Current political, economic, and social events remind us about how polarised the world is becoming. Many heated debates discussing current events are happening online, with people losing the skill (or never learning) how to discuss an issue in a mature and constructive way, so learning debating skills is essential to improve communication standards. The aim of the project was create a Learn To Debate chat tool, with simple functionality and ease of use. The application could potentially be used in educational environments as a helpful learning space for students, while they learn debating and critical thinking skills under supervision of their teachers.
Why chat tool? Not everyone likes video-calling when working or studying from home. Texting is one of the most widespread and preferrable ways to communicate - in private and business. Other potential benefits of learning via text conversations: opportunity to learn debating skills for students with disabilities, or those who comprehend information better by writing and reading; one-to-one chat conversation can help students to focus on the conversation with no distractions; it is a good way to learn self-expression in writing.
- Learn to Debate Chat tool is a Windows desktop application created using Python programming language. It consists of back-end and front-end. Python socket module was used to establish a connection between a Client and Server, and to send and receive messages across the network (using TCP). The Server script runs first, establishes the connection, and then the Client script is run. The Client script the has main chat functionality and UI.
- The application was continuously tested and program code was refactored from early stages of development.
- Limitation of the project is that the chat tool doesn’t teach students actual debating skills; it provides a place where learning happens. Therefore, the outcome of learning will depend on the educational institution and on the expertise of a teacher using it effectively with students.
This repository contains the app code and related files.
- The chat tool was tested against the list of "words.txt" (included) and it prompts specific messages if words are matching.
- "Words.txt" contains words that bring a negative tone to the conversation, such as swear words. The list can be amended and used with a different purpose.
- The chat tool saves each new communication in a newly created text file.
- The text file is saved in the same location the script is running from.
- User can add feedback at the end, which is also written into the text file.
Chat example
Text file of a saved chat
The program has two versions: Local and Internet.
- Local version runs between devices on the same network. It asks user to input the IP address of the device on which the server is running.
- A separate script Get Your Host can be run to find out the necessary IP address.
- Internet version is designed to connect to the server running on author's device (when running for testing). It can be amended to be run from any other device. Other settings such as IP address, Firewall and Router settings need to be amended then.
- Chat-Server.py is run first.
- Chat-Client-Local.py is run second - can be run on the same or different machine as the server. Will need the IP address from the Get-your-host.py, if running the local version.
- Chat-Server.py
- Get-your-host.py
- Chat-Client-Local.py
- Chat-Client-Internet.py
- Words.txt
- deb.png
- debatetoolIcon.jpg
- Chat script.txt
- README.md
NO files should be removed and should be kept in one location, as this may affect performance of the program.