Curious about Instant Messaging? meebo me!

Want to hear about meebo? Just press play below.

The first tool I want to introduce is called meebo.

The most basic description of meebo would be instant messaging on the web. For example, if you were away at a conference but wanted to do some instant messaging you could go to the meebo site and login to your AOL instant messager, Yahoo, MSN, or Google talk account and have your buddy list ready for you to chat. No software to install, no funny IM aliases to remember. You login to the site and you are ready to IM with your buddies.

While this kind of flexibility alone would be enough for some to utilize this service there is so much more. One of the problems you may have had with going into instant messaging technology as a way to communicate with your students is that you couldn't decide which service to join. If you were on AOL but most of your students were on MSN then you could not exchange messages unless someone joined the other service. On meebo you can login to multiple instant messaging systems at the same time. You will need to have joined each of these IM services but once you do that you are able to chat on multiple systems through meebo. If your saying to yourself, "that sounds great but how will I remember all those logins and passwords", don't worry because meebo can assist you with that as well. If you sign up for an account with meebo you get some excellent benefits:

1. meebo will securely remember your login information for any IM systems you are using
2. You can create anonymous "meebo me chat widgets" that allow anyone to IM with you on the meebo system (more on this in a second)

For example, if I wanted to make an easy way for you to chat with me I could simply add a chat widget right on this web page. Like this:



If I am available online anyone could chat with me. They do not need to subscribe to any IM service. This makes the instant message a very easy medium for you and your students. You could easily embed a meebo widget into your Blackboard. Students could see if you were online and ask a quick question perhaps saving you an e-mail message or two.

Welcome to InnovaTech!

Welcome to a new blog at the College of Lake County. This is a place where I would like to highlight some of the great tools I come across on an almost daily basis. Now, notice I did not say I was going to post about these tools on an almost daily basis. My goal would be to make sure and contribute at least one per week. In addition, I plan to use this blog as a starting point to link to other media and resources. What kind of resources you ask? Perhaps some instructional videos on Blackboard.

I may even try to do a podcast here and there...

Stay tuned and see what comes next (or even first)!