Backchanneling Basics #12 - Activities part 2

I know that in my last blog post, I promised that this time I would write about how some other teachers are using backchannels, but I've had a neat experience with one of my classes I just need to write about. I will return to the topic of other uses of a backchannel just as soon as I can get to it: hopefully next week but perhaps not until school has let out in two weeks.

I came into a situation about a week ago when about one-third of a class was not prepared for our scheduled Socratic Seminar, so I had to alter my plans slightly but very quickly. I decided to just involve all of my students in the backchannel discussion I had planned, and since I had already set up a CoverItLive session for the activity, I decided to just to go that route rather than changing to a more open  backchannel platform at the last second.

I came at this with the premise of having a silent discussion with the kids, but most times when I run a silent discussion, I use Chatzy. I post a question and the responses can just fly. I don't have to moderate, and I can just watch how things develop. Since I had the CoverItLive session all ready to go, I needed to stick with that platform, and it struck me to try this alternative form of the silent discussion.

I got all the kids that were ready to participate in to the session and posted my first question. These students had backchanneled with me before, so they were used to the software and the process. Here's how I changed things up: I told the students to go ahead and answer the question posted but that they wouldn't see any of the answers for at least 5 minutes. At that point in time, I would post (after screening) all of the answers to the questions, giving the students time to read all the responses that had been generated. I then asked this follow-up question: "Reactions? What do you think of the above posts? Anybody screwed up? Anybody really hit the nail on the head? Thinking anything new?" I also schooled the kids on the Twitter style of directing a message at a specific classmate, and boy, did I get some interesting follow-up discussion as students challenged and questioned as well as reinforced and praised their peer's thinking. It was a good, solid discussion.

And I had to ask really deep questions as well because the process was taking longer than a normal Seminar with all the reaction discussion that was happening. I was forced to choose my questions more carefully and ask about what I really wanted to see if the kids were getting from the novel. You know, the time was well worth it though. My slower processing kids had time to gather their thoughts and didn't have to worry about who was going to get to answer the question first. What a wonderful way to differentiate instruction!

The kids seemed to love the new format, but just don't take my word for it. Click on the following links below to see both the two discussions and the feedback I solicited after the first of the two Seminars.

Links:

Of Mice and Men CoverItLive Discussions (links to my class wiki)

Feedback after 1st Discussion

Backchanneling Basics #9 - Backnoise & Chatterous

In past posts, I've covered Chatzy (both free and paid versions), Chatmaker, and Cover It Live. This week I will talk about both Backnoise and Chatterous.

Both services are, like most other chat services reviewed, free to both organizers and users as well as ad-free. In both cases, it is possible to embed the chat rooms on to your own web page, or you can send participants to a specific URL for access. There is no moderation available for the discussion as well; participants can post what they want when they want. Also, it is not required for participants to register to be a part of a chat, which of course makes it a great choice for classroom use but also means students have to be put on an honor system to create a real and appropriate user name for the discussion. Both services are also fairly private and secure for their users. Finally, browser support seems pretty broad for both services.

On the flip side, there are a few subtle differences between the two services. At Backnoise, anyone can start a chat at the drop of a hat; if you want to run a chat via Chatterous, then you have to plan ahead and set up an account with that service. Both services do allow for a record of a chat to be saved (up to 10 KB at Backnoise, unlimited at Chatterous), but there's a unique twist on this over at Backnoise (and unique to only Backnoise from everything I've seen): a feature called Buzzkill. The buzzkill feature gives any chat participant the ability to delete the entire contents of the chat at any point in time. I'm not sure that is a feature we want to be putting in the hands of our students. Finally, Chatterous, unlike Backnoise, does allow for rooms to be password protected if they are set to private, which affords an extra layer of security for teachers looking for that feature.

Next week will round out my survey of possible backchannel services when I take a look at Skype.

Backchanneling Basics #7 - CoverItLive

The other backchanneling service I have extensive experience with is Cover It Live. Cover It live is actually considered a live blogging tool, a way to provide live coverage of an event to the masses as events unfold. But the great side feature to this is that the audience of the blog can interact with the person running the live blog, so a classroom teacher can actually use the service as a backchannel.

By starting a live blog for an activity, a teacher can post questions to the room, which is going to be made up of students, and the students can respond to the questions and issues presented to them. There's a couple of great features of Cover It Live that make it perfect for classroom use, in my humble opinion.

At the top of the list of great features: the service is currently no cost (FREE!) and ad-free...all the time. That means there is no up front cost to the teacher, the school, or the district. These are definitely bonuses on many fronts. The ability to embed the chat into your own website (from wikis to your own district website - if it accepts HTML code) is another one of the great features of the service. This feature itself ensures that your students are participating in a playground you are entirely comfortable with, and if hosted on a district sanctioned web page, walled-garden issues all but evaporate.

Moderators are required to register to use the service, which is a quick and easy process, but students are not required to, which makes the service incredible easy to use with a class...no worries about needing an email account! To get users into the chat, simply direct them to the URL where you are hosting the backchannel. The students just have to supply a name once they arrive there in order to participate in the chat. Now, that does leave open the possibility the students will provide strange or inappropriate user names, but because the room is moderated, meaning nothing goes out to the room until approved by the moderator, I tell the students I will post no comments unless I know exactly who the user is. Yes, this does still leave open the possibility of one student impersonating another, but I also give my students some mechanism of letting me know if that has happened. And because of a built in private messaging feature, I can then directly message the offender, the message from me shows up in red on their computer screen, and the perpetrator is nabbed! If the computer screen is blank or the service has accidentally been lost, I personally would also take that as an admission of guilt, especially if it happened as I get up to take a walk around the room to look for the student with the direct message from me.

On other fronts, the chat, in its entirety, is automatically saved and available for review as long as the moderator doesn't delete it from his account. Additionally, as long as the chat remains embedded on the page where it was hosted, it is available for review as long as it is there. Thus far when using Cover It Live, I have not hit an upper limit of allowed users, having had up to 90 users in a chat at one point in time; that was three different classrooms in two different locations even.

To close out, a couple of technical notes. The moderator of a Cover It Live Chat must moderate using Firefox or Internet Explorer. Participants, on the other hand, can use any web browser, so this a fairly flexible and easy to sue in the classroom setting. (At least this was the case at one point in time. As I was drafting this post, I was unable to confirm this on Cover It Live's webpage.)

For a regular classroom setting, I highly recommend this service. Its ease of use and flexibility make it a great tool for regular classroom use.