I haven't tried all of these so don't know if they suit your needs or not. If you feel leary about giving any of them personal registration info then please don't sign on with them. Not all chats require membership. Also, if you spot offensive language back out of that chat room right away and check out another site and also let me know which one you were in. I would like to weed out the bad sites and only post sites that are conducive to learning, that teachers can gain from.
***If you do not wish to register or give any information that might be used for marketing purposes at anyof these sites feel free to just post your opinion of previos chat experiences you have had or schedule a  meeting with one of your classmates in our class's chat area which is secure.
Thanks in advance, Karen :)

TAPPED IN™ is a growing community of over
                                6000 K-16 teachers, staff, and researchers
                                engaged in professional development programs and
                                informal collaborative activities with colleagues.
                                Members hold real-time discussions and classes,
                                browse Websites together, explore professional
                                development options, and interact via mailing lists
                                and discussion boards all in a single venue.
http://www.tappedin.org/

Integrated chat, message boards,  instant message and email. Can embed chat into your own site.
http://community.chatspace.com/

HumanClick Free

Gives you HumanClick’s Click to Chat functionality on your web
  site and in your Email Signature, and inclusion in the HumanClick Live Directory
  Service—a Live Directory we’re compiling of all sites offering Live Customer
  Service powered by HumanClick.
http://www.humanclick.com/

Get up-to-date in your own chat room at Yahoo.
 http://login.yahoo.com/config/login?.src=grp&.done=http%3a//edit.clubs.yahoo.com/config/finish_create_group

Yahoo also now offers an instant chat, you have to download a small program but it is similar to msn instant messenger and you can see if any of your friends or family that are also using the yahoo chat program are online.

Claims to be; "the total Internet communications solution that combines the best of a instant messaging and internet telephony. Paltalk offers a wide range of features that allows users to communicate with each other anywhere in the world at any time - all for free.

Paltalk offers the following services.    Voice calls,    Video conferencing,   Group Voice conferencing,      Instant messaging,    Group text chat,   Voice mail,    File Transfer"

http://www.paltalk.com/paltalk/index.html
Thanks to Steve, May 2001 class for submitting this one!

Multichat is a chat room software for web sites. It has been developed entirely in Java and has been translated into  11+ different languages. We can help you setup a chat room on your web site in less than a minute. You do not need to worry about scripts, servers or any sort of installation.   Simply insert a few lines of code into the your web page and we will take care of the rest.
http://www.multichat.com/

Taking orders on a waiting list only.

http://www.chatplanet.com/

create your own
                            Anexa Microcommunity™.
                            With Anexa you can be the admin of your
                            own community. Your web browser is the
                            only tool you need to engage Anexa's
                            amazing functionality:

                                 Chat rooms
                                 Discussion boards
                                 Events calendars
                                 Guestbooks
                                 Member access, passwords
                                 Advanced customization features
                                   ... and much more

http://parachat.com/anexa/

 WBS is a real-time chat application that allows members to instantly communicate with thousands of
other people at any time of the day. WBS is a huge community of members where you can make new
friends and stay in touch with old ones. Create a private room when you sign up for free membership.
WBS chat software works with an ordinary web browser and requires no plug-ins.

http://pages.wbs.net/

EZTalk Chat
Individuals, as well as business and organizations, can now link a Talk City chat room into their Web
sites, using our EZTalk chat technology. People enter your chat room through your own web site, through Talk City, or through one of hundreds of linked Web sites around the globe. And best of all, the program is free!
http://www.talkcity.com/irc/apply.html

EveryChat is the premiere freeware perl CGI chat script specifically designed to work on every browser available, from Lynx to Netscape! It requires absolutely no special software on the client side and doesn't require plug-ins such as Java, Javascript, or ActiveX. The the only software required on the server side is perl, and most servers already have it installed. Furthermore, its simple  lightweight design minimizes script usage to make it easy on your server and easy to use. You must install the program on your host server to use it.
http://www.everysoft.com/everychat/

Create your own world for free.

Create a dynamic multi-user World all your own, for free! LiveUniverse Worlds are made up of
customized chat rooms, games, message boards and more all hosted and maintained by LiveUniverse at no cost to you, your company or organization.
http://LiveUniverse.com/luv/html/create.html

Horizon Live

The Horizon system lets an instructor or expert speak live audio
                             while simultaneously "pushing" pages to participants located
                             anywhere else on the Internet, or company intranet. Participants
                             can type questions or responses back to the instructor, and to
                             each other, just as in a real classroom.

                             How can I use Horizon?

                             Horizon can be used to give live classes, for product roll outs or
                             for presentations. Content for a class can be anything to help
                             strengthen your class or presentation, in any internet-ready
                             format. Possible formats include Microsoft PowerPoint or Word
                             bullet points, graphics, animations, forms that students fill in —
                             anything that could be on a web site.

http://www.horizonlive.com

WebEX

WebEx is a free service that promises to make Web-based meetings
                     as productive as face-to-face meetings and as ubiquitous as email.
                     WebEx Meeting Center is the first service to enable sophisticated,
                     real-time visual and verbal interaction across the Web that requires
                     only an ordinary browser. WebEx enables spontaneous sharing of
                     documents, presentations and to jointly surf the Web content. The
                     multiple people to securely have a highly interactive and productive
                     conference by getting together with only their browser at webex.com.

http://www.webex.com/

ICQ
http://www.mirabilis.com/icqhomepage.html
ICQ is a revolutionary, user-friendly Internet tool that informs you who's on-line at any time and enables you to contact them at will. No longer will you search in vain for friends or associates on the Net. ICQ does the searching for you, alerting you in real time when they log on. The need to conduct a directory search each time you want to communicate with a specific person is eliminated.

        With ICQ, you can chat, send messages, files and URL's, play games, or just hang out with your fellow 'Netters' while still surfing the Net.

        It lets you choose the mode of communication you wish to employ. Regardless of the application, be it chat, voice, whiteboard, data conferencing, file transfer or Internet games, ICQ will get your entire message across in real time.

The only 2 downsides that I have found for this program is a) the fact that one has to install it on the user end machine and register so one may not just go to a site and begin chatting, (For example; if a person has to use a public library computer or other computer that doesn't have the software, they will be out of luck. This is similar problem that we encounter with Embanet.)  and b) once the course is over students have you on their list and some send all sorts of bulk junk mail messages to you indefinitely.

 Plan to use ICQ only if you require a lot of synchronous interaction in your course or if you are an extreme extrovert :)

ICQ may not be for you, indeed, you may not even like it, but I thought I would introduce you to it since millions of people are on it and your students will most likely know what it is and may also already have ICQ accounts. Don't you just hate it when the students know more about the technologies'  "latest gadgets" than you do? I sometimes get dizzy trying to keep up with it all :) As you may have guessed, one of my teenage students introduced me to ICQ. lol
(lol means laugh out loud, in case you didn't know, chat slang :) )

____________________________
 

 iSpQ VideoChat 5.0 (thanks to Evelyn for discovering this one for MacIntosh)

     Meet face-to-face online using your Webcam and this
     full-featured chat client on the Classic System or Mac OS
     X. iSpQ VideoChat features include v-mail, video instant
     messaging, ICQ compatibility, multi-person
     videoconferencing, and much more.

  http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=eB5C0BZrdM0S0dpD0A2

My.PlaceWare is a free service offered by PlaceWare, Inc.  which enables you to experience a new medium of
business communications, web conferencing. With web conferencing you can conduct live graphical and interactive  meetings with anyone, in any place over the Internet with  only a web browser and a phone.  Thanks to Frederica, Oct. 2000 for this discovery :)
http://placeware.com/

Thanks to Keiko Jan 2000 class for submitting the following:

Chat Systems
http://www.chatsystems.com/free/undernet.html

TutorNet (with fee but they claim for education)
http://www.tutornet.com/

Centra-- www.centra.com
Placeware-- www.placeware.com
 

similar features to WebEx but can be purchased and more control and security

Groupboard.com
offers a chat room as well as a whiteboard which can be embedded into your own webpage.

http://teachers.net/chat/

khoblit@hotmail.com