Reach: an Awareness Rich CSCL Text Chat Tool with Real-time Key Typing Display

To compensate the lack of awareness in CSCL environment, a CSCL chat tool capable of displaying all the participants´ key typing process was developed. The system displays key by key typed in letters to other learners. Smooth turn-taking and topic negotiation are expected by the realization of real time display. From our preliminary evaluation, learners evaluated the conversation using this system easier, even though number of sentences between the proposed system and the usual chat system showed no difference. Learners´ comments after the usage reveals that there are both merit and demerit such as natural awareness or neglecting of writing complete sentences.