Real-Time Chats

Real-Time Chats

Many of our interviewees would love to visit classrooms around the world. Internet technology allows us to do that through the use of chats. Students can ask questions of very interesting people, and get answers back in "real-time", as if they were talking face to face in the classroom.

Read some of the chats we have already done!

If you are a student, teacher or parent interested in communicating with one of our interviewees, let us know by filling out a request form.

We will attempt to schedule chats with individual classrooms or homeschoolers at a time convenient to you. We cannot guarantee that you will be able to chat with a particular expert because our experts are in different time zones all over the world. When class is in session for you it may be the middle of the night where they are! Also, all of our interviewees are busy people. We have to work with their schedule and sometimes they have no time!

If you schedule a chat, please make sure that everyone who is going to participate has read the interview and previous chats for the person they are going to be chatting with. Please review all related Q&A at our Q&A project. Some interviewees also have on-line photo albums! Learn as much about the person as you can so that you do not ask a lot of questions that have already been answered.

To make your real-time chat the best that it can be, we offer the following suggestions:

Types of questions

Our interviewees will answer questions about their jobs, hobbies and even some personal questions. When asking a personal question, make sure you are asking something "appropriate". Do not ask something you would not want someone to ask you.

Representing yourself

When you do a real-time chat, take the time to spell correctly and check your grammar and punctuation. Remember that you represent yourself, your parents, your teacher, and your school. Your teacher's name and the name of your school will appear on the archived chat.

Student privacy

During the chat, we ask that each student identify himself or herself by first name or a nickname. If students of different ages are participating, please also list your age or grade. Names are required but do not have to be the real name of the student. Providing a name helps the interviewees know if they are talking to the same person, or if every question is from someone different. Sometimes, later in the chat, the interviewee will think of something to add to an earlier question. We remove names of students (and any personal information they may share during the chat) before we post the chat to our archives. If the students are over 13 and wish to have their names included in the archive, please let us know.

We do not save student names or use this information for any other purpose.

Real-time chats in different languages

We currently are able to conduct chats in English or Spanish. Most of our interviewees speak English. If our expert can read and write in Spanish, he or she may be able to answer questions in that language. Sometimes we will translate the question for the interviewee and he or she will respond in English. We are not able to translate English answers in real-time, but there are online translators that may be able to help you. If you are interested in chatting in a different language, please let us know in advance. We will do our best to communicate with you in your language, but be patient with our mistakes (and correct us when we make them)!

Waiting for answers

Chats will be moderated by one of the members of the Imagiverse Team. It gets really hectic for the expert to answer questions when a whole group of students is sending them! The ideal method for communicating during a chat is to wait for the answer before you ask the next question. However, due to time constraints in the classroom, teachers often do not have that luxury and need to allow their students to ask all their questions at once and read answers later. If less than five students are communicating, wait for the answer before you ask the next question. It will make the chat much more interesting for you (and it is much less stressful for the expert who is typing as fast as he or she can)!

Questions can also be submitted in advance. This is often an effective way to work with large class sizes. It gives the expert a head start thinking of answers.

When time runs out

If many students are communicating, there will probably be only time for about 30 questions. We hope we will be able to get an answer for every student who asks a question. If time runs out during the real-time chat, additional questions (or follow up questions) may be submitted to our Q&A project, SNAiL. Students should prepare beforehand and decide in what order questions should be asked. Ask the best questions, the ones most students want to know, first! Do not ask the same question more than once.

Thoughts from a 4th grade student on chats

A few years ago, the 3rd and 4th grade students from Montessori School of Corona participated in approximately 50 chats with NASA experts. Their experience inspired their teacher (Michelle Mock) to create this website and bring experts, from all over the world and many walks of life, to the classroom. Teachers learn a lot from their students! The following words, from Alexis (4th Grade) say it all:

"I think the chats have influenced my life a lot. The football game I played in P.E., I won't remember. I will remember that I had a computer in my class and I got to chat with amazing people."

Thanks, Alexis! You are amazing too!

Last Updated:
18 January 2007