Remember when passing notes was the way to communicate with your friends? Now the students text one another during class. Sometimes it’s about the lesson and other times it’s not. A supportive way of harnessing the backchannel is to use an online tool called TodaysMeet. The tagline of this website is “Give Everyone a Voice.” The point of this website is to open a “chatroom” that allows students to comment on what’s happening in the classroom. It provides opportunities for those who are not comfortable speaking in class to share or to provide an opportunity for students to say what they want to say at that moment. TodaysMeet is about capturing the student’s voice right then and there and encouraging interaction with one another while learning. Often discussions, questions, and insights arise when students are listening to the lesson or activity, so TodaysMeet provides a venue for students to share their ideas.
Not sure it will work for a lecture or lesson for class, then I suggest trying it out when students are watching a video. By opening a room on the TodaysMeet website, you can monitor what they’re learning from the video while they’re watching it. You’re asking them to engage with the movie in a non-traditional manner. In addition, this supports learning in a multi-modal way. Want to try it out, then go to https://todaysmeet.com/.
Interested in learning more about TodaysMeet and its features, check out the video below!