Despite their flaws as teaching and learning environments, large lectures remain a standard teaching approach because of their relatively low cost, ease of preparation, and long tradition in education. Research shows that active inquiry yields positive results in learning outcomes, and one way to make the large lecture class more active and participatory is to create and leverage a backchannel. Hotseat is a backchannel management tool developed to connect students to each other and their instructors in these large lecture conditions. In this article, the authors describe Hotseat and the features designed to make it useful in instructional situations. They then describe how it was implemented at Purdue University and how it affected the large lecture learning environment. (Contains 12 figures, 2 tables and 12 endnotes.)