People will bet on anything. From horses and cars to American Idol contestants and presidential candidates. At this year’s Games+Learning+Society Conference 5.0 I have enjoyed playing BackChatter, a game of trendwatching and betting on popular keywords in the Twitter backchannel. The idea is relatively simple. Before a keynote or session, each player sends a direct message with three words to an automated Twitter account. The point value drops as more people pick the same keyword, so originality is encouraged. At the end of the session or keynote, points are “paid out” to each player based on how many times their words were used. An online leader board makes everything nice and competitive. The results were displayed on several screens at the GLS conference.
For anyone who thinks this is a distraction, I can only offer my own experience with the game. Prior to the last keynote, I actually found myself reading Rich Halverson’s CV and an abstract of his book to prepare my keyword bets. I was more engaged than ever in the sessions, trying to detect trends I could use for future bets in the game. So while this is clearly anecdotal evidence, the game worked for me. LibraryRemix points out that because this activity develops skills in trendwatching, it could be powerful in schools as well:
What if your students were compelled to pre-analyze a discussion, predict trends (places they believe their peers will focus their attention during that discussion) AND perhaps empowered to influence those trends themselves, simply by participating in the conversation? Heady hands-on experience!
I have hung out in many a Twitter backchannel at plenty of conferences (in case you haven’t heard, I’m the reigning Grand Poobah of Social Media from TTIX 09). BackChatter is the most effective, engaging idea I have seen for encouraging meaningful activity on Twitter. Kudos to all who were involved in this project! I hope you will share your project with other conference organizers.
Thanks for the note, Tom (@hattiebb AKA Library Remix). I wonder if kids are perhaps more discerning than the bulk of adults using twitter (academics and techies aside). I mentioned to a group of students that I use twitter and they were quick to scoff at it as “pointless” and “self-centered.” It’s true many people tweet without an eye to value-added content. Yet, when I engaged those same students in developing a “mock non-profit organization,” twitter was an obvious method of getting the word out about their cause. Offered a meaningful use, they were quick to embrace the tool…but only for their schoolwork. They simply don’t engage in the social part of it (they have facebook for that!).