Article: Published May 12, 2011, nytimes.com, by Trip Gabriel
“Speaking Up in Class, Silently, Using the Tools of Social Media” outlines how Twitter and various moderated backchannels are being used at all levels of education, from primary to higher. In case you are not familiar with the medium, here is some basic background information:
- Twitter (or “backchannel”): definition from Google.com
back·chan·nel
noun /ˈbakˌCHanl/
backchannels, plural
- A secondary or covert route for the passage of information
- - the agency offered a reliable backchannel to Washington
- - backchannel briefings
- A sound or gesture made to give continuity to a conversation by a person who is listening to another
- And from Wikipedia article on “backchannel“:
Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks. The term was coined in the field of Linguistics to describe listeners’ behaviours during verbal communication, Victor Yngve 1970.
The term “backchannel” generally refers to online conversation about the topic or the speaker. Occasionally backchannel provides audience members a chance to fact-check the presentation.
First growing in popularity at technology conferences, backchannel is increasingly a factor in education where WiFi connections and laptop computers allow students to use ordinary chat like IRC or AIM to actively communicate during class. More recently, researchers from Penn State University have explored bringing “backchannel” up front in classrooms using what they call “ClassCommons,” to increase students’ participation in large size classes.
So, backchannels can allow students to add short written comments to a live streaming conversation that occurs alongside the oral conversation. Teachers and professors who use the technology in their classes and were interviewed for the NY Times article claim that the technology was able to help students focus on the task, as well as raise ideas and questions that they otherwise might not have been able or willing to raise.
Using Twitter in the classroom, having reached the level of being covered in the Times, is a hot topic. I think it’s hot because it’s weird. It’s counter intuitive that encouraging a choppy and rapid-fire online discussion could somehow enhance a live, vocal, face to face interaction. And, in my opinion, it appears that Twitter will only work as an effective classroom tool given a constellation of circumstances:
- The teacher is willing to cede control to students to direct their own learning.
- The students are able to focus on multiple things at once.
- The learning outcomes defined by the teacher or the course benefit from rapid, fragmented, loose and explorative thought.
Item 1 is a possibility – and there are ways of moderating the backchannel feeds to maintain a modicum of control. But there is a distinct shift in education toward student-centered classrooms, and so “ceding control” is often seen as a good thing.
Item 2 is immediately suspect. From what I know of neuroscience and its current understanding of cognition and thought, “multitasking” is not a strong suit of the human brain. Try reading a book and watching a movie at the same time, and then ask yourself if you’re sufficiently focused on either task to show your deep understanding. (Even: read a book and watch the movie version of the book simultaneously, so that the subject matter is very closely related.)
In fact, if the computer metaphor of multitasking holds up at all with human brains, it comes in the form of “chunking”, whereby the brain is able to manipulate more and more raw data by combining the data (or the activity, like playing the piano or typing) into large, working memory chunks. This happens through rehearsal (or, in the case of math, “drill and kill” – because you can’t rehearse math skills like you can rehearse music skills. You can only kill them.) There’s an interesting book out called “Why Don’t Students Like School
Item 3 would be relevant to creative endeavors, open-ended discussions, brainstorms, art classes, etc. But it is a very specific manifestation of classroom learning and can’t possibly apply everywhere, and should be actively avoided in many cases.
From the NY Times article:
‘“The word on the street about laptops in class,” Dr. Bruff added, is that students use them to tune out, checking e-mail or shopping. He said professors could reduce such activity by giving students something class-related to do on their mobile devices.’
This is a strong thread in the article: Twitter or backchanneling is a way to keep students at least focused on something class related, as opposed to playing a game or checking Facebook. And something is better than nothing.
This is a dumb reason to use technology. If laptops or iPads or phones are not powerful learning tools, if all they do is distract people from learning, then don’t use them. If Twitter or backchannels are useful, if they really enhance discussion and give a voice to kids who can’t speak up, use them. If you have a group of kids who don’t need backchannels to communicate, don’t worry about it.
I cannot imagine “Twatting” (as Stephen Colbert calls it) and thinking clearly about a poem and listening to an ongoing discussion about a poem all at the same time. And I’m a strong thinker, reader and tech user. I just can’t imagine doing it. The entire activity would be so utterly fragmented. The outcome would be… confusion.
But here is another quote from the article:
“You’d think there’s a lot of distraction, but it’s actually the opposite,” she said. “Kids are much quicker at stuff than we are. They can really multitask. They have hypertext minds.”
This is totally suspect (see Item 2 above). Who are “kids” and who are “we”? Is she claiming that young brains are better at processing information and ideas than adult brains? What a fascinating claim. Is this true, under any circumstances? What does a hypertext mind look like?
Also, multitasking is one thing, but concentration is another. There are many, many circumstances where multitasking and efficiency is not the point, where it is not even desirable. Reading and thinking about poetry is one such example.
Choose the tools that fit the desired outcomes. It just seems so obvious. The whole Twitter debate could be reduced to a link on some education blog that goes: “Twitter: backchannel discussions could be useful for classes wherein students are hesistant to raise questions or discussion points. Might work for some disciplines and situations. Could be a distraction.”
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Great post. It was like a roller coaster ride as I agreed and disagreed with your thoughts at every turn. I think you summed it up well in the end when you said,
“Twitter: backchannel discussions could be useful for classes wherein students are hesistant to raise questions or discussion points. Might work for some disciplines and situations. Could be a distraction.”
On a personal note I have been using shared google docs with the comment and chat features as supplements for guided reading with my grade 7 ESL kids with some success. Their reading comprehension and vocabulary is very low, so as i read the novel they are responsible for taking collective notes on a shared doc, raising questions and responding to each other via comments and chat on GDocs. it has been working pretty well. Kids are much more engaged in the reading as I can see them interacting with our shared space.
On another note, I don’t know about deep visceral poetic expereinces, but many a keynote for me personally has been enhanced and made more interesting because of the Twitter back channel. There is the idea of ceding control and….well you covered all that pretty well. Thanks again for a thought provoking roller coaster ride.
You guys coming to Shanghai 2.011?
In reverse order:
- I hope so on Shanghai – looks like a great conference.
- Thanks in return for reading and sharing. It’s true, I have heard teachers at my school talk about the success they’ve had with backchannel-style tools, and those teachers tend to be very excited by it.
- I think we’re always juggling technology and distraction and creative freedom and connectivity and learning and concentration and objectivity and subjectivity and everything else. That it works for some and not for others shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, really. It’s curious that so many people outside the education world find this (Twitter in the classroom) so fascinating.
You raise some very valid points. May I offer an extension to the snippets Gabriel used in the article?
The term “hypertext mind” was first introduced to me in a book by Will Richardson, “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms”. I was not trying to make claims about neuroscience, but rather point out that students are able to go beyond the text by using various reading strategies. I don’t think that you can compare practicing thinking while reading (which to many adults is second nature) to reading a book while watching a movie. Children learn to become strategic readers by learning how to question and clarify. Much like the ideas of reciprocal teaching, acquiring these skills is necessary for a deeper understanding of text. Adults have an ability to naturally and automatically decode and make inferences. They often model their thinking aloud in primary grades. (Read, pause, think, read, pause, think) 4th graders are still advancing these skills. A backchannel can be used as a place for students to think “aloud” and make connections while reading.
Bransford, Brown, and Cocking offer insight into transfer and metacognition of the young mind in, “How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School”. I found this to be a good read. As a final note, I want to point out that this is in addition to, not instead of traditional forms of reading and discussing. Nor does it replace verbal communication and longer, reflective writing.
Hi Kate,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I appreciate that clarification, and the extra information – I’ll pick those titles up ASAP. You’re right that there appear to be valid and powerful ways to use backchannels.
“Practicing thinking while reading” – help me understand this: If the purpose of backchannels is to create a parallel stream of conversation that enhances the primary stream of conversation (or lecture or reading), then aren’t backchannels asking for *attention* in a way that note-taking does not? And isn’t this, then, analogous to attempting to *pay attention* to two sources of parallel narrative or information, such as a novel and a movie?
In the end, what you’re describing sounds like a place to share thoughts and notes during the investigation of a text, and that appears to be valid. But if that’s what everyone means by using backchannels in the classroom, it doesn’t seem different from talking and asking questions out loud, except that timid students are more able to express themselves (purportedly). And so maybe the issue could be boiled down to the final sentence of my post above.
I think you have made some really important points, but I also think, like with all technology, it is in how you use it and when you use it. Making a large space smaller and more comfortable for some, when you consider the size of some US classes and especially in university classes could be a really powerful tool of inclusion.
I for one do not feel the need to backchannel a regular class discussion that only involves less than 20 students in what is a pretty intimate environment with student who are quite empowered to take charge of their learning. I expect them to participant and engage. However, when I have students observing a debate or they observing a Socratic Seminar the backchannel is a great way to engage students in a parallel conversation. It also serves a nice reflection tool for the student participants to go back to the backchannel record after the conversation and reflect on the conversation they were having through the eyes of a viewer.
I also want to echo Jabiz’s comment about the use of the backchannel in conferences etc. I felt very empowered knowing I had a voice to express my experience after sitting in session after session where people talked at me rather than modeling strong pedagogy and presentation techniques. I felt at the end of the conference, the organizers had paid attention to the attendees experience at the conference and hopefully that will inform and guide their planning of the next conference. Shouldn’t we as teachers be willing to let our students have a voice in our classes to react, probe, and even push back when their needs are not being met? This goes in a totally different direction, I realize from the post and the article, but I do think the idea of student voice is also what makes this a potentially very powerful tool.
I think there is a lot to be explored either through a discussion or perhap via the backchannel. I am curious to see it all play out.