[Air-l] laptops and Internet access in class

[Jean H]

Hi Steve,

We've actually done this in a second year Communication class (with  
some students attending remotely via Elluminate). Including the  
remote group (and projecting their chat window onto the main screen)  
seemed to enrich and enliven the discussion. Anecdotally, students  
who were less inclined to participate vocally in the lecture hall  
reported that they were more inclined to have a voice in this  
multimodal group discussion. Some students in the lecture hall logged  
in to participate textually on the screen, while most sat back to  
watch, preferring to interact orally. Certainly raises some question  
marks, doesn't it?

There was a recent thread here about incorporating backchannel  
discussions in select presentations/panels (presenters willing) at  
AOIR this year. That would be interesting to see!

Cheers,
Jean.


Jean Hébert
PhD Candidate, Sessional Instructor
School of Communication
SFU, Vancouver, Canada

> On 5/18/07, Steve Jones <sjones at info.comm.uic.edu> wrote:
>
>> I've often wondered what it would be like if I provided students with
>> a back-channel via IRC for the class (and what would it be like if I
>> projected the channel on a screen in front of the class)? What would
>> students do with this (if anything)?