A few years back I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a presentation given by Alan November. During this session, he literally wowed us with ideas for integrating technology into the classroom. I believe it is the first and possibly the only time I have had chills during a professional development activity. Since then I have been working towards incorporating these ideas into my own practice and encouraging their use amongst teachers.
One of the concepts that intrigued me the most at the time was backchanneling. Backchanneling allows students to discuss and ask questions about the concepts they are learning in real time during their class. Backchanneling, from my understanding, started as a way for professors to handle the many questions they would have during lectures. They would assign a student as a “scribe” who would be responsible for monitoring the chat and either responding to questions or posing questions/responses to the professor that had been posted and would be beneficial to the group. It has since grown to encompass K-12 schools also.
With the integration of mobile devices and BYOT throughout our school system, students could easily participate in these kind of discussions. It would give students who have not felt comfortable discussing their thoughts in front of the class an opportunity to share in a safe environment. I have posted several links that describe this in more detail and how to set-up a backchannel in your classroom. I also have listed a few sites that you could use to easily facilitate this.
Backchanneling in the Classroom Resources:
Sites to use for Backchanneling:
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