Basic Use of Chat
The page users see when they click on the Chat button in the Main Menu looks the same for both teachers and students. This is the Chat transcripts page shown in the figure below.
Chat keeps a record, called a transcript, of all of the conversations that take place within a class' channel. This makes it possible for anyone who has missed a chat session to read the transcript at another time. It also allows the teacher to keep a record of everything that occurred within Chat for the purpose of assessing an online course, or demonstrating the course to colleagues or school administrators.
As shown in the illustration, the transcripts are organized by day. (Of course, before anyone has actually used Chat, this list will be empty.) As for the other modules, the Reverse Order button can be used to flip the list back and forth between showing the latest transcripts first or last on the list. This is a personal preference. That is, changing the order for your view of the transcripts doesn't affect the order of the transcripts as seen by your students.
We'll return to reading transcripts later, but for now, notice the Enter Chat button. Clicking on this button will cause your web browser to download a Java applet to your computer. An applet is a program written in the Java programming language designed to run within a web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. In order to run an applet (and thus to work with Chat) you must have a working version of a Java Virtual Machine installed on your computer. If you have any difficulty entering Chat, or if things don't seem to work as described, read Troubleshooting Chat later in this chapter.
Chat opens in a separate window
Assuming you have Java correctly installed on your computer, the Chat applet will open in a separate window on your computer.
The fact that the chat applet opens in a separate window is unusual for Manhattan. All of Manhattan's other modules work in a single browser window. When you click on the Handouts/Notices button from the Main Menu for example, the Handouts/Notices page completely replaces the Main Menu page on your browser. Further, if from the Handouts/Notices page, you click on the New Item button, the form used to compose a new message replaces the Handouts/Notices listing, and so on.
The Chat applet was designed to open in a separate window to allow you to freely navigate to other modules of the classroom, or to other sites on the Internet, while you remain in a Chat session. In fact, you can even exit your Manhattan classroom and enter another classroom while remaining in a Chat session.
The Chat window can easily be resized using the same methods you use with any other Windows (or Macintosh) program. You can click on the Maximize icon, shaped like a rectangle, in the upper right corner of the title bar to make the Chat window full-screen, or you can use your mouse to drag the corners or edges of the window to make it a size that's best for you.
You start in a channel dedicated to your classroom
When you first enter the Chat, you are placed in a channel that is dedicated for use by your class. You can think of a channel as a room in a building. In general, you can only speak to someone who is in the same room as you. In the above screenshot, the line that reads:
>> You are now in channel demo_man101 [2]
tells you the name, in this example "demo_man101" and the number, in this case [2], of this private channel dedicated to your class. The name of the channel is the internal name of your Manhattan classroom, selected by your Manhattan system administrator, when your classroom was first created on the server. The number of your initial channel is automatically selected by the chat server - it will be different each time you enter Chat.
The login screen warns users that anything typed while in this initial channel will be recorded:
>> Conversations in this channel are recorded.
>> and can be viewed by anyone in your class.
>> Use /join to move to another channel if you
>> need to have a private conversation.
This means that the messages typed within this channel will appear in the transcripts listing seen for this classroom.
Most people never leave the channel devoted to their classroom, although as suggested in the above message, it is possible to move to another channel where conversations are not recorded. We'll show you how later, but for now all you need to know is you start off in a private room that only students who belong to your class can enter, and that all conversations will be recorded in the transcripts for that classroom.
Typing a message
To "say" something in Chat, simply type your message in the text area labeled "Message:" and press your Enter key:
Note that each message typed by someone in the channel is preceded by the name of the person who typed the message, along with a number. In this case it was:
[0, Prof-Jones]
who said "hello world". Just as a channel is known by a name e.g. "demo_man101" or a number, people can be referred by their name e.g. "Prof-Jones" or by their number, e.g. "0" in this example.
Keeping things as simple as possible, you already know most of what you need to know to work with Chat. People exchange short messages by typing and hitting Enter. As long as you are in your dedicated channel, these messages are recorded in the Chat transcripts.
Exiting Chat
To exit the Chat program, click on the Logoff button, then click the Close this window button to close the separate browser window that was opened when you first entered Chat.
Who is with me? and Who is logged in?
A system message appears on everyone's screen announcing when someone has entered or left your channel. However, in a busy Chat session, it's easy to lose track of who is there. You can click on the Who is with me? button to find out who is in the same channel as you at this particular moment in time.
There could be people logged into Manhattan's Chat who are conversing in other classroom channels. The Who is logged in? button gives a complete list of all current chat users, many or all of which could be engaged in conversations in other classrooms.
Turning up (or down) the volume - the page command
Whenever someone enters the channel you are in, a chime will sound on your computer. Of course you can only hear the chime if your computer's sound system is on, and the volume is turned high enough.
You can use this feature to your advantage. Say you've scheduled a chat session for a particular time, and you're the first to arrive. You can turn the volume way up on your computer, then go into the kitchen to grab a snack. When someone enters the chat, you'll hear the chime and can come back to your computer to begin a conversation.
As the chat progresses, and more people are entering the room, the chime can become annoying. Use your computer's software volume control (found in the lower right corner of the task bar for Windows computers) to adjust the level of the chimes, or to mute the sounds completely. Of course, if your computer speakers have manual volume or on/off knobs you can control the sound that way too!
The act of sounding a chime on someone's computer is called paging them. The system is set up so that all users are automatically paged whenever someone enters their channel.
You can also manually page anybody who is in the chat room with you. This is done by issuing a page command. You know that to type a message, you simply enter the message in the text area and hit enter. It so happens that any message that starts with a forward slash character / or a period . is interpreted as a command instead of a message to be sent to others in the channel.
To page someone, type /page (or .page) followed by that person's full name or number. Try paging yourself. First enter the command:
/me
in the message box and hit enter. The /me command tells you who you are, for example:
>> You are user [0] Prof.-Jones, you are in channel 2 (demo_man101)
Now that you know who you are, you can page yourself:
/page 0
If your sound system is on you should hear the chime and your Chat screen will read:
<0> Prof.-Jones paged you.
>> You paged [0] Prof.-Jones
Note that you can page someone by referring to their number or their name. In this example, Prof. Jones could also use:
/page Prof.-Jones
to page himself. Note that you must type someone's name exactly as it appears in the system, and that the system always uses a dash - between their first and last name. Since typing someone's name is more error-prone, it is always easier to refer to someone using their number rather than their name. You can get a list of people's names and numbers by clicking on the Who is with me? button.
Style and Size
It's hardly worth mentioning but at the top of the Chat window, are two drop-down controls, one labeled "Style" and the other labeled "Size".
The Style selection simply allows you to chose whether you want the text to appear in Black or Blue.
The Size selection allows you to select the size of the text.
Copy and Pasting messages
Also in the "this might be obvious but we'll tell you anyway" category, the messages typed by users in the Chat are displayed in a simple text format. This makes it possible to copy all or a portion of the discussion to your Windows (or Macintosh, or Linux) clipboard, so you can paste it into another program. To copy text to your clipboard under Windows, select the text with your mouse, then press Ctrl-C on your keyboard
Once the text has been copied to your Windows Clipboard, you can paste it in another application (such as Word or Notepad), in the usual manner. That is, you can paste the text by selecting Paste from that program's Edit menu, or by pressing Ctrl-V. Note that if you log out of chat, and then re-enter, you will completely lose access to the transcript of the discussion you temporarily left, since you again will start with an empty chat window. If you want to copy the entire discussion, do it before you log out. Better yet, copy the text a section at a time as the discussion progresses, so you don't lose any part of it if something goes wrong. Keep in mind however, that as long as you are in your classroom's dedicated channel, the transcripts are safely recorded. The copy and paste technique is useful for capturing conversations in channels that are not recorded, or for copying the contents of system messages, such as the result of clicking the Who is with me? button.