Using Today's Meet in the Middle School Classroom

To be honest, I was scared to death to try out Todaysmeet in the middle school classroom.
I know how middle schoolers love to talk,
and chat,
and use technology to talk and chat.

Sidenote:  If you don't know what todaysmeet is, it's basically a chatroom that can be set up.  I set up a room for each of my classes today.  (Keep reading, you'll see why).

You can set up your room for as long as you will need it.  I would suggest shorter time frames so students don't use this for chatting in the future in other classrooms.

Anyway...I was curious to see how it would work.
After all, I use Today's Meet when I present to teachers and it's a fabulous tool for them to ask questions while the presentation is moving along.
Surely, the same could be said with middle schoolers!
Maybe?

Today was my chance.
We were learning how to create graphs in Numbers on the iPads.
And I knew there would be lots of questions.

I had each table sign in by their Table #s to start the class.
They were to type in a greeting to the rest of the class.
This allowed me to make sure that all tables were present and accounted for and following the system.
Students were creative in their greetings and this was okay.
"WASSUP?", "Hi!", "Hiya!" just to name a few.  :)

I took a little time to review the purpose of the "Question Room" (as I called it...no need to mention the word "chat"!)
What was the purpose of using this webtool?  To help move our thinking.
And then I did come right out and said it...
"It is not the corner coffee shop to chat with the person across the room."
There.
It was out there
And now they knew the rules.

We got started with the lesson
And I would periodically check my laptop for questions.
At one time I noticed that a question had been asked,
And then I noticed that it had been ANSWERED by a table across the room!
How totally AWESOME!!!
Students were helping students!
I had not foreseen this happening in a million years.

For the next class, I mentioned this benefit of the "Question Room"
It was a class of 25.
That's a lot of students for one teacher.
Today's Meet worked beautifully for them.
Students were helping each other out,
Silently,
Sometimes across the room.

At one point, I was helping a table when I noticed a new entry...
"Can you please come and help Table 6?"
:)

I love it!