Stormboard

Welcome! In this edition we explore yet another great innovation for the 21st century class: Stormboard. Well, no need to run for cover, it's completely harmless. Its rather strange name is a hybrid of 'brainstorm' and 'whiteboard.' 

Phew!!! For a moment I though I'd lost you there.

Stormboard uses a virtual shared wall and sticky notes approach to brainstorming and collaboration in real time, especially when participants cannot be in the same place. On a train? In a bar? In bed? Cosy in your spouse's lap? No worries, you can still contribute, organize, discuss, vote, and act on ideas stormed on the shared wall. You won't miss much from class or school. Even better, you can comment on other people’s posts and sticky notes and even edit them! 

Access

Stormboard takes a minute to learn and five to master, literally. All you have to do is sign up for a free account which supports up to five participants but comes with limited features. However, for a small subscription you can create class accounts with additional features that we will discuss in a while. For eligible learners and teachers, software is accessible at 'special' education rates! No need to wait. Sign up now and enjoy teaching and learning on the go. Use the link above to access the sign up site. From there on, it's as easy as ABC!

Signed up?

Now that you have signed up, let's do a bit of exploration and then discuss how you make effective use of this tool and make life easy and learning less constraining for you and your charges. 

From the video, you must have picked that there are six types of stickies that you can use to add content: text, photo, video, stack, document and sketch. Using these is quite similar to putting up sticky notes or index cards on you classroom whiteboard except that each item will have a comment thread allowing you to discuss and clarify ideas. The colour coding feature reduces clatter and helps organize ideas on the wall. Better still, you can actually link them right there, so it's easy for anyone else who comes on later to follow the thought patterns of earlier participants. As if that's not convenience enough, the voting function can help prioritize ideas and facilitate decision making.

In the classroom

Forget the confinement, Stormboard is a free spirit that transcends the limitations of space. You can extend your classroom to any part of the world where there is access to the internet. There are many language things you can do with Stormboard. 

The summer holidays are here, a timely break  from this dreary Siberia. So, Stormboard The Perfect Holiday Destination. Apt topic! In your class, instruct learners to initial their stickies and post pictures and even videos of their dream vacation destinations. Ask them to add stickies with vocabulary about their destinations in terms of features, atmosphere, hotels etc. They can comment on each others' stickies and develop ideas. This could be a brilliant brainstorm for a class outing. Imagine the excitement it would generate!

As always, in Literature possibilities are boundless. 'There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.' Discuss with close reference to the play. This is a typical task where learners can paste a sticky per idea and help plan an essay prior to a class or discussion flipped-classroom style. They can state a point, cite textual evidence and link the two to the topic. This way a whole essay can be done in a few minutes. When they come in, there's no fumbling around you get down to the serious business of constructing a standard academic essay.  

Is this all necessary?

Of course, my dear Sir/ Madam, it most certainly is. Language learning is a communal thing best undertaken through interaction with others. Stormboard is one of many semiotic social spaces with links to Piaget's constuctivist paradigm which argues that learners construct knowledge through experience, accommodation and assimilation. Even more, there is room here for the social constructivism school of the 70s: Vygotsky and Wood. You can scaffold learners by commenting on their work and asking questions that stretch their imagination. Even more important, are peer comments and contributions in the construction of knowledge which can foster critical thinking. Remember, learners don't have to be in the same room to do this, they can engage in  spatial collaboration which lends itself to a recent socio-cultural perspective to language learning: connectivism ,which claims that in the digital age learning occurs via engagement with diverse ideas, opinions and knowledge that may reside in machines! Interesting ideas aren't they?

Benefits

We have already touched on some of these but here is a good list of reasons why you should jazz lessons up a bit and do things differently. Stormboard if great for

• collecting ideas. 
• exploring ideas and expanding ideas.
• finding new and different way to activate prior knowledge.
• planning and organising ideas. 
• practicing vocabulary.
• mapping out whole projects.
• fostering teamwork.   
• finding useful lexis on a topic.
• reviewing materials and ideas.

A real additional joy here is that Stormboard can generate reports in a variety of file formats such as Wordle representations and summary reports in PDF and Excel. Besides, you can import and export these if you subscribe. You also get to play Big Brother and keep track of activities since your last log in. By the way, you and other teachers can hook up and collaborate or plan meetings, projects and even set exams using Stormboard! It's a virtual office of sorts.

However...

Stormboard is completely web-based and that can be a challenge in contexts where learners do not all have unlimited access to WiFi or broadband. This is especially true in my country, Zimbabwe. The stickies' individual displays are not very flexible which makes things a little monotonous. Ensure tasks match learners' developmental levels, otherwise they may get frustrated.

Well, I gotta go. In between, have fun with this tool and keep your learners engaged even when they are away from school.