ONLINE CONVERSATION
DISCUSSION GROUPS AND CHAT ROOMS
While chat rooms and discussion groups are both ways to use the Internet to contact people, they are different in important ways.
Here is an explanation of each communication tool:
Discussion groups: public Internet forums where people post messages about a specific topic.
Discussion groups are like bulletin boards in that you post messages for people to read and respond to at their convenience. Anyone on the Internet can join a discussion group, read the postings, and leave a response. Discussion groups are good places to go if you have a question about a product, a hobby, anything you need help with. Just find a discussion group about your topic, post a question, and check back a little later to see if anyone out there has posted an answer for you.
Chat rooms: public places on the Internet where groups of people type messages to each other.
Chat rooms and Discussion groups are alike in that they are public forums where people exchange messages about specific topics. Unlike Discussion groups, Chat rooms are “live.” That is, people who are online at the same time read and respond to each other’s messages immediately.
To see Discussion groups or Chat rooms, go to the Community page: from Web Home, select Community (top of page), then press OK or RETURN.
ONLINE CONVERSATION – continued
DISCUSSION GROUPS
Discussion groups are Internet bulletin boards where people post and respond to messages about specific topics. Discussion groups are public
JOINING A DISCUSSION GROUP
Before you can read or post messages in a discussion group, you have to join the group.
To join a discussion group:
1From Web Home, select Community from the top of the screen, then press OK or RETURN.
2Select Discuss, then press OK or RETURN.
3Select a discussion group from the featured list, then press OK or RETURN (or search for a discussion on a specific topic using the Look for box at the bottom of the screen).
82 | 83 |