By Dr. Violet Dickson
Curriculum Coordinator
Arts, AV, Technology & Communication
What is Today’s Meet? Well, imagine that
you’re teaching a class or giving a presentation, whether it’s a staff
development workshop for teachers, a presentation at a PTA meeting, a parent
meeting in your classroom, or a lesson with a group of students. Imagine that,
during your presentation, some participants are engaged in sidebar
conversations on related topics, or possibly even questions or comments that
they have about the presentation. Now imagine this: What if all of the private
sidebar conversations suddenly became an active and integrative part of the
presentation or the lesson? That’s the beauty of Today’s Meet!
Today’s Meet is a free social media service
that creates an isolated chat room, called a backchannel, that is open during a
presentation but is only available for participation by the members of your
audience. A backchannel uses WiFi connections to connect participants via
laptop computers, tablets, or cell phones so they can participate in real-time
online conversations. This allows discussions on the backchannel to be relevant
to the audience but not open to the general public. Audience participants are
allowed to contribute by posting comments and/or questions through a simple
logon process that does not require the creation of an account or password.
This resource can be very useful for anyone
interested in providing a digital forum for audience interaction. Backchannels
allow members of an audience to ask questions, provide feedback, and share
links relevant to the discussion or presentation. By incorporating the use of a
backchannel, a presenter can encourage members of an audience to engage with
one another throughout a presentation.
HISTORY
The first time the term, “back channel”, was used
was by Victor Yngve in 1970, when he used it to describe conversations in which
both parties were actively engaged in speaking and listening at the same time,
with neither party willing to relinquish their turn to speak.
The first famous example of the use of a
backchannel communication was at the PC Forum in 2002 when Qwest CEO, Joe
Nacchio, made certain comments, and journalists in the audience posted
accounts, in real-time, to their web blogs, challenging the comments. According
to Forum host, Esther Dyson, the audience became increasingly hostile
throughout Nacchio’s presentation as information was communicated and shared electronically
on what she described as “parallel channels”.
In 2009, Purdue University enabled students
to comment, for the first time, on course lectures using social networking
tools such as Facebook and Twitter. The university discovered that social media
could be used in the classroom as a backchannel for note taking, asking
questions, posting information, and sharing resources.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
In classrooms today, a backchannel basically provides
a private chat room for the teacher and students. It can be used between a
teacher and a whole class, between individual students, or between small groups
of students while another activity is going on. For example, students can
backchannel their comments while watching a documentary film, post comments or
questions while listening to a guest speaker, record ideas during an activity
or project, and even record data while conducting experiments. Students can
also post questions for the teacher without waiting to be called on. The
backchannel encourages timid students to participate more often and prevents
other students from monopolizing the conversation.
Many different media networks have been used
as a backchannel, including Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, Instant Messaging, and
Google Moderator. Twitter and Skype have been used as backchannels so
participants from different parts of the world could be included in
conversations. They have also been combined with live videostreaming so people
from different places can take part in events via “virtual” participation.
As the use of backchannels have become more popular in
the classroom, more apps and resources for backchannels are becoming available.
In addition to the “free” backchannel sites, there are backchannel tools for
purchase that can provide a class discussion format with teacher controls,
greater security, and profanity filters for the cost of a membership with an annual
or monthly fee. Backchannel Chat by Learnweaver is an example of an app for
purchase that is available through iTunes for both the iPad and iPhone.
Richard Byrne, a classroom teacher who maintains a
website on free technology for teachers, has evaluated several resources for
backchannels in the classroom, which he frequently uses for class discussions,
note taking, and even movie reviews. The backchannels Byrne recommends includes
TodaysMeet, Chatzy, Edmodo, Present.ly, and Neat Chat. All five of these sites
provide free platforms for hosting a private chat area within the classroom.
TodaysMeet is a popular backchannel that requires a very
simple set up. The teacher chooses a name for the chat room, determines how
long the room will be up, and provides students with the url so they can login.
TodaysMeet is my personal favorite because it’s free, it’s very user-friendly,
it doesn’t have a public gallery with questionable content, and it doesn’t
allow inappropriate advertising, like some backchannels do. The downside to
TodaysMeet is that it is not password protected, and the teacher cannot filter
what a student might post for the whole class to see. Therefore, teachers
should exercise some caution using this platform. However, students should be aware
that since comments are in print and can be stored for a period of time, there
is a record of their comments for parents or administrators to see.
Chatzy is a free
backchannel platform that is password protected, and the teacher sends out
invitations to the chat area, so access is restricted. Edmodo is one of my
favorite classroom management tools that teachers can use to post assignments,
quizzes, reminders, surveys, and a calendar. In addition, teachers can also use
Edmodo to create a microblogging network for their classes that updates in
real-time so participants can respond to each other. Present.ly is also a free
backchannel platform for private micro-blogging. However, the main difference
is that you create a private blogging community based on your email domain.
Neat Chat is one of the newest free backchannel platforms. Teachers can set up
Neat Chat quickly by selecting a nickname and clicking “start”. Once they have
their assigned url, teachers can invite students or parents to participate in
their “add-free” chat room via email, Twitter, or Facebook.
Three other free platforms that may have some benefit in
the classroom as a backchannel include Chatterous, MisterThread, and Google
Groups. Chatterous is different in that members can join a chat room via cell
phone or email. With Chatterous, you can also create a public chat room that
can be embedded into a blog or website. MisterThread is like a backchannel
“thread”, where people join to participate in particular conversations, and
Google Groups allow anyone to create a public or private discussion group with
various levels of access or restrictions, depending on the nature and purpose
of the discussion.
SUMMARY
Although it’s still a resource in-progress,
backchanneling has the potential to stimulate a collaborative learning
environment both in presentations and in the classroom. Teachers
may want to experiment with a few of the free backchannel platforms before
deciding on one to use with students in the classroom. Whatever backchanneling
service the teacher chooses, the bottom line is that using a backchannel in the
classroom engages students in learning, incorporates a greater use of
technology regardless of the lesson topic or subject, encourages greater
collaboration between the students and the teacher, and allows students to take
greater charge of their own learning.
References:
-
Atkinson, C. (2010). The backchannel: How audiences are using Twitter and social media and changing presentations forever. Berkeley, CA: New Riders Publication.
- Backchannel. Retrieved from http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backchannel
- Backchannel Chat by LearnWeaver. Retrieved from https://www.schoology.com/apps/profile/37669421
- Byrne, R. (2010). Five Platforms for a Classroom Backchannel. Retrieved from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/01/five-platforms-for-classroom-back.html#.U037gFca2So
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