If you are reading this post because the title excited you, I am sorry to say that I do not know of a simultaneous back channel/polling app. This post is to request your help in finding one! I recently got a great comment on my post about using Socrative as a Back Channel. The commenter, a professor named Lisa Halverson, asked if I knew of any way to allow students to use Socrative or any app as a back channel while also having the ability to answer polls so the teacher could get a feel for understanding. It appears that Socrative only allows for a teacher to have one room/quiz going at a time. I can certainly think of some roundabout ways to achieve this (see below), but does anyone know of a tool that does this with less preparation required? If so, both Lisa and I would love to hear about it! If not, then one of you smart developer-types needs to get right on that!
By the way, Richard Byrne just did a great post on 12 great student feedback tools that you should definitely read if you haven’t tried one or if you aren’t happy with one that you use. As far as I can tell, though, none of these do the specific job Lisa and I require.
My roundabout solution? (Bear with me because I am an Apple girl – not sure how Android devices would work other than that I’m pretty sure they have browsers!) I would have all students use the browser to access Socrative for real-time quick feedback questions from the teacher. I would also have them add a second tab that has a Padlet (or even a shared Google Doc) to use as a back channel for timid students to ask questions or make comments. If you want to get really fancy schmancy, there are several apps out there, such as this one, that will split your browser (but the free ones do have ads). Rumor has it that the next iOS might allow you to split your screen so you can use 2 different apps at the same time – but we’d still like to have it all in one!
