In a slight departure from our traditional format, we discuss several research papers that are being presented at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology Research Symposium being held in Bloomington, Indiana from July 20 - July 23. Jennifer Maddrell, presenting on the influence of Backchannel Communication on Cognitive Load, discusses her paper and several others in this 30 minute discussion. All papers presented at the symposium are freely available on the AECT website.