Ticking Mind Bulletin #15

The best web 2.0 tools to use for education are those that require no sign ups, are quick to access and genuinely contribute to the sharing and discussing of ideas in the classroom. We spend hours each week looking at different web 2.0 sites out there, and dismissing most of them. But here's a little gem we found just recently. It's called Tricider and ticks all the boxes.

Tricider is partly a brainstorming tool, partly a debating tool, and partly a discussion tool. It starts out with a user simply jumping onto Tricider's home page and posing a question in the question box. This generates a unique page with a URL which the user can then share with others. Once others have this URL they can visit this new Tricider page and add ideas about this question, arguments, pictures and vote on what others have said. It's a terrific little tool to promote and extend discussion. We could start by asking a question about:

*Why a character does something in a text?

*What should be done about a certain issue?

*How we could make the world a better place....

We've set up an example one for you to look at on the question: How can we use social media more effectively in the classroom? Find it here.