Talkcity Chat for Adult Education Practitioners

Created by Sue Heindel York County Vo-Tech School, York PA

Approximately 1 week prior to implementation of this lesson plan, the facilitator of the group should contact Talk City The facilitator should request a chat room after following the instructions on the screen. When TalkCity has e-mailed you that your channel is online, you can contact your group and set up a time to meet on line and the name of your chat room. You can also set a topic for your chat. Inform all participants of netiquette ( see page 2) and any Talk City rules you feel need explained.

Computer Literacy Level: beginner

Materials:

Computer w/ Internet

Copy of Instructions

Duration: varies with groups

Objectives:

Practitioners will log onto a chat room

Converse with other practitioners in their agency

Learn proper netiquette

Procedures:

1. Using an Internet browser, access http://www.talkcity.com/chat

2. On left side of page is box "Enter Chat", at "other room" type in the name of your room and proceed from there

3. Type comments into lower blank line

4. Press "enter" or click on "thought bubble" after each sentence if you are typing more than one sentence

5. Post questions / comments to facilitator re: topic of chat

6. Participate in discussion of group

7. Follow protocol and netiquette

8. It does not have to be perfect – time and speed are important ( I know, we don’t want our peers to know we can’t spell! But you can always blame it on "my finger slipped!" :-) :-)

Evaluation:

Practitioner entered chatroom in a timely fashion

Practitioner participated in dialog

Practitioner followed proper netiquette and protocol

The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette - by Arlene Rinaldi

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Never give your userID or password to another person. System administrators that need to access your account for maintenance or to correct problems will have full privileges to your account.

Never assume your e-mail messages are private nor that they can be read by only yourself or the recipient. Never send something that you would mind seeing on the evening news.

Keep paragraphs and messages short and to the point.

Capitalize words only to highlight an important point or to distinguish a title or heading. Capitalizing whole words that are not titles is generally termed as SHOUTING!

*Asterisks* surrounding a word can be used to make a stronger point.

Be professional and careful what you say about others. e-mail is easily forwarded.

Cite all quotes, references and sources and respect copyright and license agreements.

It is considered extremely rude to forward personal e-mail to mailing lists or Usenet without the original author's permission.

Attaching return receipts to a message may be considered an invasion of privacy.

Be careful when using sarcasm and humor. Without face to face communications your joke may be viewed as criticism. Use smileys (below)

Basic Smileys Included for fun!

:-) Your basic smiley. This smiley is used to inflect a sarcastic or joking statement since we can't hear voice inflection over e-mail.

;-) Winky smiley. User just made a flirtatious and/or sarcastic remark. More of a "don't hit me for what I just said" smiley.

:-( Frowning smiley. User did not like that last statement or is upset or depressed about something.

:-I Indifferent smiley. Better than a :-( but not quite as good as a :-).

:-> User just made a really biting sarcastic remark. Worse than a ;-).

>:-> User just made a really devilish remark.

NETTER'S ABBREVIATION/ACRONYM GLOSSARY

BFN bye for now

BTW by the way

FAQ frequently asked question

FWIW for what it's worth

FYI for your information

GR&D grinning, running, & ducking

HTH hope this helps

IAE in any event

IANAL I am not a lawyer (also IANAxxx, such as IANACPA)

IMCO in my considered opinion

IMHO in my humble opinion

IMNSHO in my NOT so humble opinion

IMO in my opinion

IOW in other words

LOL lots of luck or laughing out loud

MHOTY my hat's off to you

NRN no reply necessary

OIC oh, I see!

OTOH on the other hand

PITA pain in the [...]

PMFJI pardon me for jumping in

RSN real soon now (which may be a long time coming)

SITD still in the dark

SNAFU situation normal, all [fouled] up

TIA thanks in advance

TIC tongue in cheek

TTFN ta ta for now

TTYL talk to you later

TYVM thank you very much

WYSIWYG what you see is what you get