Two weeks ago I wrote a post about my students using TodaysMeet for back-channeling while we discussed a slideshow that I had created for the class. This week, as I shared earlier on Twitter, I tried using TodaysMeet for a back-channel while my students watched the film Glory. It worked great!
In my school all of the students have ASUS Eeenetbooks which is allowing me to do things that I couldn’t have done before. Using TodaysMeet to for back-channeling during a movie viewing is a great example of this. In the past when I’ve shown Glory, I’ve stopped the movie at various intervals to discuss the students’ reactions and questions. This week when I showed the movie, I set-up a back-channel using TodaysMeet. The back-channel allowed my students to record their reactions to what they saw while at the same time I was able to answer questions that arose as they watched.
Overall, in the last three weeks, having a back-channel forum for my students to ask questions and make comments has worked very well. I’m seeing more contributions from students who don’t typically like to talk in class and I’m still getting the contributions from the extroverts in the room.