CAPTURING THE

BACKCHANNEL:Microblogging & Note applications

What’s the backchannel? The side-bar discussions going on in a

classroom or during conferences or meetings. Can these conversations add to the discussion?

Can utilizing the backchannel also help with note taking? Instead of writing notes on your own paper, type

them online for all to see and expand upon.

Utilizing the backchannel with different note taking tools may also help combat plagiarism.

What’s microblogging? Posting small pieces of information -

commentary, links, photos - on the internet.

Most microblogging services limit the amount of characters, like Twitter, which limits to 140 characters per post. It seems small, but this can also help students

with summarizing and paraphrasing. How do you concisely say what you need to in 140 characters?

Can this paraphrasing also help them not plagiarize?

Use microblogging tools to capture the backchannel, but also for your own professional development.

Twitter

Twitter – educators

Twitter – businesses

Twitter – news

Twitter – government

Twitter wrap-up Think about Twitter again, it’s not just what

people are eating for breakfast.

Follow educators, businesses, news, and government feeds.

Think of Twitter as being similar to RSS feeds RSS feeds that go into your RSS readers talk

about the same type of thing. I use Twitter as a replacement for some RSS

feeds.

Microblogging in education Can use Twitter, but know that Twitter has two

privacy settings – either public or private. No in between.

Two tools may be better for the classroom: Edmodo TodaysMeet

Edmodo

Using Edmodo

Edmodo wrap-up Really is the educator’s backchannel tool.

Can use it as class management: upload files, calendar info, assignments, create polls, etc.

Students do need to log in, but don’t need an email address. They just need the group code from you for your

class group. You are given the code upon creation of the group.

They will then create username and password.

As the teacher you can get notifications when anything occurs in Edmodo.

This is a private tool, only those you allow in are allowed.

Making a TodaysMeet room

TodaysMeet room

TodaysMeet room

TodaysMeet wrap-up TodaysMeet is the simplest of backchannel

tools.

You don’t need a log in or an account to use it. You just need the link to the room to enter. Because you only need the link, anyone with the

link could technically enter the room.

Something to think about: because of the ease of use, requiring no log in, there are also no privacy controls.

They claim they’re working on making rooms more private and requiring log ins, but they haven’t yet done this.

Microblogging guidelines Create guidelines for class microblogging:

Grade what they type Must use proper grammar When quoting things, put a capital Q at the

beginning If paraphrasing or summarizing something, link

to it Participation counts, so participate Any misuse of the tool will be an immediate F

Outline all the guidelines before you begin so they know where they stand if they do not follow them Carry through with misuse of guidelines

Microblogging rubrics Create rubrics to use with microblogging, it

can be something that is graded.

Use rubrics even as simple as this for participation:

This and other rubrics linked under Month 7

Taking notes online You can take notes in all the tools we just

discussed, but what about taking notes about websites you find?

We showed you Delicious, where you can store bookmarks and take notes about the bookmarks you store, but there are other tools where you can do even more.

Diigo & Evernote let you store bookmarks, but also highlight things, add notes, and even store just clips of certain things on websites.

Diigo

Diigo for Educators

Evernote

Evernote

Between now and our meeting… Explore Twitter. Can it be a place for you to

follow and interact with other educators?

Make a fake TodaysMeet room to just check it out. Could this be useful for your class?

Explore Diigo or Evernote before we meet to see if you have any questions about them.

Blog your thoughts about all of these things. Blogs only need to be one or two paragraphs. Tell us your thoughts in a blog post. We don’t know if you’re doing anything between our webinars and our meetings unless you blog.

All of these things are under MONTH 7!