I recently heard about using backchannels in teaching. I am not going to go too much into it, but basically the idea is to take all of the students' chatter during an activity and focus it back into a positive forum.
I tried this Friday with my World History class. We were watching a video about WWI, which is already a very interesting topic for students. I have heard of a lot of different chat programs to use, but our filter at school blocks most. The one it did not block was Cover It Live. And I am very happy they did not. It is an excellent program to use for backchanneling.
A couple of the features I liked: the teacher can control all communication. I put one student in a "time out" because they posted an inappropriate comment. It sent the message to the students to stay on topic. I could also post polls for students. I was also able to see what students were thinking about during the video. For example, what did they know, what questions did they have, and what did they find interesting.
I was very happy with its use and I do plan on using it again.
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