Imagine. Your students are watching Hamlet and encountering its plot for the first time. You are looking at their blank faces and you have no idea what they are thinking or IF they are thinking…
What if you could see right into their heads when Hamlet stabs the king’s advisor right in front of his mother?
Using a backchannel chat, you can!
What’s a backchannel chat?
A backchannel chat is a secondary classroom discussion that occurs alongside another discussion or presentation. While an “out loud” discussion or presentation occurs, there’s a backchannel chat online at the same time.
What’s in this post if I keep reading?
Ten reasons to learn how to do a backchannel chat
A quick ‘how to’ guide to start right away using Padlet
A detailed step-by-step, click-by-click guide to get started.
A video tutorial.
Links to the Hamlet backchannel chat that I screenshotted above and its instructions.
Ten reasons to learn how to do a backchannel chat:
You want kids to be able to talk about a video while they watch it in class instead of being passive.
In a class of 35 students, they can’t all be participating in a live Socratic seminar at the same time.
You have students who are shy or have 504’s / IEP’s that preclude verbal participation, but you still have to assess them during discussion / presentation.
You want to have a record of a discussion after it happens.
Student presenters can get immediate feedback available as soon as a presentation is over.
You want to avoid a few kids dominating the discussion because they are always rasing their hands.
In today’s world, we communicate both verbally AND technologically. Backchannel chat honors both.
You are tired of “wagon wheel” discussion where kids always look to you for the “answers.”
Students can take on different roles in discussion - sometimes leading, sometimes observing using the backchannel.
Students can ask you questions while you are presenting without having to raise their hands.
How do I do it? I don’t want all the steps. Just tell me quickly.
While there are other apps, use Padlet because it is included in Classlink and easy.
Make a Padlet using the “stream” format and give students access to post to the Padlet unmoderated.
If your students don’t know Padlet, give them some basic instructions in its use. Create a starter post to tell them the rules and show them what it looks like.
Start your live discussion or presentation. Kids can post live into the backchannel chat at will while the discussion or presentation are going on.
Want to see it more step by step? There’s a step-by-step guide at the end of this post and a video tutorial.
How would I assess something like this?
You can set up the chat beforehand with a guide as to what you expect and how you will grade. For example, for the Hamlet backchannel chat, here’s the sheet students had.
Hit CTRL+F once the chat is done and type a student’s last name, you can quickly see how many times they commented, and if you want, you can scroll quickly through their comments to get both quantity and quality.
I don’t like that it’s all in one big giant chat with no topics or divisions!
Padlet will also allow you to set up a “stream + sections” template so you could have semi-threaded discussions like a section on “Hamlet’s Madness” and another section on “Hamlet’s Attitudes Towards Women.”
What if they goof off or say inappropriate things on the chat?
They might, just like they might say something inappropriate in class, BUT it’s all identified by their first and last names right out of Schoology and Skyward, so they are unlikely to do so once you show them what your expectations are and you can remove or ban students who are participating inappropriately.
How do I do it? Tell me step by step.
- In Classlink, open Padlet.
- Click “Make a Padlet” in the upper-right and choose “Stream” from the options.
- Customize your Padlet from the menu that appears, but be SURE you turn ON the switch for “author and timestamp” and do NOT turn on the switch for moderating posts.
- Copy the Padlet link at the bottom of the menu.
- Click the little right-arrow button on the right side of the screen to open “sharing settings.”
- Click “Change Privacy.”
- Change the permissions to “can write” and click “save.
- Go to Schoology or wherever you post links, and post the link you copied to your Padlet.
- Kids should now be able to access your Padlet from school devices and post to it.
How do I do it? Can I watch a video of you setting one up?
Click here for a 2-minute video showing you every step.
Can I look at the actual full-length Hamlet chat and your instructions?
Sure. Here’s a link to the chat. Here are the instructions.
Want to know more?
Ask any DLL, go to our tech help website and click on “tech tools” and the Padlet icon, or email me at mancoffd@svsd410.org.
Want to see more posts from Dan? Click on his bio below!
Comments
Post a Comment