Chat - main entry

1. Plan  |  2. Build   | 3. Test  |  4. Administer   | 5. Review  ||   Support
chat iconChat is a communication tool that enables participants to have text-based, real-time synchronous discussions. Chat enhances social presence in a topic, particularly for students who are external. If between student and teacher, chat enables active teaching and feedback.

Chats are especially useful when the group chatting is not able to meet face-to-face, such as:

  • regular meetings of students participating in online topics so they can share experiences with others in the same topic but in a different location
  • a student temporarily unable to attend in person chatting with their teacher to catch up with work
  • students on work experience discussing their experiences with each other and their teacher
  • a question and answer session with an invited speaker in a different location
  • sessions to help students prepare for tests or exams where the teacher, or other students, pose sample questions.

Good practice guides and tip sheets

Good practice guides and tip sheets have been developed to support quality in both curriculum design and teaching practice. Good practice guides provide a pedagogical overview and tip sheets provide you with practical strategies and ideas for implementation. Links to chat-related resources are provided below. 

Inspirational and engaged teaching | Engaging students in a synchronous session | Communication, interaction and collaboration tools in FLO | Facilitating Student-Teacher interaction in FLO 

1. Plan

For considerations and questions, you might ask when planning/designing

2. Build

Create a chat room

The chat activity provides a real-time text chat interface for users in the topic.

  1. In your topic, click the Turn editing on button

      turn editing on icon

  2. In the week/module where you would like the chat to appear, click Add an activity or resource

     Add an activity or resource
  3. Select Chat chat icon , then press Add 
  4. Add a Name and Description for your chat
    adding a new chat - name and description

  5. If you want to set a particular date/time for the chat session, open the Chat sessions section and set the Repeat/publish session times.
    Timeline block: 'Repeat/publish session times' will show to students in the Timeline block.

  6. Click Save and display
    save and display button

3. Test

Once you have set up the Chat activity, ask your local eLearning support team to check it for you (especially if this is the first time you have set up this activity). It is best to amend mistakes before students have access to the chat.

  • dates (has been rolled over from a previous year?)
  • availability (is it available to students?)
  • groups/grouping
  • restrict access (does it need to be restricted to a certain cohort of students?)

4. Administer

Users have the option of accessing the chat tool via an accessible interface. Users with visual impairments should use the accessible version.

use more accessible interface link

5. Review

How did your chat activity go? Would you set up the activity differently next time around? Talk to colleagues and/or your local eLearning support team to get ideas for improvement.

  Training and support

  Troubleshooting

Support

eLearning support teams

You may have one of the following issues:

  • See the Administer section for issues with vision-impaired students

» How-to glossary