How to get into the Chatroom

On December 30, 1997, 10 of us experimented with the new Chat Room that is on the Stuttering Home Page. We were from Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Utah, Minnesota, Utah and New Zealand. I am still in the process of learning about how all of this works, but learned a lot (like if your system has a firewall, it won't work for you! and you have to have a system and a browser that supports Java).

For those who are interested in getting into the Chatrooms sometime, you've already started, because the first thing you need to do is open up the Stuttering Home Page at: http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/stutter.html

Scroll down to the bottom of the index to where it says:

Stuttering Home Page Chat Room - sponsored by Key City Sertoma

Click on the link which brings you to a brief page about the chat room, where the rules are described. At the bottom of the page is a link that says, "Click here to enter the chat room." Do it!

On the first page of the chat room - On-Line Academy (http://online.coled.mnsu.edu/webx?14@^741@.ee6b374) there is a place at the very top of the page where you should login (register first if you haven't done that, and then login). If you don't wish to login or register, you can still get to the Stuttering Chat rooms where you can "lurk" or watch what is going on there, though you won't be able to add to the discussion.

You'll get to the login page where you enter your name and a password (providing you've registered) - then hit the button that says Login. Please remember your password! I haven't figured out how to find out what it was - although I'm working on it:-) If you forget, try logging on again with a new password. Eventually I'll probably have to dump those who have registered and everyone can re-register. There are 148 names in the index already, and many of them are people that just peeked in once to see if anything was going on I suspect.

That brings you to the next page, entitled "Stuttering Chat." Scroll down and you should see four chat rooms listed:

General Discussion on Stuttering
Guest Lecturer
Parents of Children Who Stutter
Teens Chat Area

Ignore what is below those listings and click on which of the four chat areas you want to enter.

That will load the java applet for the chat room. Remember this won't work unless you have a computer and a browser such as Netscape 3.0.1, that will support Java.

If you are registered, you should be able to type in a message in the box where it says "message" and then hit return. The message you typed should then appear in the chatroom.

If you want to send a private message to someone, you can do that by highlighting that person's name and choosing private message. You can also choose to ignore an individual, or invite an individual into a private room to continue a discussion that appears to be of interest to just the two of you, by using the menu options.

Anyone can arrange times to meet with friends in the General Discussion Chat Room. If anyone has ideas of a couple of general times to schedule open discussion, please let me know. I would also like to hear ideas of specific things that could be scheduled. For example, we could schedule a meeting time for an hour a week - or every other week if that is better - when parents of preschoolers who are disfluent could get together to share information and mutual support, and eventually invite some guests in to answer questions. If there are any parents who are lurking on this list, and this idea is of interest, please contact me (kuster@mnsu.edu). Maybe parents of kids who are in therapy for stuttering would like to establish a time to meet. Maybe guests like John Harrison, Scatman John, Marty Jezer, big etc., could be convinced to visit, or to discuss a specific article or book. Maybe a clinician who specializes in providing services to children who stutter would like to come and visit with some school-based SLPs. Maybe some folks who have helped get an NSP chapter going would be willing to meet with some others who want to start one. What are your ideas?

Judy Kuster