When?You will participate in four 1-hour sessions from 8 pm to 9 pm, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), on the following days: Tuesday 5/10, Thursday 5/12, Tuesday 5/17, and Thursday 5/19.

How to login:You will receive a different URL from your teacher, for each of the four sessions that we will have. Use that URL in a browser to start the chat application. The login screen will look like the image on the left.

First, enter a screen name or “nickname” for you. Make sure that this screen name is not your real name. For privacy reasons, we're asking that you don't share any personal information about yourself during the chats, such as your name, age, or where you live. Also, make sure that you use the same nickname for all four sessions.

Welcome to the Virtual Math Teams pilot of the Math Forum @ Drexel University

In this program students from different schools around the country will be collaborating in teams to explore and solve mathematical problems. This is not a competition. Collaboration will happen online through an Internet environment that combines a chat program and a shared whiteboard. This guide will give you an idea of how to use the environment.

Room Name

This chat environment uses Java Web Start to run. Java and Java Web Start might be included in many computers already. However, If you need to install additional support for Java for the computer that you will be using, you can get download instructions at: http://java.sun.com/products/javawebstart/download.jsp

The first time you run our chat environment, you'll see a dialog box with a security warning. It is safe to allow the application to run on your computer.

This is what the chat environment looks like. In addition to the regular chat you also have a drawing program that is shared by everyone who is in a chat room.

To chat, type your message in the text field on the bottom right corner. When you press Enter your message is sent to everyone and appears on the chat window.

You can make the chat area bigger or smaller by sliding this horizontal bar left or right.

To draw on the whiteboard, use the tools on top of the whiteboard to draw lines, geometrical figures or text. You will find more information about these tools at the bottom of this page.

To link one chat message to another, double click the message you want to respond to and you will see a blue arrow connecting that message with the text field for new messages.

Link a message to

an area of the

whiteboard

Freehand

Line Rectangle

Circle

TextPaste Icon

Add Image file

Link objects

Make a screenshot

Line Style

Line Thickness

Text Color

Line Color

Fill Color

Zoom