Educational Group Chat Role in the Online digital Era

Education methods are changing. Online teaching using new teaching resources, and teaching tools are part of the revolution. In today’s world Educational group chat is one of a teacher best friend.

Today 30% of Australia students between 4-16 years old are learning In Homeschooling programs. In The US, Homeschooling is growing exponentially.  In the department of education research, the info we read is pretty conclusive. It certainly shows Multiple Data Points Increase between 2012 to 2016 and Later.

But that is not all, teaching methods are changing for all, from students to coaching, psychologists and more.

This means that the tools that help educate the next generation are also changing.

So… what has changed? What are the advantages? What is Educational Group Chat?

  • Group discussion
  • Private chats
  • Private calls (video and audio)
  • Read messages when you can

Spoiler: Get your own group chat for your website or class

Educational Group Chat

As for traditional education. It faced its challenges. The world is changing faster and faster.  We see that the internet is a major boom factor and the number of university students is declining in certain areas as the old role of a traditional educator with a ruler in his hand is no longer needed. The internet started the revolution.

Educational Group Chat for Teachers

In the old world, Teachers are responsible for delivering the educational material to students.
It shows that traditional teaching is still the best as long it will adopt certain tools to help them reach students more efficiently.

A teacher is the most important factor to strengthen the education system because they must be fully equipped with the latest knowledge and understanding about the new technology.

education chat - homeschooling Teacher

Using educational group chat is an opportunity for students and teachers as well. Information technology-based teaching is an effective way to access student in a different area to the same classroom.

In order to deliver information technology-based teaching, or commonly known as ICT based teaching, a teacher must possess sufficient knowledge of the technology and deliver their materials. Thus, ensuring the success rate of delivering learning material.

Teaching With Educational Group Chat

Information Technology based teaching enable a student to improve their learning and it requires teachers to improve their teaching methods. In 1978, Japan established their National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIME), to prepare a new methodology for delivering educational material to students across Japan.

In one of its program, NIME has successfully established an inter-connected Internet link in 150 universities across Japan. One of the class that we saw, was conducted with Koichi Wakata, Japanese astronaut onboard International Space System as a guest lecturer in 2001.

educational group chat

The class was attended by 4200 students from 114 universities. This class can be classified as the most populous educational group chat ever conducted.
In 2009, NIME was merged into OUJ (Open University of Japan). It utilizes broadcasting media for delivering the teaching materials for lifelong learning.

Therefore, it provides innovative means and methods of education for universities and higher education institution to deliver the learning materials. One of them are lectures broadcast via the multimedia channel, and online courses equipped with educational group chat and chatroom at the end of each class session for quizzes and discussion between students and lecturer.

With its ease of access and teaching material delivery, OUJ now has become the largest educational institution in Japan.

Another case is in Korea with its Korea Education & Research Information Service (KERIS). Furthermore, since its establishment in 1999, KERIS has become at the forefront of providing Information Technology based learning in Korea.

Its achievement is the national educational information service called EDUNET and its research information service system or RISS, an academic cooperative network of research institutes in universities in Korea linked with other research institutes abroad. The latest advancement is KOCW (Korean Open Course Ware) to provide service of learning materials For its relentless effort to pursue technology advancement, UNESCO awarded KERIS the first prize for ICT in education in 2007.

What are the Benefits of group chat?

With the advancement of technology in communication, information sharing has found its new method. We all know that the technology for group chats as first introduced for educational purpose at the University of Illinois back at the beginning of Internet in 1970’s.

Nowadays, group chat room purpose for educational group chat has found a better implementation of the latest technology.

Even UNESCO, a United Nations agency for education, science, and culture has acknowledged the needs of information technology for education. In 1997, UNESCO established its Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) to provide design and implementation of information technology in education around the world. In its report for the Internet in Education, IITE noted the importance of group chat for educational purpose.

Educational group chat is important for constructive learning along with other Internet communication methods such as group chat and mailing list.

We have seen how group chat and its technology is considered serious tools for education and learning purpose. From the beginning of its creation, a group chat was designed primarily for educational purpose.

Therefore, it is reasonable that Internet-based education will always consider educational group chats as a mean for delivering teaching materials and knowledge sharing.

Get your own educational group chat and embed it in no time on your website or class.

Chat Compare, The difference between “Group Chat” “Live Chat” and a “Chat Room”

After several support emails with the same subject? asking us to explain the difference between chat software vs group chat vs live chat vs chat room. We decided to elaborate it a bit.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, chat is defined as  “to talk with someone in a casual way” and also “to talk over the Internet by sending messages back and forth in a chat room.”

Let’s try to understand the different options in the chat arena?

It is a matter of terminology but much more. For example, if you need a public chatroom that allows you to log in using your social media credentials, then a private room will not be suitable for your needs.

RumbleTalk chat for private and public rooms

Let’s talk about chat compare, The difference between the next 3 options
A – Group Chat
B – Live Chat
C – Chat Room

Note, each of those can be shown in two forms, chat software, or chat service.
The main difference is that a chat software will be installed on your server using your CPU, memory and other resources from your servers. A chat service is a chat that will show on your website but will consume the vendor of the chat resources (e.g, will not affect your server performance).

So, let’s start

The Evolution of Chat in Computer System

Our needs to communicate with other human being had initiated a chat system to be built along with the first computer operating system, UNIX in 1970’s. Talk program was built into UNIX system to allow people communicate each other using their user name as ID. Talk program only allows one-on-one chat.

The very first multi-user and chat room is a program called Talkomatic. The program was invented for the first time in 1973 by Doug Brown and David Wolley in University of Illinois as supporting tools for the University’s learning system.

Chatting has been so common in our daily Internet life. We are now using many different chat program and connecting with people around the world, as a chat program chat has been advancing very much since the very first talk program in UNIX system.

1. Chat, Instant Messaging and SMS

We have been so useful with chatting program. As a communication system has evolved and so has the chat program evolved. Chat by definition, according to PC Magazine is a real-time communication via keyboard between two or more users on a local network (LAN) or over the Internet.

Webopedia, the online tech dictionary also define chat as the same definition as PC Magazine: a real-time communication between two users via computer. Once a chat has been initiated, either user can enter text by typing on the keyboard and the entered text will appear on the other user’s monitor.

Most chat system nowadays allows users logging in to the system to enter a chat room and chatting with other people who have already been in the room. This allows a many-to-many chat room, as everyone in the chat room can send their message to other people.

There is a different term regarding chat, but actually, it means the same. The term Instant Messaging for most often is separated from chat, but instant messaging is actually a chat in itself.  The difference between chat and instant messaging is that instant messaging is built to focus on the one-on-one chat.

In a mobile application, we have now so many instant messaging application. In the cellular technology, the very first instant messaging app is SMS. This technology then evolves into more advanced technology in mobile instant messaging. As the smartphone revolutionize the computing industry in the 2010’s, SMS has been replaced by the variety of instant messaging app.

Group Chat - Chat Room

As smartphone technology now converges with Internet and web technology, the chat must be able to deal with the convergence. The challenge for today’s chat technology is to be able to run and synchronize on both PC and mobile device. Fortunately, today’s technology enables us to build a web chat software that can be used in either mobile device such as smartphones and tablets, as well as PCs (HTML5 + Javascript).

2. The 3 types of chats

In the chat arena, we know there are three types of chat:

  • Private Group Chat
  • Live Chat
  • Chat Room

Private Group Chat. As the name depicted, the private chat room was meant to be a private conversation between a selected people. Usually, a small team needs this chat. Such as a group of stocks trader, a real estate sales associate, and small groups need this chat room.

Private chat compare to Social chat
With RumbleTalk you have the option to shift from private to social/group chat on the fly

One common needs for private group chat is the capability to share files. It is because the people in the private group chat usually are people with the same profession or the same interest. Therefore, the chat room is also functioned as a knowledge sharing tools. With the file sharing, capabilities, they can share any kind of files for information and knowledge sharing needs.

One additional advantage for teams is the fact that a user can enter when he has time and scroll up to see the group chat compare history, it is a huge time saver when managing groups.

Live Chat. This is the type used for customer service. A customer can be assisted by a company representative, who usually handle more than one visitor at a time. Companies with customer-oriented product and service, especially retail or FMCG company will surely need this chat. Live chat is useful as the supplement for telephone contact center.

Moreover, a company with an Internet-related product will need this live chat more than phone support. Since most customers are connected to the Internet, live chat is the most appropriate customer contact for such company.

Chat Room. This is the most common chat type and resembles a public space where people can talk to anonymous chatters. The public room can be placed on any website in any area of the site as long as the chat room is a public chat room.

When we enter the public chat room, we can see how many people have already been in the room and we can join the conversation with those people. In these chat room, usually, a conversation can be so hectic. However, we can also switch to private chat mode by inviting someone to a private room and chat privately. A good chat room will have this mode switching.

3. Chat Compare – Table of Comparison Between the Three

Features Private Group Chat Live Chat Chat Room
Public No Yes Yes
Switch to other types Yes No Yes
Moderated Yes No Somewhat
File sharing Yes No Somewhat
Image insertion Yes Somewhat Yes
Video Call Yes No Yes
Audio Call Yes Somewhat Yes
Emoticon Yes Somewhat Yes

4. Why Is It  So Confusing?
The complexity of human communication makes our communication method is different from one another. This also applies to the Internet communication, that is the reason for so many different chats compare available. All of them have a specific purpose and cater specific chatting need.

We can select the most suitable chat for our conversation needs.

Broadcasters Motivation for Embedding a Live Radio Chat Room

You have a radio station. You are broadcasting every day, you spend the time and effort to create great content. But, how do you interact with your listeners? We will try to answer this question with emphasis on live radio chat room to engage your audience.

Some history, An English rock band, Queen released a song entitled ‘Radio Ga Ga’ in 1984. The song told a story of how television overtook the radio for entertainment and news broadcast.

Queen called it Radio Ga Ga when radio slowly became just a background noise. But… fast forward to 31 years, the time has passed and radio is still here and has evolved to become a more than just background noise. Now, advancement of Internet technology can arm radio station with live radio chat room to become more advanced.

Interactive Live Radio Chat Room

So, what do you need in order to embed a chat room into your live radio show or live event?

  1. You will need to signup at www.rumbletalk.com
  2. You get a code that you should copy and paste into your website
  3. You are done. It should appear on your website.

You can now, tweak and set your chat settings and behavior, like look & feel, what login types and more.

If you have a WordPress, you can use WordPress chat plugin so all these steps are not needed (all is done via the plugin).

live radio chat room widget

Do people still listen to the radio today?

Surprisingly, so many research conducted showed that huge percentage of people still listen to the radio. The majority of people are listening to the radio when driving a car or while performing other activities. Radio advertising also still works well to promote a product, especially for a specific target audience.

Radio has not become obsolete because of it’s convenient to listen casually. People do not have to dedicate their time to listen to the radio, unlike watching television or movie. With such comfort, radio still supplies its service to millions of people worldwide. Along with the advent of Internet radio broadcast in 1994, radio now can reach millions of people worldwide.

Although most people listen to radio casually, the first Internet radio broadcast was a radio talk show called Internet Radio Talk. It is necessary for Internet radio station to equip themselves with live radio chat room, to enable listeners to communicate interactively with the station.

Internet radio broadcast will surely need live radio chat room in order to get their listeners profile. In the days before Internet radio, there was a limited area for radio to be received, normally FM or AM radio broadcast could only have listened in one city area. However, with the Internet radio, such limitation is now broken.

A small town Internet radio that broadcasted from some remote place can be listened by people on the other side of the globe. It is now common for Internet radio station to have a dedicated listener in another country. Interactive chat and communication with listeners will give radio station better understanding of the people who listen to their station.

Chat Room to Reach Listeners

Now, here comes the question for a radio station of how to engage and reach out those listeners effectively. Since Internet technology has been used to broadcast radio program, why not utilize the same technology to reach listeners?

Using the same Internet technology, radio can now reach out the listener with live radio chat room. Rumble Talk with its eminent chat platform has provided the best platform for every station needs to furnish themselves with live radio chat room.

Availability of live radio chat room facilitates radio station, especially Internet radio station to connect to more listeners. Therefore, radio broadcast becomes more vibrant and dynamic with listeners’ interaction. Live radio chat room can be used for a song request, discussing a specific issue for radio talk show, or simply a casual chat room.

When Internet radio listeners have access to request song, a radio station will be able to understand the listeners’ preference.

They can provide a and deliver a better music program. On a talk show, radio talk show with chat room will generate deeper and augmented discussion of the topics, because listeners from around the world will surely have a different view of a particular issue.

A casual chat room will create a bond between listeners and radio station because listeners can interact with their favorite radio station and have a casual chat just like the old-time-radio that address their listeners casually.

Best Live Radio Chat Room

For that purpose, Internet radio station must select the best live radio chat room that suits their requirements. First, Internet radio chat room must be able to be accessed easily, provide less requirement to install an application in both radio station and listeners gadget is the desired requisite. Second, chat room should also be able to set up easily in radio station website to minimize the hassle of installation and configuration.

Third, A live radio chat room should help the radio station to reach listeners easily, instead of creating more tumult with installation, configuration and tiny details like users’ registration and maintenance.

Rumble Talk provided those three benefits, with its minimized primary steps to setup chat room for your radio station. Rumble Talk advanced platform requires no installation on radio station website. A simple registration process and a copy of code embedded on your website will give a chat room capability in an instant.

Rumble Talk provides more than just a chat room, we provide a chat platform for radio station needs. Our chat platform is capable to handle video or audio calls and a short audio message. With this audio message facility, radio DJ can ask listeners to send their audio message and broadcast them during live on-air.

For the security, we provide a top-notch enhanced security technology with SSL connection, plus the capability to block spam with our AntiSpam and Word Black List.

Our list of satisfied customers is an evidence of Rumble Talk capability to provide a live radio chat room. With Rumble Talk, a radio station will sing ‘Radio Ga Ga’ proudly, because Internet radio station is more than just “a background noise”, but the radio that will reach its finest hour.

Create your own group chat for your radio >>