Problem Statement

ChalkTalk is a crisp group chat application that promotes interclass discussion, as well as allows for students to ask questions to each other, as well as to push questions to the professor. Have you ever been in a large lecture hall where the professor doesn’t frequently stop for students to catch up or ask questions? This app tackles that problem. The motivation for this app stems from being in lectures where the professor lectures so quickly that one small misunderstanding results in misunderstanding a large portion of the lecture (due to a lack of opportunities for clarification), as well as by allowing users to chat with each other during class, students can ask quick questions that would otherwise take away from lecture. Additionally, if a question is asked frequently enough, the question will be pushed to the professor, giving them the opportunity to respond and adapt to students' pace.

Current state of the art apps are: Groupme, Slack. These chat apps may be good for group chat functionality, but they lack a question asking feature that highlights a common misunderstanding amongst the group. While Groupme does allow for polls, this feature doesn’t have the same level of functionality; this feature does not allow for users to put in custom input.

Apps like Piazza and Google Docs, while great for sharing with a group within your class, are not typically designed for having a full lecture hall of participants. Additionally, these apps require you to invite specific users to your page, which limits the reach of your messages to just those you invite. This can be a problem in large lecture halls where the user does not know anyone else in lecture and would still like to be able to ask questions of the class.