I have already written here about how successful the unconferencing (“backchanneling” is probably the more accurate term) was at the BCSSA Fall Conference last week, in Victoria.
Here is the definition of backchannel from Wikipedia:
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.
By the end of the conference, over 150 people posted at least once to Twitter with a post tagged #bcssa10 (both from inside and outside the conference); several dozen others also used TodaysMeet to connect (it is hard to be precise since this tool does not require an account), and many more, while not posting, followed along monitoring one or both places. As I write this post, two days after the conference, posts are still being made tagged to the conference.
Toward the end of the conference, and in e-mails since, I have been asked many variations on the question, how do we replicate this elsewhere?
Here is a collection of thoughts from conference participants, around unconferencing / backchanneling, from this past week:
What the organizers can do:
- pre-publish the tool(s) being used including the Twitter hashtag (check to be sure the hashtag is not being used by another group)
- in advance of the conference, use the backchannel as a place to share prereading and help engage those attending, and those who may want to follow the event
- encourage participants to bring technology and give them permission to participate through social tools
- identify a moderator (in the classroom, a teacher) to monitor the conversation and help guide it when necessary
What presenters can do:
- honour the conversations that are taking place virtually – at the BCSSA Conference both Valerie Hannon and Tony Mackay referenced the Twitter and TodaysMeet conversation which gave status to this dialogue
- encourage groups to post key information to the backchannel during table discussions
- use the backchannel as a visual in the room during presentations or breaks
- use the backchannel to help with Q & A sessions
- have the presenters participate in the tools during breaks
- use the information on the backchannel to guide the presentation — again, Valerie and Tony did this by taking what was said during the first day to influence what they spoke about on the second day
Other Advice:
- Pick your tools carefully — if you are doing this with students, consider a tool like TodaysMeet that does not require an account and allows students to hide their full identity and create pseudonyms
- Start with the goal — there are hundreds of tools available, so consider what it is you want to do and then find a tool to match. If I were to do it again, I would look for 1) a tool that allows threaded conversations 2) a tool that allows collaborative note-taking
- Model — one of the reasons for adults in education to use the tools is to model their use for students — so be good models with what you say, and how you interact
- Pick your spots — not every event needs a backchannel
I find following conferences via Twitter to be extremely powerful, and a great way to drop in on events I can’t attend in person.
I am very interested in how we can take this learning and apply it to our work with students. How can we use tools like Twitter and TodaysMeet to link students in classrooms, schools, districts and across the world to improve their learning?
cultureofyes.ca 
Having dropped in on the conference via twitter on Thursday and then again on Friday with my students, I found my kids were rather intrigued about the opportunity to speak their mind directly to the educational power brokers. Even though few of their comments got a direct response,Twitter provided them access they would not have otherwise.
The key here is that they had access to something that was not a part of their usual artificial learning environment BUT still had some bearing on their education.
As we move ahead in bringing technology to our students in the classroom, we need to focus on using it to reach beyond the class, the school, the district and into the real world.
If the use of tools like twitter is simply an exercise in just going through the motions, it will be meaningless.
JMHO
As a virtual participant, I found it both helpful and distracting. I was interested in the what people were sharing and wanted to stay tuned in and able to participate but I had work to do too… it was a challenge. But, with some self-regulation on my part, I managed to accomplish a lot work, visited two classrooms to interact with kids and capture ed tech stories, and stay mostly connected to the conference.
The way these back channel works usually is pretty organically with no particular intention or goal. I wonder what a more formally defined use would look like and how that would help or interfere with the online conversation?
Your comment about choosing tools for threading etc… that sounds like a discussion board. I’ve not seen these used well in conferences and when they are available AND there’s a twitter back channel, the twitter channel rules and the other suffers. Interesting…
Hello. I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I am new to Twitter and am just learning and exploring all that Twitter has to offer. I just created my first Paper.li today at http://paper.li/amandabosarge and I am absolutely fascinated by the many different ways to use Twitter to further the advancement of technology in education. I am exploring twitterfall, twittermap, and twtpoll. I am really interested in this idea of backchanelling and I would like to know more about how this works. How exactly do you follow a #ashtag and how can I join a conference? How exactly do they work? It seems like an efficient way to expand the effectiveness of a conference. Any suggestions are warmly welcomed!
Amanda Bosarge
Hi Amanda – the fact you have connected to me and this blog speaks to the power of social media. It is very cool that a student from South Alabama and a teacher from British Columbia can connect in this way. The beauty of Twitter is that it is self-regulated and organic. I have seen teachers successfully use hashtags in their classroom – having all students make posts with a specific hashtag – check out #rsidedi which is a grade 9 class from Jeremy Brown at Riverside Secondary School in Port Coquitlam, B.C. You can establish a hasthag for any event. The key is pick something unique, and then publicize it to everyone attending. You will find that most conferences have set up a Twitter hastag. I have followed a variety of ASCD events and other sessions via Twitter. I have also seen teachers use Visible Tweets or TwitterFall in theiir classes to display current questions in the room in real-time.
@Brian,
As an occasional tweeter during the conference, I can tell you that it was distracting onsite, too. I really struggle with the idea of introducing a technology that encourages people to NOT “be here now.” Life is so full of distractions — asking us to bring our laptops and “join in” online meant that a lot of participants were simply multi-tasking: checking emails, marking, etc. when perhaps (hey, who’s to judge anymore, eh?) they would have got more out of the conference if they’d paid attention. Tough call. I’m glad I work with little gaffers who aren’t bringing Blackberries to school with them!
In more reflection on the structure – I think one of the challenges was that the technology was placed over the traditional comference format. It would have been best if it had been part of a rethink of the conference. If presentations were shortened and discussion / flexible time was incerased, this time could then be used to engage face-to-face and digitally.
I also noticed with my own behviour, the more that I felt engaged face-to-face at the conference, the less I wanted to engage digitally.
That all said – I didn’t find myself checking my e-mail etc. during the event in part because the combonation of the face-to-face and virtual kept we well enough engaged that I didn’t move to other distractions.
I really appreciated your encouragement of the backchannel conversations during the conference. At times I didn’t know whether to comment on presentations or archive and note take. I was not taking pencil-and-paper notes at this conference, like I would normally do, having decided to jump in to the online conversation. So, I was new to the organic way the conversation documents and adds to presentations. What is also very cool is how the conversation has continued after the conference! That said, as I look back on the Twitter feed, I want to take and somehow collate all the links and references and make something that I can use to present back to my staff- scrolling through the Twitter posts is still, to me, less accessible than flipping back through handwritten notes. Your blog post is a nice summary of Dr. Shanker’s big ideas, with helpful links – thank you for that! Perhaps that is a useful addendum to a backchannel conversations in future: a take-away element (blog or other format) that attempts to “nutshell” and make all kinds of links available.
Thanks Ariel. I see my blog as a home base for ideas. Twitter helps push conversation, so does Facebook and other tools. I use my blog to make meaning of what I see and read on Twitter and what I experience at conferences.
[…] these conversations, using technology to engage more people. I have also written, here and here, two posts on backchanneling during the recent BCSSA Fall […]