence:

1. Initiation or triggering event
2. Exploration
3. Integration
4. Resolution

Source: Garrison, D. R., T. Anderson, W. Archer. 2001. Critical thinking and computer conferencing: A model and tool to assess cognitive presence. American Journal of Distance Education 15(1): 7-23. Index linking to a pre-publication version

Here is one approach to designing learning experiences for critical thinking in chat:

1. Provide some guidance for chat behavior
2. Stage the learning experience by posing an authentic, engaging problem, e.g., the creation of an audit of the inventory account of a fast-fashiong retailer (for access, use name = ac863 and password = Qd0319)
3. Support learning with scaffolding appropriate for the learners, e.g., a conversation about ways to think about the problem, a sketch of similar assurance provided in another context, and a template for learners in teams to use to prepare their learning plans
4. Provide directions to learners to publish their work
5. Structure the chat with a plan
6. Post the chat log to make it accessible to learners
7. To prompt them to reflect on what they have learned, require learners to keep a cumulative learning portfolio that they update for each learning experience

For an article-length treatment of this design approach, see Borthick, A. F., and D. R. Jones. 2000. The motivation for collaborative discovery learning online and its application in an information systems assurance course. Issues in Accounting Education 15(2): 181-210. PDF file

Learners' reactions to chat are as varied as the learners and the quality of the chat. Most learners find chat in which anyone can contribute when they wish to be initially somewhat chaotic but quickly become accustomed to multi-threaded discussion after a few sessions. People multi task in real life, so multitasking in chat soon seems normal. Because thinking through one's fingers requires some acclimatization, it is unrealistic to hope that critical thinking will emerge if chat is only an occasional event. Learners will benefit from having some guidance about expected behavior in chat (example).

Learners are likely to feel better about chat the deeper they get into critical thinking (problem solving), and they are likely to feel very good about it after experiencing its power in in their personal intellectual growth

Trying to "cover" material in the traditional lecture sense in chat is likely to be frustrating--the facilitator likely can't type fast enough and participants could not keep up. Even if everybody could keep up, the novelty of this variant of electronic page turning would likely wear off quickly. Coverage can be assured by staging authentic problem-solving activities that are sufficiently engaging that learners are willing to acquire the concepts and skills that solving the problems requires. To make this work, materials and exercises that let learners acquire concepts and skills need to be accessible, i.e., linked just-in-time and just-in-place when and where learners are ready for them. Learners are likely to acquire facts/concepts effortlessly when they emerge in context in chat.

1. In WebCT, select Chat at the homepage, select the room where the chat is to occur (only rooms 1-4 are recorded.) Participating in chat requires that the chatters' computers be Java-enabled and that any firewall be configured to permit traffic to port 80 at http://webct.gsu.edu/.
2. If learners need directions for joining chat, appropriate these instructions.

In WebCT:

1. Select Manage Files at the homepage
2. Open the Chat folder by clicking it
3. Choose the room where the chat occurred
4. Select Rename in the menu (top of page, middle column) and follow the prompts
5. Copy the renamed file to the place from which it is to be made available

Are documentation and assistance available for WebCT chat?

1. Online documentation: In WebCT, select "Manage Files" and then "Help"
2. WebCT handbook: Georgia State persons can order the handbook at a reduced price by contacting jmcquillan@gsu.edu. Others order from DDL.
3. Other resources online in WebCT: Faculty Lounge
4. Monthly sessions: First Fridays Clinic
5. Training courses: Make the Web Connection; scheduled; custom
6. Personal assistance: consultation