Apps for Classroom Backchannels

What is a backchannel? A backchannel is essentially a classroom conversation that takes place alongside a class. With the advent of technology in the classroom, backchannels can now take place digitally, in or out of the classroom.

How can a backchannel be used in the classroom?

Opening up a backchannel in your class can serve numerous purposes. It can allow quieter students to fully participate in class. By setting up a digital backchannel using one of the below apps, quieter students can simply log in and share their question or comment. It can supplement your teaching by allowing for discussions outside of the classroom. Students and teachers can participate in a supplemental dialogue about the subject after class is over.

Apps that can be used for a class digital backchannel include:

Backchannel Chat: An app and a website, Backchannel Chat gives the teacher control about what is discussed in the backchannel. Discussions can be archived and available for future reference. Another great aspect of this app is that every post in the backchannel can be moderated by the teacher and must be approved before posted for all to see. Along with the website, there’s an app for Android and iOS.

Padlet: Create a wall that pertains to a specific topic or chapter and use it as a backchannel. Allow students to comment and ask questions on the board. Make sure and turn on the profanity filter.

PollEverywhere: In the same way you opened a Padlet wall, start a discussion in PollEverywhere. Use the app or the website to let students communicate with you. Use PollEverywhere while students are working on a project or classwork. Great for students that are timid in the classroom.

Google Slides Q & A: If you use Google Slides to do a presentation, you’ve got to use Google Slides Q&A as a backchannel. Simply go to your audience tools and start a new Q&A. During the presentation, a URL is presented at the top of the presentation, directing students where to go to ask a question or make a comment. Students can vote on which questions or comments are the best then, at the end of the presentation, the teacher can choose to display the comments while they address them.

Verso: Verso is unique in that when you post an activity to discuss, it allows you to post a recording of yourself giving directions, a document from your Google Drive, or attach a link for students to access. Verso provides an option that allows the teacher, to include certain vocabulary. The other thing that’s unique about Verso is that, as the teacher, you can access classroom stats, showing who has participated in your discussions and how often. Verso is available on the web at Verso app.com as well as an app
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Slack: Slack is not only great for business teams, but it can be used in classrooms as well. Set up channels for different class topics. Use separate channels for comments and questions. As the teacher, send out discussion topics and ask students to comment. Send students feedback on their work in class.

Three Ways Students Can Annotate PDF's With Their Chromebooks

Paper is out and technology is in! The days of making copies for your classes are over! Why waste time at the copy machine when you can simply upload a PDF to your learning management system such as Google Classroom? Below are three Chrome apps that students can use to annotate the paperwork you would otherwise pass out to them in class. All of the apps below are available in the Chrome Web Store.

XODO: XODO greets you with a straightforward interface prompting you to open a local file (from your Chromebook), a file from your Google Drive, or a file from Dropbox. After annotating the documents, they simply download the file and then upload it to the desired Google Classroom assignment.

DocHub: Simply click “New” from the DocHub dashboard and upload a file from your Chromebook, Google Drive, or Dropbox. Download the document the device, then upload the annotated document to the Google Classroom assignment.

Kami: Clicking on the Kami icon presents the student with a straightforward interface with the options to upload from various options. Kami also provides the ability to create a new blank pdf page on which the student can draw or write. Students can download the document to their Google Drive or to their device. When downloading, Kami provides the option of downloading just the text box annotations, which is good for test taking when the teacher doesn’t need a copy of the questions — just the answers.

How to Lesson Plan With Trello!

The days of planning in a notebook are over! Not only can students use digital tools in the classroom to get their work done, but their teachers can too. Behold Trello. Trello is a versatile planning tool that can be used by students and teachers alike. Students can use it to plan their work on upcoming projects. Teachers can use it to plan out their quarter, semester, and year! And, you never have to worry about where you left your planbook because Trello is accessible from all your devices.

Trello is intuitive so the teacher won’t spend most of their planning time learning new software. Instead, with just a few clicks, they’ll be setting up their classes in Trello. Trello consists of boards, lists, and cards. In planning your classes, simply create a board with the title of one of your classes, let’s say Economics (as seen above in the graphic). Then, simply create a list based on a particular unit, chapter, or topic. As shown above, I’ve created lists based on chapters. Then, I created cards that represent what I plan on doing in that chapter, such as worksheet, a Nearpod, and a Kahoot.

Along with uploading documents to your cards, you can attach links. Do you have a Kahoot or Nearpod you like to use? Add the link to your Kahoot or Nearpod in Trello, then, click on the link to bring it up. It’s that easy! Trello also allows for the linking of your Google Docs, so it’s easy to move your Google Slides or Google Docs over to Trello. Then, with a click, you can simply access your documents.

As mentioned earlier, Trello is available on all devices, including Android, iOS, and a web app.

Why a School Staff Should Use Slack

Slack is a collaboration platform for communication and sharing and is used primarily in business, but lately, it's been finding it way in the classroom. Slack allows for group and direct messaging, file sharing, and third-party app integrations such as Google Drive. And, one of the best parts of Slack is that it's FREE!

Slack functions like Twitter in that it uses mentions (@) and hashtags (#) to organize conversations that can take place in specific theme based channels.  Slack is essentially an inter-office chat and collaboration service that allows teams of people to digitally communicate and collaborate with each other.  
School staff should take a look at using Slack for the following reasons:

1. Email: Slack can greatly reduce email clutter and negate the need for teachers to sift through their email, finding what’s important while disregarding email that either doesn’t pertain (group email) to them or sift through junk mail.

2. Polls: Slack is an easy way to distribute a poll to large or small groups of a team using an add on called Simple Poll.  Perhaps you only want a single department to respond to a poll instead of the whole staff. Simply create a poll and include it in the proper channel.

3. Communication: Create a channel titled "announcements."  Then, place any announcements you may have in that channel.  Slack is also a time saver.  Instead of walking across campus to tough base with someone, simply send them a message in Slack.

4. Sharing Documents:  Slack is great for sharing documents.  Since it works with Google Docs, uploading from Docs to Slack is a snap.  Sharing docs through Slack is a great alternative, especially if you're always hitting your storage limit in your email.

5. Collaboration: Sometimes it can be difficult for a department to meet and collaborate.  Slack makes it easy.  Teachers can create a channel for their department.  Using their Slack channel, they can ask questions, share lessons, and discuss what their doing.  

6. No Phone Number Necessary: With Slack, a phone number is not necessary.  Instead of asking teachers for cell phone numbers  (which may or may not be awkward or perhaps they prefer not to have their phone number out there) so you can message them, all you need is their school email address and their in your Slack workspace.  

Three Digital Whiteboards that are Classroom Ready

A digital whiteboard is essentially a blank piece of paper. For teachers, it can be a fantastic way to flip a classroom. Teachers can use the digital whiteboard to explain a concept, then, when students return to class, they can ask questions or practice what they’ve learned.
 Students can use the digital whiteboard to demonstrate their learning, explain a concept, or review for a test. And, with a stylus, digital whiteboards are easy and even fun for students to use.
 Below are three digital whiteboards teachers and students alike can use for their class.

1. Explain Everything: Available on all platforms, Explain Everything. Like the other whiteboard apps, Explain Everything allows the student to record their voice while putting together their whiteboard project. Students can share their project via a link that can be copied and pasted on a learning management system such as Google Classroom for review.

2. ShowMe: Like Explain Everything, ShowMe is available for Chromebooks via a ChromeOS app. The project can easily be shared via a link. Along with using their stylus, ShowMe allows for the insertion of a text box, in which the student can type in text. And, like other whiteboard’s, a link to the project can be copied where it can be easily shared with the teachers via a learning management system such as Schoology or Google Classroom.

3. Educreations: Create various classes within Educreations and add lessons to that class. Students can join your class with the class code assigned to that class. Students can use Educreations in much the same manner. They can create classes based on the classes their enrolled in, then, share their project with a link.

Podcasting in the Classroom

With more and more students having access to Chromebooks or iPads, there are new ways students can achieve their learning objectives, one of those being podcasting.

Back in the day, podcasting would have required a portable tape recorder and a blank cassette. Students could talk into the microphone on the recorder all the while making sure they pressed play/record on the machine. Each group would have to use their own audio cassette or share one among the class, hoping they didn't record over other groups work.


Today, podcasting has gone digital. It's a great tool to use for formative assessment and collaborative work. Simply pair students up or have them work in larger groups to create a podcast.

Why podcast? Along with serving as a tool for formative assessments, podcasts can address many listening and speaking standards. A few ways to integrate podcasts into the classroom include:

Reflections: Students can reflect on their learning by speaking what they've learned. And then listen later as a way to review their learning.
Language Practice: Podcasting can be a fantastic tool for language classes. Students can practice speaking a new language, listening to themselves improve in their skills. Teachers can also model the language and have students playback and respond to the teacher in a podcast.
Exit Ticket: Students can respond to an end of day question by speaking their answer and recording it for the teacher or class to listen to.
Interviews: Students can interview each other in a couple of different ways. First, one can pretend to be a historical figure, author, etc. Second, interviews can serve as class introductions. Each student sharing their likes, dislikes, favorite foods and whatever else they can think of.
Explain a Concept: Great for math and science. Students can record themselves explaining the steps on how to solve a math problem or science concept.

Now that we know what podcasting can be used for, we need to find a podcasting tool that students can use. Three apps that are easy to use and classroom-friendly include:

Voicethread: Available for both the Chromebook and iPad, Voicethread allows for the creation of a thread topic, where students can respond. A great way for an exit ticket question posed by the teacher.
GarageBand: The only one of these that's iPad exclusive. Garageband is not only great for creating music but serves as a podcast studio as well, allowing students to record their voice only.
Synth: Synth is also available for the Chromebook and iPad. With Synth, teachers create a podcast classroom where they give the students the code to join. Students can post in the Synth class or respond to a teachers question.

Real-Life Digital Tools for the Classroom

There’s nothing wrong with using Google Classroom. As a matter of fact, many of the articles I’ve written tie into using Google Classroom. It’s a great digital tool to distribute and collect class work. But, in addition to using Google Classroom or any other learning management system in your class, it’s important to integrate "real-life" digital tools into your classroom.

Google Classroom and other Google tools such as Docs and Slides are perfectly adequate for the classroom. Google tools are good. But, if we want to prepare students for life after school, whether it’s after K-12 or after college, they need to be familiar with the tools they may encounter in the workplace.  Let’s face it, students are more likely to use Evernote, Trello, or Dropbox in the workplace than they are Google Classroom.

I’ve written before about how some of these tools can be used in the classroom. If we want well prepared lifelong digital learners who are ready for life after school, teachers need to expose students to those digital tools they may encounter in the workplace, which I call "real-life" tools. Below are a few of those tools students may encounter in the workplace followed with an idea on how to implement them in class.

Trello: Student can use when working in groups.  They can keep track of team responsibilities.  They can also use Trello as a to-do list.

Skype: Assign students to work in pairs, but with a student from another class!  Ask students to connect with students in other classes and have them work collaboratively via Skype.

Any.do: Have student create and keep to-do lists using Any.do.

Evernote: Ask students to keep their notes in Evernote.  They can share their notes with each other and work collaboratively on an assignment or share their notes with the teacher.

Slack: Students can use Slack when working collaboratively.  They can communicate and share work with each other.  

Explain Everything: Have students explain concepts using this digital whiteboard.  

Dropbox: Students can use Dropbox to store a portfolio of their work, then share their Dropbox with their teacher.

Twitter: Teachers can use Twitter as a means of keeping students informed of classroom activities.

Google Calendar: Have students keep a Google Calendar in which they’ll note upcoming due dates and class events.