I've updated the digital journalists Resources page on The Digital Narrative with some additional items. Though I don't promote it often, this section of the site is one I'm slowly building on. It's crucial that young adults realise that their views are important, powerful and relevant. The resources the Story Chaser web pages offer to research and publish both on and offline are just waiting to be exploited!

Tiny Chat is a simple, straightforward chat service that's browser based.

Cons: it's light on features, very light. But all the essentials are there. The main feature lacking for me was any sort of monitoring, so you can't police discussions. This of course means sabotage by a class member remains a possibility. For this reason, small group use is suggested for collaborative work.

Pros: it really is easy to use, with a learning curve of about 20 seconds. This makes it perfect for fast, small group discussions. With Tiny Chat in mind, you can get a collaborative discussion online underway in less than a minute.

Story building?: Forums are great for story building. In my experience, students writing a story together using a forum find it to be fast paced and exciting. It's also a wonderful opportunity to introduce any manner of narrative elements before, during and after. 'Did you foreshadow that idea earlier?', 'Make sure you don't include too many characters, remember this is a short story', 'What's your source of conflict?' etc.

Also worth noting, you can't save your work under an account as there's no login or registration. You can however, download a log of your chat for future reference. So if you need it, you'll have something to evaluate later!