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Dear students,
We are starting to introduce some synchronous group work when you need to do things simultaneously. I am glad that by now 14 students have signed in for a group, and we have 4 groups so far. For Week 6, the synchronous work is going to be an online chat in which you need to
1)discuss advantages and disadvantages of synchronous chats compared to asynchronous discussion boards,
and
2) develop ideas for you final projects.
The details are given in the syllabus.
You can use any chat service you like. Perhaps, some of you are registered with ICQ - the most popular instant messaging (IM) service. If you don't have an account, you can easily create one, download the software from the web, and use it. You might want to use a web version of ICQ, when it's not necessary to download the software or when you do not have privileges to install new software on your office computer. An example of a Web ICQ service can be found here. Please e-mail me immediately if you have problems with installing and/or using ICQ software. You can also write about it in your blog, so that some other students will be able to help you earlier.
Alternatively, you may agree to use some other messaging services, for example, Yahoo! Messenger.
You need to agree about the date and time when your group can meet in the virtual space. Perhaps you'll need to e-mail your suggestions to each other, or use your blogs, or create your own wiki at Wikispaces to discuss the matter. Please send me an e-mail, when you make up your mind, and if I am not busy, I'll join you in the chat. But first of all, the time should be convenient for all group members, not for me.
As the deadline for the group formation was extended, I think we need to extend it for the chat too. So, please arrange your chat no later than next Wednesday, December 20.
You need to copy the script of your chat to one of group members' blog and analyze it from grammar and spelling viewpoint.