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Group chat

Online group chat was first invented in the 1970s, in a tool called Talkomatic. People loved being able to see messages appear instantly.1
An animated screen capture of a conversation in a modern day re-creation of the Talkomatic chat tool. Two users each have their own text area, and live typing appears in each area, showing up character by character.
A modern day re-creation of the Talkomatic interface. Each person gets their own area to type in, and they can see what others type in their area.
Sometimes an existing community creates an online chat room for them to meet virtually, and other times, online chat rooms create communities that never before existed. When I was a kid, I hung out in a chat room for cat lovers and we used to wage "cyber battles" with the dog lovers. Many of us lived in rural areas where we couldn't easily play with neighbors, so we were happy to find ways to play with new friends online.
Group chat isn't just a tool for socializing, it's now essential to business operations. More than half of global companies either allow working remotely (away from the office) or are entirely remote (with no physical office at all), so they rely on online tools for communication and collaboration.
At Khan Academy, we use a chat application called Slack, a popular tool used by the majority of Fortune 100 companies.2 Our conversations happen in hundreds of channels with different purposes, bringing together teams, groups working on short projects, and employees with shared interests. A few of my favorite channels are #us_sciences, #web-frontend, #what_are_you_reading, #lolcode, and #slytherin.
Not only does online chat enable people to communicate with each other across long distances, it also allows for multiple conversations at once. I can be in two chats at the same time, one with software engineers debugging an issue and another with content creators discussing pedagogical best practices .
An animated GIF of two conversations side by side. One conversation is in a #web-frontend channel about a bug in HTML, the other conversation is in a #content-kitchen channel about average reading time.
Two simultaneous conversations on very different topics.
Online chat isn't the same as face-to-face conversations, however. We can't hear each other's voices or see each other's facial conversations, so we miss social cues that have evolved in humans over thousands of years. We can bring tiny faces back into our conversations, however, thanks to emoticons and emojis, and that can help convey the emotions behind our messages.
These are the top emojis that I use in my conversations at work:
🙂 😆😉😂😞🤔😀
🤔 And now is a great time for the thinking face. Have you ever had a misunderstanding in online communication due to lack of social cues? Are there other drawbacks of online chat, either with friends, classmates, or coworkers?

🙋🏽🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏿‍♂️Do you have any questions about this topic? We'd love to answer—just ask in the questions area below!

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  • duskpin sapling style avatar for user Keegan Keene
    how big is earth?
    (5 votes)
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    • blobby green style avatar for user 26issaca
      The radius of Earth at the equator is 3,963 miles (6,378 kilometers), according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. However, Earth is not quite a sphere. The planet's rotation causes it to bulge at the equator. Earth's polar radius is 3,950 miles (6,356 km) — a difference of 13 miles (22 km).

      Using those measurements, the equatorial circumference of Earth is about 24,901 miles (40,075 km). However, from pole to pole — the meridional circumference — Earth is only 24,860 miles (40,008 km) around. Our planet's shape, caused by the flattening at the poles, is called an oblate spheroid.

      Those numbers make Earth just slightly bigger than Venus, whose equatorial radius is about 3,761 miles (6,052 km)(opens in new tab). Mars is much smaller than both Earth and Venus, with an equatorial radius of just 2,110 miles (3,396 km)

      But Earth and the other rocky planets are much smaller than the gas giants. For example, more than 1,300 Earths could fit inside Jupiter.



      DENSITY, MASS AND VOLUME
      Earth's density is 5.513 grams per cubic centimeter, according to NASA. Earth is the densest planet in the solar system because of its metallic core and rocky mantle. Jupiter, which is 318 more massive than Earth, is less dense because it is made primarily of gases, such as hydrogen.

      Earth's mass is 6.6 sextillion tons (5.9722 x 1024 kilograms). Its volume is about 260 billion cubic miles (1 trillion cubic kilometers).

      The total surface area of Earth is about 197 million square miles (510 million square km). About 71% of our planet is covered by water and 29% by land. For comparison, the total surface area of Venus is roughly 178 million square miles (460 million square km) , and that of Mars is about 56 million square miles (144 million square km)

      HIGHEST AND LOWEST POINTS
      Mount Everest is the highest place on Earth above sea level, at 29,032 feet (8,849 meters), but it is not the highest point on Earth — that is, the place most distant from the center of the Earth. That distinction belongs to Mount Chimaborazo in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Although Chimaborazo is about 10,000 feet (3,048 m) shorter (relative to sea level) than Everest, this mountain is about 6,800 feet (2,073 m) farther into space because of the equatorial bulge.

      Everest and Chimborazo are nowhere near the tallest mountains in the solar system, however. The peak rising from Rheasilvia Crater on the asteroid Vesta, for example, is about 14 miles (22.5 km) tall. Mars' huge Olympus Mons volcano is nearly as high, at 13.6 miles (21.9 km), and it covers an area the size of the state of Arizona.

      The lowest point on Earth is Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, according to NOAA. It reaches down about 36,200 feet (11,034 m) below sea level.

      SOURCE: https://www.space.com/17638-how-big-is-earth.html

      Thank you for this amazing question, and I'm sorry that it has taken more than a year for it to get answered! Have a great day, and remember, everybody cares about you and loves you. :D
      (17 votes)
  • leaf blue style avatar for user Galaxy027❤
    What is the group chat about? Is this allowed on Khan Academy?
    ~Any Help will be appreciated! :)
    (6 votes)
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  • leaf green style avatar for user JoAnn Spragg
    I am elementary teacher, 5th grade, and I have used Khan for many years. It is such a wonderful supplement to my my program. I would love the option to turn off the online chat. I would prefer for my young students not interact with people online. It is a safety issue for young children. I believe in math discussions and feel they are a valuable learning tool but, I would prefer they be done in our classrooms. My district is not allowing Khan to be used if the students are still allowed to interact online. There are so many positives about Khan and I am hoping you will consider making the feature an option.
    (4 votes)
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  • female robot ada style avatar for user DedeLily
    Wow. I can't remember how many times I see people shut to each other for misunderstanding online. Talking about that, is it me or people become quite jumpy these days? The quarrel happened much more frequently now than years ago.
    (4 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Guerrero Eliel
    i have a question aobut this topic?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user marcpere7630
    what is 1 plus 1
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user EthanL
    why is my pet bear doing karate
    (2 votes)
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  • leafers sapling style avatar for user HI IM NOT SMORT
    why does no one every respond quick so I acn talk to people.
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user david_hoffer
    Is Slack still in use?
    (2 votes)
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  • stelly orange style avatar for user Tryhard
    how big is the earth
    (2 votes)
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