flynn089

AnswerGarden is a very simple tool for creating short answer polls and displaying the answers as word clouds. It’s really simple and quick to use and can be used in the classroom or embedded into webpages, blogs or in online courses. To create an AnswerGarden poll just go to http://answergarden.ch and click on the + sign at the top. Then you can either type in a topic to brainstorm or a question. AnswerGarden poll responses are limited to either 20 or 40 characters so be sure that the type of question you use doesn’t require a long complex answer. AnswerGarden works best when only a single word answer is required. Once you have added your topic or question you can just click enter and your poll will be ready. Then just share the URL with the recipients. You can refine your poll and add some security to it if you wish. There are a number of modes you can choose for your poll. You can allow different users to repeat the same answer, in which case the repeated word will appear larger d...

Over the last few weeks I have been playing with a very simple brainstorming and voting website called tricider . The great thing about tricider is that it is incredibly quick and simple to use, and yet it enables users to collect information and opinions from all over the web in a very easily digestible and powerful way. It's very easy to create a tricider topic or question and you don't even need to register, just type your topic or question into the field. You can also add a bit more detail and instructions to guide your students. After you have saved the description, you or your students can start adding solutions. Once there are some solutions added it's easy to either vote for them or add arguments for or against, using the + or - symbols. Once you have set up your page you can add your email so that you get notifications when ever anyone adds something new or votes. You can also get a URL to edit the page (in case anyone adds something offensive) and a separate URL...

Coming as I do from a background in language teaching that emphasises that the teacher should shut up and get the students to do the talking, I often feel uncomfortable doing conference presentations, many of which still follow the format of; speaker gets up in front of audience with presentation - does presentation - audience listen (try to stay awake) and desperately try to think of a few questions at the end to prove they were awake and listening. One of the gifted- Jamie Keddie. There are of course a few gifted speakers who can hold the audience’s attention for a full hour and keep most of them listening and awake. If like me you’re not one of those, then here are a few tools that, thanks to the increasing availability of wireless connectivity at conference centres these days, might help to turn your passive listeners into a bunch of multitasking audience collaborators. Set up a backchannel One of my favourite tools to use during presentations is Today’sMeet http://todaysmeet.com/ ...