If you are working in a classroom where your students have internet connected devices, either through wifi or their mobile phone, using a backchannel can have a transformative impact on the way you can use technology with your students.
“Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backchannel
Most backchannels are text based and many-to-many, meaning that anyone can type in a message and it is seen by everyone who has access to the chatroom.
Back channels are particularly useful if you are working in a face to face environment where all or pairs/groups of students are working at a computer or if you are delivering live online classes using some form or web conferencing or webinar platform.
Backchannels help to solve a number of common classroom problems
Distraction
- I often describe a backchannel as the communication that happens between your students in the classroom every time to turn your back on them. The advantage of using a backchannel tool is that you can capture the intercommunication, be part of it and make it a constructive rather than a distracting part of the class.
- Backchannels democratise the classroom or lecture room, at least for periods of time, and enable everyone to contribute what they know about the point or topic being discussed.
- If you want students to investigate a website, do an online task, watch a video or complete a digital worksheet, you simply use the back channel, paste in the link and they can access the materials simply by clicking the link and opening it in a new tab. This saves a lot of time and gets students directly to the sites you want them to access rather than leaving them struggling to write down long URLs and type them into the browser address bar.
- You can type in questions and get students to respond through the backchannel. Using this method all students are able to participate and respond to questions rather than the first one to put up their hand. This also gives less outspoken students the opportunity to respond.
- When you set tasks for students to do you can back them up by also typing your instructions into the backchannel. This gives them something to refer back to and also helps to reinforce your verbal instructions. This can reduce wasted time going round the class helping weaker students get on task.
- You can get students brainstorming ideas, suggestions, vocabulary, opinions or anything else through the back channel. This way everyone's contribution can be collected, shared and acknowledged.
- Students get share what they know about any topic or ask a question at any point during lesson, even when you are presenting, without disrupting the flow of the class.
- Students can socialise and you can socialise with students within the back channel. Just spending a few minutes at the start of the lesson asking questions and finding out what students are up to can really help to engage with your students.
- Interacting with students in a chatroom also gives students an opportunity to develop their written fluency through genuine communication.
- The script from a backchannel can be saved and downloaded, so this is a great form of collaborative note taking. At the end of the class each student can edit their own version of the text to ensure they keep the parts that they feel are relevant.
Some problems with back channels
Safety
- As always we should take our students' online safety very seriously when using any form of computer mediated communication that allows students or others to communicate with our students. Some back channel tools require registration and this adds a greater element of security to the platform as users are more traceable, though student registration can add an extra layer of time management and friction to the setup process.
- If you decide to use a back channel that doesn't require registration then it's better to make sure you create a new one each lesson and only leave it live for only a short time.
- When you first start to use a back channel you may have some initial behaviour problems, especially with younger less mature students. Try to stay level headed when you deal with this. As the use of the back channel becomes more common place your students will get used to using it in a more responsible way, especially if they realise their comments can be traced back to them.
Class size
- If you have really large classes and lots of students are contributing comments it may get hard to keep up with all the interaction. Having a more complex backchannel tool like Backchannel Chat can help you to manage this more effectively.
- Reading back through the text from a back channel can seem like reading through chaos to someone who wasn’t there at the time. Backchannel records will need to be edited to be useful, but this is a good review activity for students.
Backchannel tools
Here are a number of tools you can use to create a backchannel in your classroom.
TodaysMeet: https://todaysmeet.com/
TodaysMeet is one of the simplest and easiest to use tools, and also one that’s free and very reliable. It doesn’t require registration by you or the students so it’s really quick to set up and get students into, but if you want that extra security you can register for a free account, which will also enable you to save your chat transcripts.
Backchannel Chat: http://www.backchannelchat.com/
Backchannel Chat is a bit more sophisticated and enables students to choose avatars for the chat and more importantly it enables you the teacher to pin a question or message to the top of the chatroom stream so that it doesn’t disappear as students respond. There is both a free version (which is limited to 30 students) as well as paid versions which have larger limits and other features like file adding attachments and personalising avatars with students’ own picture.
You can enter an example room here: http://backchannelchat.com/chat/7x82l
Chatzy: http://www.chatzy.com/
Chatzy offers two options; A quick chat room which you can set up quite quickly and simply (more like TodaysMeet, or a more complex virtual classroom which you can configure to allow students to add various types of online media too, such as images and videos.
You can enter an example room here: http://us21.chatzy.com/55961595316533
Find more tools to use in the digitally connected classroom by downloading my ebook - Digital Tools for Teachers
I hope you find backchannels useful with your students and that they help you to integrate technology into your classroom in a more meaningful way.
Related links:
- Managing the digital classroom - Getting students' attention
- Digital Video - A manual for language teachers
- Tap into the Backchannel in Your Presentation
- 3 Tools for Exploiting the Wifi During Presentations
- Instant back channel chat room
Nik Peachey
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