“Continuous computing is an emergent phenomenon–a complex pattern of social behaviors that arises from the use of a variety of simpler digital tools. It advances in unexpected directions as people find innovative ways to put these commercial and open-source technologies to use in their social lives.”

The above quote is from Social Machines, an article by Wade Roush, recently published in Technology Review. According to Roush, wireless devices have created a “virtual information field” that allows us to “both pull information about virtually anything from anywhere, at any time, and push their own ideas and personalities back onto the Internet — without ever having to sit down at a desktop computer.” This phenomenon of constant connectivity is changing the way we learn and the way we participate in classroom environments.
In classrooms and lecture halls with open access to wireless networks, students can use cellphones, laptop computers, and other wireless devices to silently converse (via text or instant messaging systems) with one another or to surf the net during class. This secondary layer of classroom communication is known as the backchannel. Some instructors recognize the inevitability of the backchannel and are experimenting with how to organize these activities in a productive manner.
The key characteristic of the back channel is that it allows students to participate in the “push/pull” of constant connectivity that Roush speaks of. Students can “pull” supplementary information from the web and “push” their interpretation of the facts or their ideas and queries about the ongoing lecture into the backchannel social space. The University of Southern California’s Interactive Media Division has experimented with multimedia back, front, and side channels. Here is a brief description of the Backchannel options for USC IMD Speakers outlined by Justin Hall.

We have three primary areas of backchannel work. Speakers, participants, feel free to review these various scenarios and let us know what you think. We have fourteen screens up on the walls of the lab, so these various functions typically share visual space with a speaker’s own supporting visual materials.
Backchannel During a speaker’s presentation, students with laptops will chat about the topics at hand. Typically, we post the thread of comments on two-to-three of the fourteen screens.
Frontchannel We can provide a special area just for questions for the speaker. Then, during the talk, if someone has a clarification they’d like, or a question they want to ask, the speaker can see that question pop up on a small monitor at the front of the room. The speaker can answer it when they feel ready!
Sideshow We have several students who are trained expert Google Jockeys. If a speaker would like to have their own presentation supplemented by a stream of images, statistics, background articles, as they talk, they should let us know and we will arrange for students to run the sideshow presentation on their research.
These various areas represent experiments in collaborative multimedia-internet enhanced learning. We welcome your suggestions! And if you feel that these might be too distracting, we’re happy to reign in some of our participation during the presentation. The intent is to involve students in the lecture and to allow people to use the tools at their disposal to engage a speaker’s research in real time.

A variety of responses to the backchannel were expressed in a January 2005 online discussion entitled “is the backchannel working.” Some students found it “useful (for keeping track of the points, for cross reference, and for fact checking), immersive, stimulating and engaging;” while others found it, “distracting, unnecessary, detrimental, irrelevant, pointless, alienating,” and even “rude” as evidenced in this exchange:

What ever happened to giving your full attention to the guest speaker? Since when is carrying on a side conversation an acceptable thing to do? What happened to our manners?
I wish I had saved the logs from last semester. But I recall several presentations where the speaker stopped and asked the group what was going on with that back channel that is so funny. I wonder how the professors who presented last semester feel about this.
Posted by: Shelby at January 31, 2005 07:38 PM
I believe that we are ALL here (professors included) because we were the really smart kids that stared at clouds, wrote stories, drew, and made up games during class. That’s how I feel when my peers are obviously multi-tasking during class or during a presentation. I don’t think it’s rude to multi-task.
I do think it’s rude to type up really dumb jokes or ASCII pictures on the backchannel that are unrelated to the presentation. However, I think it’s really awesome that our professors and our presenters are open to our experiments in multi-tasking and over-stimulation. Especially in the age of the internet, the next gen behind us are going to be so savvy at carrying on multiple conversations and multiple lines of thought simultaneously, I think it’s good to experiment with this instead of putting “miss manners” restrictions on the class.
Posted by: kellee at February 2, 2005 03:37 PM

Although this form of collaborative learning is still in the experimental stage, it seems to have a great deal of potential. Well-run backchannels could serve as improptu, collaborative textbooks. Students and so-called “Google Jockeys” could gather, present, and discuss the supplementary information as the instructor lectures. This process would be inspired by the instructor, but not directed by the instructor.