| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

AnswerGarden

Page history last edited by Keith Schoch 9 years ago

Resource Name: AnswerGarden

URL: http://answergarden.ch

Uses: Brainstorm and Organize, Survey and Poll, Quiz Quickly, Construct Meaning, Write Together, Read and Respond, Watch and React

Teacher Time Investment: I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

   Student Learning Curve: II IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII   

 

Description: AnswerGarden is a powerful multi-user site which aggregates ideas. No need for anyone, not even the initiator of the activity, to sign in! (You can choose administrator options, though; see below for why you might choose this). Students simply respond to the prompt, and as words are submitted, they appear on the common screen. If the same word is entered multiple times, that particular word grows in size. If you know Wordle, it's Wordle where everyone is invited to submit.

 

A teacher might ask her students, for example, to view several movie trailers and to take notes on the elements they observe. By the end of the note taking session, the words music, voice overs, and emotions appear larger than others, meaning that most students noticed these elements and entered them into the class AnswerGarden. Those words submitted less often appear smaller.

 

The screenshot below shows an active AnswerGarden which is embedded at the site. You can see that the bottom of the image offers multiple methods for sharing out results.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sample Applications for the Classroom:

 

  • Before students read a text, watch a movie, or hear a lecture, they should be encouraged to brainstorm all they know about a topic. Because the site can be saved as a QR code, the teacher can project the QR code alone; students can scan the code with their phones and respond immediately using those devices.
  • As students watch a movie or read a text, they can continue to take "notes," which can be added to the original garden, or better, submitted to a new word collection. The two collections can be compared and contrasted later, or used as part of a writing assignment.
  • AnswerGarden can be used as a backchannel discussion during a class debate, discussion, or lecture.
  • Students can embed a Garden in their own blogs or wikis as informal poll tools or comment sections.
  • Students reading the same text quietly can enter key words as they read. These key terms can be used in writing text summaries, commentaries, or arguments. 
  • My students provided some additional ideas, shown in the screenshot below (you can see their priorities): 

 

 

 

Notes and Caveats:

 

  • A level of trust is needed here, since the responses are anonymous. BUT, teachers can choose to moderate responses and permit only those that are appropriate to appear. What about inappropriate language and bullying behavior? The site explains: 

 

We're teachers as well and we've noticed that there are a few things you can do to play a hand in preventing 'childish' reactions: mentioning upfront to your students that you want serious answers (not childish reactions) often can be enough... after all, it's a new way of learning for them as well! Mostly they do not really want to offend anyone but there's a chance one in the classroom might try to post a joke because it's possible. Moderating the answers on another computer while they are being submitted proves to be useful too. And if all fails, walk around and look at your students' devices. Only their answers (including possible nasty ones), will be underlined, allowing you to easily spot those students who have submitted an improper answer. Mentioning this to your students upfront will most likely make them think twice about their answering behavior.

 

  • Although teachers don't need to sign in, I recommend you do check out the options that the site offers. For example, you can choose to extend the site responses from 20 characters to 40, you can password protect the site so that as administrator you can delete unwanted responses, and you can turn on the Spam filter to block common unwanted responses.
  • Some students may try to "stack the deck" by submitting the same word over and over again. The Garden creator can choose an option, however, that allows unlimited answers, but no repeats of a single answer from the same user. 

 

Return to Main Page

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.