The role of the backchannel in collaborative learning environments
ICLS '06 Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Learning sciences
backchan.nl: integrating backchannels in physical space
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
I felt like a contributing member of the class: increasing class participation with classcommons
Proceedings of the ACM 2009 international conference on Supporting group work
Increasing Students In-Class Engagement through Public Commenting: An Exploratory Study
ICALT '10 Proceedings of the 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies
Encouraging initiative in the classroom with anonymous feedback
INTERACT'11 Proceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part I
Communication patterns for a classroom public digital backchannel
Proceedings of the 30th ACM international conference on Design of communication
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An emerging trend in classroom technology research is the use of computer mediated communication (CMC) tools in classrooms to encourage students' in-class participation. As part of this research thread, we have been investigating the potential of public digital backchannels for building feelings of community among students in university courses. We designed, deployed and evaluated such a tool in a 15-week field study of two undergraduate classes. We found students found using public backchannel during the class is of little distraction, that teachers' attention to the content posted on the channel influence students' tendency to use tools of this kind. Further, we found that the relevance of the content shared is predictive of students' use of ClasCommons in the classroom; these feelings in turn are related to students' perceptions of self-efficacy, collective efficacy and course-specific social support. We also analyzed the content posted in the public backchannel and considered the benefits and drawbacks of the public digital from both students' and teachers' perspectives. We conclude with suggestions for improving the design and deployment of course-related backchannels.