flynn089

This morning I spotted Solvr on MakeUseOf and decided to give it a try. Solvr is a free easy and interesting way to collaboratively brainstorm and attempt to solve problems online. It's very simple set up. You just got to http://www.a.freshbrain.com/solvr/ type your problem into the field and then click 'Start' . You will then see your problem with a number of options underneath. You can add different elements of the problem, make suggestions by adding ideas and leave comments. The collaborative part comes in when you share the URL with someone, then other people can come and join in the problem solving and brainstorming. Here's the URL for the ' Making a living 'problem I set up. I also set up a problem earlier on today, which was about integrating technology into the ELT classroom. I added a couple of elements of the problem and then posted it to Twitter. With a few minutes, the problem started to develop as people added in comments solutions, and even sta...

Big Think is running some really nice clips from two speakers on a range of political issues at the moment. Here's a nice taster to view with an opinion on "Is it fair to ask developing countries to go green?" The speakers are: Lawrence Tribe, an American constitutional scholar and University Professor at the Harvard Law School. He talks about such things as globalization of the law and who is responsible for fixing the environment Parag Khanna , Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation He talks about whether there is a clash of civilisations and whether the US should talk to Syria The videos are all quite short snippets even though the language level is quite high, and if you get your students to register and log in, they can then vote on whether they agree with the speaker or not. These videos could provide a good route into what can be a difficult and controversial topic t...