Backchanneling with Middle Schoolers
Apparently, some of the middle school students I’ve been working with think zombies
would make Ray Bradbury’s short
story “The Pedestrian” much more
interesting. That’s OK—it’s all part of
a larger discussion we’ve been having,
and I’m thrilled they’re trying to find
elements of the text to support their
interpretations.
As an assistant professor who
focuses on K– 12 tech integration,
I’ve been working with seventh grade
language arts teacher Jessica Herring
at Benton Middle School in Benton,
Arkansas, for more than two years.
I designed a backchannel activity
for a lesson in critical reading that
requires students to share questions
about and insights into plot, character
development, and alternate endings
during a read-aloud. It was made
possible by a bring-your-own-device
(BYOD) pilot initiative that allowed
students to bring internet-enabled
personal technology to supplement
the classroom set of iPads, which is
available for those who couldn’t bring
their own personal technology.
A backchannel is a streaming conversation—public or private—that
you and your students can have while
another activity is going on. You could
choose to have a backchannel during
a read-aloud or film viewing, or while
the teacher delivers a standard lecture.
The point is to encourage a constant
flow of discussion.
Because students were using all
sorts of devices, the challenge was to
find a discussion/collaboration tool
that everybody could access regardless
of the technology they brought. I decided that TodaysMeet (todaysmeet.
com) would best serve the needs of
our students.
Student-Friendly Technology
TodaysMeet is simple to use. To set up a
class discussion area, just select a name
for your room (that name becomes part
of the URL for your chat area) and how
long you want your backchannel stream
to exist. TodaysMeet is free, contains no
ads, and is secure because it’s open only
to those with the URL.
We chose a complicated URL so it
would be difficult for anyone to find unless they had the link, which we shared
using a QR code. Students accessed
TodaysMeet through a browser on their
internet-enabled device and entered an
assigned pseudonym or group name so
we, but not other students, could track
who was making what contributions.
When we first started the activity, I
made it clear to the students that they
had 30 seconds to send anything, but
it had to be appropriate. I explained
that posting on the backchannel was
like saying something out loud in the
classroom. Giving students this trial
run allowed them to get the “wazzups”
and “w00ts” out of their systems.
Discussions Move to the Backchannel
Then it was time to get focused. After
our orientation, we did a short read-aloud and watched a video adaptation
of the story. During these activities,
students offered their thoughts about
what motivated the characters in
“The Pedestrian.”
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