The TodaysMeet Experiment--A Backchanneling Activity

I've been anxious to try a backchannel activity and thought that this past Wednesday would be a good time to try it since we would have eighth graders visiting classes. We viewed the Werner Herzog's short film "From One Second to the Next" and used TodaysMeet.com to discuss the film while it was playing.

PROS:
- The chat rooms in TodaysMeet take only a few seconds to set up.
- The students were able to jump right in--no learning curve!
- It was fantastic to be able to pose questions as the kids were watching the film instead of having to pause it or wait until the end.
- I received WAY more input from kids than I would have conducting a traditional discussion after the film.
- I could respond to the class as a whole, or I could respond to an individual student.
- Even normally reticent students seemed much more comfortable sharing their thoughts this way.
- I have a transcript of the discussion after it's over.
- The TodaysMeet chat rooms can remain open for up to a year in case a discussion needs to be continued later.
- Kids don't need an iPad--since TodaysMeet is web based, any device with a web browser will work.

CONS:
- Because we were viewing a film, it was difficult for some students to divide their attention between the film and the backchannel.
- TodaysMeet allows the kids to put in any name they want. Regrettable, even though we went over backchanneling etiquette and guidelines before we began, some students put in fake names and made silly, random comments just to be funny. This forced me to shut down the activity immediately in those two classes.
- TodaysMeet doesn't allow me to block users engaged in the above activity, but it doesn't matter--they could just log in again.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I had the kids give me feedback on the backchanneling activity in Moodle, and overall the responses were quite positive. We brainstormed ways to make it even better, and we thought that dividing the class into groups with their own chat rooms would make it easier to follow the digital discussions. Since I learned that two of my classes have students who will choose to be unprofessional during this type of learning activity, I would set up chat rooms for those classes only in Moodle. That way, they are forced to log in with their Moodle usernames, and I'll know exactly who each participant is.