Not because chat is bad. Because nobody reads old messages.
A student asks: “Can you explain this concept?”
Trainer answers. Two hours later, another student asks the same thing in a slightly different way.
Then another. Then another.
Now the trainer is stuck doing repetitive support work instead of actual teaching.
My client wanted a WhatsApp-style group chat inside their learning platform.
According to me Chats are terrible for structured learning. They are distraction as well.
So I suggested something else: A discussion board model. More like Quora than WhatsApp.
Student asks a question. Trainer answers it. Other students can contribute too.
Now every answer becomes searchable. Repeated questions reduce naturally. Peer-to-peer learning starts happening. And over time, the platform builds its own knowledge repository.
A lot of product decisions are just copied from consumer apps without thinking about user behavior.
Have you seen group chats actually work well inside learning products?
