firstly, in context, what is a backchannel? think about what happens at a seminar. Everyone sits there and quietly listens to the speaker talk about his/her topic of the day. If they're lucky, they get to ask a question (and that's if they have the confidence to put their hand up), then they all leave and that's it. Maybe some emails float around, but lots of it is lost.
A backchannel facilitates a bit more interaction in real-time. In essence, a projector broadcasts live a real-time chat feed that everyone can access and comment in. Some presenters use it for monitoring whether people are interested or enjoying the talk, some to receive answers.
The simplest solution I've seen so far is from www.todaysmeet.com, where all you need is to decide how long the 'room' lasts for, what it's name is and if you want to allow people to comment using Twitter hashtags. As an example, a school in Doncaster, UK, used it to discuss a movie that a Year 8 (2nd year of secondary) class were watching. Amazingly, there is little or no bad comments and the pupils look like they genuinely interacted! I'm trying to think about whether I can facilitate this in my own classrooms, but will have to see how I can get it around the IT policy of no chatrooms. Hmm......
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