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@info.comm.uic.edu> wrote:

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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)?