Web 20 Tools

The term backchannel was designed to imply that there are two channels of communication operating simultaneously during a conversation. The predominant channel is that of the speaker who directs primary speech flow. The secondary channel of communication (or backchannel) is that of the listener which functions to provide continuers or assessments, defining a listener’s comprehension and/or interest.

- Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_channel)

http://todaysmeet.com

http://typewith.me/

http://www.wallwisher.com/

http://www.wordle.net/

Back-Channeling: Research and uses in the classroom

http://www.ineducation.ca/article/educators-perceptions-uses-constraints-and-successful-practices-backchanneling

http://projects.minot.k12.nd.us/groups/chris/weblog/29e37/Backchanneling_in_Social_Studies.html

http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/?p=472

Notetaking: Students can take their notes during a class in the backchannel. This provides an electronic (and thus searchable) set of notes for the student. Moreover, students can read and use each other’s notes more easily. You might even select two or three students each day to be official class note-takers, freeing other students up for more engagement in class.
Sharing Resources: Students can also look online (or, call me crazy, in their textbooks) for information that supplements the lecture or class discussion. It’s easy to share links in the backchannel thanks to all the URL shortening services, and students can be very good at finding useful and relevant information online. And if a resource shared by a student isn’t useful or relevant, it creates an opportunity to discuss with students how to find and evaluate online information resources.
Commenting: Students can also comment on the ideas being share or discussed in class. Just providing a visible venue for student comments is likely to encourage more students to reflect actively during class. Plus, students can read and respond to each others’ reflections. Sure, students can contribute to online discussions after class, but there’s something exciting about having more students engage in discussions during class–more than just those who are bold enough and quick enough to contribute verbally.
Amplifying: The Hotseat feature mentioned above that allows students to “vote up” peer comments they find important is an example of what Atkinson calls “amplifying what others are saying.” On Twitter, this happens via retweeting: If a comment is retweeted frequently, then many people find it interesting enough to share. Google Moderator is a free service that works similarly–students can post questions and others can vote them up or down. This kind of feature is a great way to handle the problem I’ve identified here on the blog several times: It’s really hard for an instructor to follow and make sense of the backchannel during class given the open-ended nature of the comments. Giving the students the ability to identify more or less relevant comments is one way to help with this. (Monica Rankin’s use of a moderator–her TA–is another.)
Asking Questions: I’ve put this a few spots down the list since I think it’s a more obvious use of the backchannel than some of the ones listed above. Backchannel provides students an additional way to ask questions. Students are frequently hesitant to ask questions in class for a variety of mostly social reasons–they don’t want to look “dumb” in front of their instructor or their peers. Anonymous backchannel discussions make it extremely easy for these students to surface their questions. Even when students are identified on the backchannel, having a venue where questions are encouraged is likely to make it easier for students to share questions. And if the backchannel includes an amplification tool, then students can support each others’ question-asking very directly.
Helping One Another: Keep in mind that there are several kinds of backchannel conversations, including student-to-student conversations. When one student poses a question on the backchannel, another student might very well answer that question before the instructor can get to it. This kind of peer instruction is a common use of clickers, and it can work well in the backchannel, too.
Offering Suggestions: The backchannel can give students a voice in where a class discussion goes. Students can suggest discussion topics or questions. They can also suggest useful readings, activities, or topics for subsequent classes. They can provide instructors with feedback on what’s working and what’s not from their perspective. Many instructors have students complete a “minute paper” at the end of each class in which students identify the most important point of the day or ask a question. The backchannel allows instructors to gather this kind of feedback whenever students are ready to share it during class.
Building Community: Particularly in large classes, it can be hard for students to get to know more than just the few students they sit near. Backchannel discussions can help students get to know each other in a variety of ways. I would argue that it’s important for students to have avatars or icons attached to their backchannel posts, preferably photos of themselves. Seeing someone’s face along with their comments and their name helps build actual, not just virtual community.
Opening the Classroom: Some backchannels are private; that is, only the instructor and students can see or participate in the backchannel conversation. Others, like Twitter, are public, allowing those outside the classroom to participate in the discussion. This provides an opportunity to open the class discussion to those not currently enrolled in the course–students taking other courses, students who took the course in the past, academic experts at other institutions, and more. These external people have the potential to learn from and contribute to the backchannel discussion.

Using Response Systems, Online Surveys and Polling Software to Collect School Data

http://www.polleverywhere.com/

http://www.polleverywhere.com/vote

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

http://docs.google.com

Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments
http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/

http://chronicle.com/article/Reaching-the-Last-Technology/123659/

http://www.nea.org/home/34690.htm

Getting Your Message Out From Anywhere: The Role of Blogging

http://posterous.com/

https://www.blogger.com

Tools for Video Annotation

VideoAnt: http://ant.umn.edu/

You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/

YouTube Examples:

Powerful Teaching and Learning Series

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Powerful+Teaching+and+Learning&aq=f

Tim Bedley (connected to California Standards)

Kids Teaching Kids http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhvaDFwmfBY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0akVmCfUJiQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTAp_Fa3Z0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6pFMPSWBds&feature=related

Research on Video Annotation

JTE328486_for web.qxd.pdf

Video Annotation Tools: Technologies to Scaffold, Structure, and Transform Teacher Reflection

Peter J. Rich Brigham, Young UniversityMichael Hannafin, University of Georgia While video has long been used to capture microteaching episodes, illustrate classroom cases and practices, and to review teaching practices, recent developments in video annotation tools may help to extend and augment teacher self-reflection. Such tools make possible the documentation and support self-analysis using verifiable evidence as well as to examine changes in development over time. Video annotation tools offer the potential to support both the reflection and analysis of one's own teaching with minimal video editing as well as the ability to associate captured video with related student and teaching evidence. In this paper, we compare and contrast emerging video annotation tools and describe their applications to support and potentially transform teacher reflection.

InTime Project

http://www.intime.uni.edu/

The Technology as Facilitator of Quality Education model within the context of the INTIME project is intended to provide teachers and instructors of teaching methods classes with a rich resource for integrating technology throughout the school curriculum. It is only through full integration and use throughout the curriculum that the full potential of technology will be realized.