Using Instant Messaging Chat to Engage Students On-line

by Evelyn Beck Unlike many of us who find it distracting when students whisper to one another during class discussions, Alvin Wang encourages such student-to-student “messaging.” Only he does so on-line during live synchronous communication, or chats, with students sending Instant Messages visible only to one another as the larger class discussion carries on. Wang, a psychology professor and the interim dean of the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, finds that both the live chat interaction and the student-to-student IM-ing about class-related material helps create a personal environment so often lacking in virtual education. […]