Get Em' Talking!

image courtesy of zinjixmaggir

I am always looking for ways to get my least active students to participate in class discussions. Many time the student that talks the least will have the most relevant question or comment relating to the topic at hand, however due to fear of being wrong or asking a stupid question they refuse to communicate it out loud. Below are 2 tools that I have had lots of success with in getting those non-communicative students talking and discussing in class.

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TodaysMeet.com

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TodaysMeet.com (thats with 2 e's, won't make that mistake twice) is a site that facilitates what is known as a "back-channel" chat. The students participate in a closed chat room with a 140 character limit to each message. TodaysMeet could not be easier to set-up and use. Simply navigate to the site, choose your room name, how long it's available for and (optionally) a Twitter Hashtag; hit "Create Room" and your ready to roll. Now you only need to send that link to your class and they can begin commenting. If you have a projector in the front of your room there is a "projector mode" which will display the chat full screen in order to better fit on the projector in the front of the room.
I love this site for quick introductions to topics. I ask a question or for a definition of a term and let the students use any resources they can find to create a concise (remember 140 characters) answer that requires them to synthesize the information they gather into a short but sweet answer.
A warning when using this site: The students are able to create their own user name each time they sign-in. I have each student post their real name next to their user name so that we all know who everyone is. The smart ones will navigate away from the page and return to create a new name but proper moderation will keep this to a minimum.

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Google Moderator

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Google Moderator is similar to TodaysMeet but with an interesting twist. The students are able to not only able to ask questions and make comments, they can respond to other comments and vote on the questions they want to see answered. This may seem familiar to those of you that have heard of Purdue University's collaborative micro-discussion application HotSeat. Google Moderator brings that incredible power to your classroom (or speaking engagement). While it's mobile functionality seems limited to Android devices if you have an audience that has netbooks or access to a computer lab this can be very useful.
I have used it in several instances for class reviews. Students are able to post any questions they have about our current unit and they then vote on the questions they want answered. We then go from the most popular to the least popular questions and discuss each one.
While setup is not quite as simple as TodaysMeet it is still a very useful and viable way to facilitate class discussion. A word of warning: This application requires a Google account to use. My school uses Google for their email system however we did have some trouble getting some students signed in (luckily Google accounts are free and you can use an existing email address to sign-up).

Both of these sites are very powerful and extremely helpful in facilitating class discussions. I like to use TodaysMeet for the introductions to topics, and Moderator to conclude them. Try them out and see for yourself which you prefer.