Many instant messaging tools (MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo, AIM) really bridged the gap that email left by allowing you to have synchronous conversations with people. The only problem with it is that there are so many services out there that it gets hard to figure out which friend/collegue/student is on which service. That is where Adium, Meebo and Pidgin come in. They collect various IM services into one service.

So How could this work for Education?

• As an instructor you could make yourself available to all your students by using this service. That way it doesn’t require them to change their ways any and makes you available to them for whatever times you designate.
• Set up lectures with question periods and have it open so students with laptops can message their questions in. This engages the more shy students and lets you preview a question temporarily before answering.

If you want a comparison chart that I created of the three services you can download the PDF here.