Tag Archives: conf-talks

ELI09: twitter as back channel

* * WARNING * * … this is a live-blogged post in need of some serious tinkering, when I have a chance … links are not embedding (the popup is blank), and the pictures aren’t uploading quite right … but I’ll go ahead and publish it for now, and fix those things later …

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Sitting here at the ELI09 conference in Constance Steinkuhler’s presentation on virtual worlds — she’s looking at the discourse of adolescent boys while playing online games … (but that’s a separate post … )

What was really striking was this progression of events …

1) Bob Cole and I are sitting here in the session, in Orlando, Florida.

2) We’ve both got the MIIS yammer community open, and Bob posts a link to the live video stream of the talk.

3) Anne Marie Steiger picks it up and writes back a thanks (she’s in Monterey, but watching the same plenary session along with us).

4) I replied with the link to the #ELI09 hashtag … which is a way to collect posts of all kinds … and in particular, a way to follow the live back channel of people sitting both in this room and elsewhere, as they watch the presentation.

Here’s the link I sent to Anne Marie, but the moments of actual commentary on the plenary will be long gone. So I’m attaching some images by way of visual documentation of this back channel phenomenon.

I think it’s important for a couple of reasons.

back channel in Twitter

1) It turns what is traditionally a one-way presentation into a far more interactive experience. I’m listening to the presenter, and simultaneously watching a steady stream of other people’s reactions, thoughts, questions, etc, and am free to jump in myself at any time.

2) The way that it bridges not just the individuals here, but also beyond this particular room, and pulls in anyone with a good web connection. A sense of “presence” is something that is talked about as a defining characteristic of virtual worlds and how they differ from something like Elluminate or Skype audio or video chats — where does this fit along that continuum?  Does the co-presence of ideas count for more than seeing a sea of faces?  🙂

At MIIS, what implications does this phenomenon of the back channel have when doing hybrid or online courses? For collaborating with colleagues and peers who are geographically distant? (DPMI plus, IPSS, CLS hybrid, etc …)

2nd backchannel screenshot

Reminds me of some folks who researched the ways in which their students utilized various back channels during an online course: what participants used, why and how they used it.