Mars Team Online - 5 Steps for QuestChats

5 Steps for Participating in a QuestChat:

Registering
Entering The Chat Room
Identifying Yourself
Showing posted messages and Scrolling Back
Chatting

Quest chats usually require registration. The primary purpose of the Quest projects is to service the K-12 classroom. In order to maintain a worry-free environment, we would like to know with whom we are chatting. If you cannot provide the information requested, you are still invited to observe the chat without registration.

Note: When you register for a chat, one of the limited spots has been reserved for you. If you are unable to attend, please notify the Chat moderator.

registration

keep this information

You may want to "bookmark" the location in your browser

Step 2 : Entering The Chat Room:

Point your Web browser to the specific chat room location (URL) that you were given when you registered, or return to the calendar of events and enter from the "Already registered? Join the..." button
Enter the User Name and password EXACTLY as you were given in your confirmation. If you delete or add spaces...you wil be denied entry and will have to try again.

Step 3: Identifying Yourself:

You should always begin a chat by identifying yourself!

Above the large white chat box, you will find a smaller white box that asks for your "first name." If you do not type anything in this box the name that you used in registration will identify your posted message. If you are sharing your log-in or computer with other classmates and you want to identify yourself specifically, you may type your name in this box.

Examples:
Step 4: Showing posted messages and Scrolling Back:
1. The "show at least" is set at 10. If you leave this number at 10 you will see the last 10 messages that have been posted each time you click refresh screen. If for some reason you wish to see more or less messages, you can change this number. We have found that 10 seems to be an ideal number and recommend you leave this default. As the chat progresses, there will be more than 10 messages posted and they will not all show on your screen. If you want to go back and see some earlier posted messages you can enter a number in this box and click on refesh screen. This will post that number of messages.
2. Scroll back: If you type a number in the "scroll back" box and click on refresh screen it will bring you back that many messages. This is helpful if you think you may have missed dialogue or if you want to go back and see more than the last 10 posted messages. The small numbers after each dialogue posted tells you the dialogue number posted and the time. For example a posted message the identifier:
  lets you know that this is the 21st message posted and it was posted at 12:22 p.m.
Step 5: Chatting:
1. Chat Window: To send a message or question, type it into the large white window.
2. Refresh Screen or Submit New Message:To post your completed your message to the chat room click this button. You must click this button each time you want to see new dialogue. We suggest about every 15 seconds.
Please note:
All chats are monitored. Discussions about math, science, space, technology, gender equity and topics particular to the expert's field are appropriate. Inappropriate dialogue will not be tolerated and will result in immediate refusal to post any additional dialogue.
Capturing text to save it: If you want to save any or all of the dialogue text, you can simply cut and paste into any word processing document.
Reading archived dialogue: All chat dialogue will be saved, edited and placed as a file that you can link to from the expert's bio. Chats are usually archived the day following the chat.