Of all things Web 2.0, backchanneling technology is probably the most important for immediate engagement inside of the college classroom because it leads to increased participation, more in-depth discussion and, theoretically, greater academic success and even increased retention.  In case you aren’t completely familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines it:

Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside live spoken remarks….(and) generally refers to online conversation about the topic or the speaker….  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 to actively communicate during class.

While the thought of immediate feedback and criticism can be a dreadful prospect for speakers at conferences, college professors are starting to see the value in this “real-time chatter” because it encourages critical thinking and participation by students who wouldn’t traditionally speak up in class.  The “backchannel” also allows for the conversation to continue beyond the classroom, because often there is a physical record of questions and comments that the students and professors can access and continue to discuss even after class ends.

Just this November, Purdue University released their own backchannel tool called Hotseat.

Hotseat, a social networking-powered mobile Web application, creates a collaborative classroom, allowing students to provide near real-time feedback during class and enabling professors to adjust the course content and improve the learning experience. Students can post messages to Hotseat using their Facebook or Twitter accounts, sending text messages, or logging in to the Hotseat Web site.

Purdue is currently piloting the application in two courses, and 73% of the more than 600 students are using the tool.  Rumor has it that they are planning to make the software avilable to other schools eventually. (Thanks for the info, Bob Johnson!)

But, in case you’re a student or a professor that’s not at Purdue and you’re interested in bringing the power of the backchannel to your classroom, there are a number of other tools out there that make audience participation easy:

Today’s Meet is a free site that allows you to create a specific URL for  your “room”, announce the URL, and then participants can post their messages directly on that site or to Twitter, using a hashtag that you specify when you set the room up.  The messages from both sources will display realtime, and you choose when the room is deleted (up to a year).

Tinychat is alot like Today’s Meet, but it has more options for privacy like requiring participants to sign in using their Twitter or Facebook id’s,  and even allows for the host to broadcast audio and/or video.

Text The Mob has a limit of 100 participants for the free version, it includes polling as well as messaging, and  participants simply send text messages and the results display real-time.

Turning Technologies is a paid service that allows students to submit comments and questions via mobile devices, and it’s especially good for checking students’ understanding by issuing polls brief quizzes that are graded instantly.

And, of course, there’s good-ol’ Twitter.  Professors can designate a specific hashtag for a course, or even a section of a course, to funnel all related posts to one place.  For example, a message might read “Whitman was right #Eng101”. You can conduct a Twitter search, with or without an account, for the hashtag “#Eng101″ and receive a continuously updated bulletin of posts related to that class.

Professors and students might find a tool like TweetGrid especially useful for keeping track of multiple courses or sections.  It is a free application – also no login required – that allows you to choose multiple panes on your screen (up to 9), and each one will update real-time with a different Twitter Search term.

It’s also possible to feed Twitter search terms into an RSS reader like Google Reader or Netvibes.  If you do a Twitter Search for a term, you’ll notice that the results page has an RSS feed.  You can compile as many Twitter Searches as you want, all in one place, which can be helpful for tracking classroom topics over longer periods of time. (*Note – Jabiz Raisdana taught me how to do this; I’m just passing along his knowledge.)

Enjoy the chatter!