Student Use of Backchannels

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Apr 25, 2016 - enter their classrooms and conferences, either online or face-to-face, and watch as participants get distracted. With cell phones, tablets, and .... examples; we do not, however, force our students to engage in backchannels. We only ... Glitter: A mixed-methods study of Twitter use during Glee broadcasts.
TechTrends (2016) 60:404–408 DOI 10.1007/s11528-016-0069-9

COLUMN: TECHSPOTTING

Student Use of Backchannels Herb Fiester 1 & Tim Green 2

Published online: 25 April 2016 # Association for Educational Communications & Technology 2016

Imagine how surprising it would be to attend a class, a conference, or any public event, for that matter, and see all the participants completely engaged with their eyes fixated on the speaker, teacher, or the main activity for the duration of the event. I think many teachers or speakers have probably had a dream like that at one point in their lives only to return to reality when they enter their classrooms and conferences, either online or face-to-face, and watch as participants get distracted. With cell phones, tablets, and laptops containing powerful software being used regularly by most, the myriad of distractions is endless. However, one activity that could be taking place amongst these participants is a type of electronic communication known as backchanneling. With increasing access to cheaper, high-powered technology, communication software, and wireless networks, backchannels are an easy and common way for participants to communicate. There are mixed findings related to the value, or lack thereof, of backchannels, but concluding that backchannel activities are a nuisance may be unfair. Experts (Du et al. 2009; McPherson et al. 2012; Rekimoto et al. 1998) have found that backchannels provide a sense of engagement for participants and make them feel more social.

* Herb Fiester [email protected] Tim Green [email protected] 1

Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, USA

2

California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, CA, USA

You might think that the term backchannel emerged as a result of the recent growth in technology, which has provided most with the ability to communicate through these methods. The term backchannel, however, was first used by the linguist Yngve (1970) to describe a speaking and listening process between two people when only one communicator is the primary, as is the case when Bthe person who has the turn receives short messages such as ‘yes’ and ‘uh-huh’ without relinquishing the turn^ (p. 568). Much has changed since 1970, and today we know backchannel as the practice of providing a real-time online conversation while a live event or activity is taking place. Those who are attending the event or participating in the activity use the backchannel to discuss and share what is taking place. Backchannels have become popular during academic conferences as participants comment on or share what a presenter has said. A popular tool used for backchanneling is Twitter. Figures 1 and 2 show examples of Twitter backchannels from two conferences: the Annual AECT International Conference and the Annual National CUE Conference. As graduate instructors in online programs, we have observed our students using backchannels in a number of ways. We also have had our students describe to us how they have used backchannels in those instances where the backchannels have not been public. Our students use backchannels to communicate with each other and to share ideas and information about projects and course content. While the use of these tools as a backchannel may be different than the traditional use we shared in Figs. 1 and 2, we believe that the intent is the same—to engage in on-going, side conversations about what is taking place during a shared experience or event. In the next section, we share several tools that our students have used to backchannel.

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Fig. 1 Example of Twitter Backchannel using the Hashtag #aect15 for the AECT Annual International Conference 2015 held in Indianapolis, Indiana

Backchannel Tools The tools our students have used vary greatly. The tools are cross-platform, and they can be used for free with some limitations. The first tool we describe, Today’s Meet, was designed specifically as a backchannel tool; the other tools we share were not. It is important to note that the examples we share are ones that our students initiated and maintained. As such, the students selected the tools and determined how the tools would be used. In most cases, the backchannels were not public; as such, we were not able to observe what took place. In these instances, our students described to us what took place.

TodaysMeet (http://todaysmeet.com/) As we mentioned, Today’s Meet was specifically designed as a backchannel. It has a simple design that allows a room to be created where members can join and participate. The messages are 140 characters or less. The conversations go in linear order—the top message

is the most recent. A transcript of the entire conversation can be viewed by going to Room Tools. The example in Fig. 3 is from a team that was working on an instructional multimedia project for a graduate class. The students used TodaysMeet to discuss the project requirements and plan for the project. They used the room during the entire 8-week project.

Padlet (http://www.padlet.com) Padlet functions like an online sheet of paper or bulletin board where users can collaboratively place content on a Web page. According to Padlet, BThink of it like a multimedia friendly, free-form, real-time wiki^ (http://jn. padlet.com/article/57-what-is-padlet). Figure 4 is from an online graduate course on curriculum theory and development. A small group of students used Padlet for a week to share notes about a chapter they were assigned to read and then discuss in a threaded discussion as an entire class. Figure 4 only shows a small portion of the notes the students posted on their Padlet.

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Fig. 2 Example of Twitter Backchannel using the Hashtag #cue16 for the Annual National CUE Conference 2016 held in Palm Springs, California

Google Hangout (http://hangouts.google.com/) & Skype (http://www.skype.com/) Google Hangout and Skype are excellent tools students can use to connect virtually for synchronous conversations. These tools can also be used to carry on asynchronous discussions as well. Our students regularly use the instant messaging feature of these tools to have on-going asynchronous conversations, which can be archived and reviewed later when needed. Students have shared with us that they use the instant

Fig. 3 Example of a student project team using today’s meet to discuss an on-going multimedia production project

messaging for a variety of purposes but primarily to provide updates about tasks for group projects and to discuss course content.

Voxer (http://www.voxer.com/) A previous Techspotting column focused on Voxer (Green 2016). We suggest reading the column for a detailed description of how Voxer works. In sum, Voxer is a cross-platform messaging tool that works like a walkie-talkie. With Voxer, you are able to send digital messages—called a Vox—directly to a user or a group of users. A Vox can be text, a photo, or video that can be created in Voxer. A user receiving the Vox on his or her device is able to read, listen to, or view the Vox at his or her convenience. The user can respond, as well, at his or her convenience. The Voxes that go back-and-forth become a conversation that can be read, listened to, or viewed repeatedly. A unique way Voxer was used by our students was by an entire graduate class (22 students) to discuss content in a survey of educational research course. The students carried on an ongoing group conversation for 12 weeks out of a 15-week semester. Every week the students carried on conversations about the concepts and ideas from the weekly readings (in addition to threaded discussions that were part of the course requirements). The students indicated that the Voxer

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Fig. 4 Example of a group of students using padlet to share notes from assigned reading from a textbook

conversations helped bring clarity to difficult concepts and provided a different environment where students were able to ask questions they did not want to ask in the threaded discussions.

experience. The backchannels our students engage in happen outside of a learning management system. As such, they are

Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) Much like the two examples we shared earlier (Figs. 1 and 2), we have had students use Twitter in similar ways. We have taught courses where all of the students used Twitter to share resources related to course content. The students regularly shared resources and ideas related to the topic or activities the course was focusing on at the time. The students used a hashtag to filter the conversations. Figure 5 shows an example of what this looked like.

Getting Started with Backchannels The goal of a backchannel, as we wrote in the introduction, is to provide an opportunity for side conversations about an event or activity that is taking place. A backchannel allows participants to engage in conversations that can enrich their

Fig. 5 Example from a course on web design and instructions of students sharing resources and other information throughout the course using the Hashtag #edel522

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frequently private—outside of our purview. Students have indicated that at times they feel more comfortable sharing ideas and opinions knowing that we will not see the conversations. Although the development of a backchannel is often spontaneous, we introduce the concept to our students early on in our courses. We share various tools along with backchannel examples; we do not, however, force our students to engage in backchannels. We only encourage it. As such, not every course we teach has backchannels, but many of them do. While we have shared examples from online courses, backchannels can be effectively used in face-to-face courses. There are also other tools that can be used that we did not share (e.g. Slack http://www.slack.com/ and Google Docs http://docs.google.com/). We would love to hear about other examples of how your students use backchannels. If you have an example, please let us know (Voxer: tgreen6592, [email protected] or [email protected], or @theedtechdoctor). The examples that are shared with us will be posted on http://theedtechdoctor.com.

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References Du, H., Rosson, M., Carroll, J. M., & Ganoe, C. (2009). I felt like a contributing member of the class: increasing class participation with classcommons. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 International Conference on Supporting Group Work GROUP’09, 233–242. New York : ACM Press. doi:10.1145/ 1531674.1531709. Green, T. (2016). Tech spotting: Voxer: A digital messaging tool. Tech Trends: Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, 63. McPherson, K., K Huotari, Yo-Shang Cheng, Humphrey, D., Chesire, C. & Brooks, A. (2012). Glitter: A mixed-methods study of Twitter use during Glee broadcasts. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion, 167–170. Retrieved from http://dl.acm.org/citation. cfm?id=2141569. Rekimoto, J., Ayatsuka, Y., Uoi, H., & Arai, T. (1998). Adding another communication channel to reality. In CHI 98 Conference Summary on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI’98, 271–272. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/286498.286752. Yngve, V. (1970). On getting a word in edgewise. Papers from the Sixth Regional Meeting [of the] Chicago Linguistic Society, 548.

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