Todays Meet is a Back Channel Web Based Chat Program. You can give your Chatroom a name, determine the date of deletion of your room, and even add a Twitter Hashtag and it will be inccorporated into the Chat.. Now the idea of a Chat Room scares the average administrator, but the idea of giving students an alternative form of communication with the teacher is great. We all know that there are many students who are scared to speak in front of the class, TodaysMeet gives them that opportunity.
When you create one, the name you give the room becomes the URL. Here is the Chatroom for this Blogpost. So how could you incorporate this in to your classroom or school? Well, I can think of a few.....
1.) If your students all have computers and Internet invite them to watch the news with you and chat about the current events from that evening. You could do the same thing with a Presidential Speech or Disaster. Imagine how this could have been used on 9/11 or most recently the Earthquake in Haiti
2.) While showing a video or movie in class let your students chat and ask questions about it while watching the movie. As the teacher you can answer their question...without stopping the movie!
3.) Allow students to post comments or questions during a lecture or group project while working on it in class.
4.) Having a guest speaker? Have the guest speaker answer questions from the Chat room while you monitor amd discuss the questions with the students within the Chat Room.
5.) Since you can keep the room open for a year, you could have it as yo0ur very own "Question Box" for your students to use through out the year to ask help with assignments and projects.
You could even have your teachers use this during a PD to ask questions as well.
So Think Twice about how you could use Todays Meet in your classroom. Share your ideas with my readers.
