Editing Encyclopedia:Colloquium/archives/December 2006 (section)

== The Importance of Chatting ==

I would also like to post a note about how important it is to have an excellent chat service in Wikiversity. This website differs from Wikipedia in that it is not just a collection of static text resources, but a ''community''. The interactions between learners of various levels of expertise will be crucial to creating a positive learning environment. If I think about a real university, some of the best learning happens in small seminar or tutorial classes, and in informal gatherings after class. With this in mind, I think it is crucial that Wikiversity have a site-wide chat system that is well integrated into the experience of using the site. I like to think that this chat system should be built into every page so that when someone visits online course material on, say, plant biology, they are presented with a small internal frame on the page which connects them automatically to a chat room with all the other site visitors who are currently looking at biology-related material.

My main point that I want to get across is that in thinking about the design of wikiversity, we shouldn't be just thinking about the design of textbooks, but also about the design of the "campus" which structures learner to learner interactions.

--[[User:Iwoj|Iwoj]] 05:42, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
:Have you looked at my [[IRColloquium]] idea?--[[User:Rayc|Rayc]] 06:08, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
::It's a great idea. I am hoping that there will also be a chatting mechanism that is more spontaneous (not scheduled) and doesn't require a separate login. Imagine what Wikiversity would be like if there was a live chat frame at the bottom of every page. --[[User:Iwoj|Iwoj]] 21:03, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

In addition to IRC, we should explore the use of audio chat. [[w:Skype|Skype]] is one possibility. --[[User:JWSchmidt|JWSchmidt]] 21:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

:All forms of synchronous communication tools can be used to strengthen the content on wikiversity, or to consolidate individuals' learning, but also, of course, to form bonds between participants - itself a vital component of learning. We already have an IRC channel (see [[Wikiversity:Chat]]), and some have used things like Skype/Gizmo etc., but we have only scratched the surface, I think. One thing that we could do to integrate these modes of communication into Wikiversity is to create a "web gateway" to an IRC room for people without IRC clients (eg. [http://irc.wikia.com/marvel/ http://irc.wikia.com/marvel/ - a chat about comics]), which would immediately open up more access to more people. Is this the kind of thing you were talking about, Iwoj? [[User:Cormaggio|Cormaggio]] <sup><small>[[User talk:Cormaggio|talk]]</small></sup> 11:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)