Occasionally in my work with faculty I find them wanting to reproduce a brainstorming session activity from the brick and mortar classroom. They want students to ‘shout out’ ideas, arguments, or topics and create a list so that everyone can participate and the best ideas can ‘float’ to the surface. There is value in pooling ideas to generate all possibilities given the varying background knowledge of students.
In OSU’s learning system, Blackboard, there are tools such as wikis and discussions that can allow students to generate ideas but these tools don’t always have the options needed to take the ideas and vote on them and have the class decide which are the best.
Tricider
So one alternative option is the free digital tool Tricider. Tricider is an efficient online brainstorming and polling tool.
I stumbled across Tricider as I do many tools by reading popular educational technology blogs and bookmarking my favorites, examine any limitations it may have, and then I use it in my own online classroom. After the first term of using it, I found that Tricider required few instructions, did not require a login by my students, and was simple and intuitive to use. Those faculty that use this tool find that it is the only tool that really does what it does.
When would you want to use Tricider:
- In an icebreaker activity
- To brainstorm and collect ideas (class or small group)
- To brainstorm solutions and list pros/cons of each
- To brainstorm ideas and vote on them so the favorites rise to the top
- Have small groups brainstorm and share or compare/contrast their ideas with others
How to get started?
- Go to http://tricider.com, create an account if you want to be able to revisit your “questions”
- Type in a question and click on Go
- Change the deadline if you wish it to be open more than 14 days
- Click on Share and Invite
- Copy and paste the URL anywhere that your audience can access the link
- Brainstorm and/or Vote!
Try it out: http://tricider.com/brainstorming/1GEq1
Melanie Kroening
(Instructional Designer, Ecampus)
