Brainstorming Activities

Note: Click on the titles below to see an online example.

Email The Rich and Famous

Having learners use email is a natural for Web-based learning. Here are some reasons: many browsers (like Netscape and Microsoft) have email software connected to them; many email addresses are available on the Internet; some Web sites exist simply to post people's opinions; you can access newsgroups or listservs where many people share their common interests; and best of all, when learners are writing, they are thinking. Can you hear the new battle cry, "Emailing Across the Curriculum!"

Bridge the Warp Between Very Different Times or Places

It's a mistake to think the Internet will provide information on every topic. It makes a poor and quirky encyclopedia. But if you make the most of this quirkiness, you have a much richer, more compelling resource than any Funk & Wagnals could offer. So look to your standard references and textbooks as a starting place, and look to the Web for current late-breaking trends, news articles, fashion reports, and art forms that could shine new light on old content.

Analyze Something by Looking at it Closely (see another example?).

One of the great skills any learner can continue to develop is the ability to look closely. One excellent way to practice this skill is to look closely at "primary sources." Skip the news digests and sound bites for this activity. Instead, find the words that came out of the newsmakers' mouths. Let students analyze, categorize, and see relationships rather than have the insights handed down. In our increasingly mediated society, this skill of having one person look closely and think their own thoughts is one we should pursue.

Try to Persuade Others that Your Opinion is Best

These activities build on the previous one of analyzing. After looking closely at the details of something, the next logical step is logic: take the insights and information gained by looking closely and create an argument. Learners take a stand and offer an opinion that they then support with evidence, examples, opinions, and facts that come from analysis. These persuasive activities make excellent speeches as well as written email / snail mail essays to real world publications. Especially don't neglect appropriate newsgroups and listervs. There's so much Sound and Fury flying around cyberspace, a little thoughtfulness would be nice to balance out the rants that too often signify nothing.

Create Your Own Opinion when Viewpoints Differ

This is an extension of the last activity that seeks to engage learners in the art of persuasion. What sets this apart is that the topics are highly controversial and learners "weigh in" with their opinions, feelings, and insights. By creating their own opinions students combine the evidence they have gathered with a reflective look at their own emotions, biases, and beliefs. These activities have been listed toward the end because they are best when they come after analysis, collection of evidence, and thoughtful structuring of an argument. Otherwise you just have the rantings and flames that get so boring so quickly. Perhaps the best contribution schools and libraries can make to the Internet community is this thoughtfulness.

Synthesize (put together) a Bunch of Ideas into One Clear Vision

Again, these activities of "synthesis" build on the earlier activities of analysis, persuasion, and generating opinions. What makes a synthesis activity different is that learners have to combine new, unique, unusual elements into a new whole. This is that "getting out of the box" and "paradigm shift" stuff you may have heard of. Rather than re-hash old controversies to re-argue familiar lines of logic, if you can present learners with multiple viewpoints that don't leave a clear path, they must blaze their own trail. This is where students "construct" knowledge or "make new meaning." Often these would be in situations that defy easy answers, but where answers are needed by the real world.

The Elements of an Activity

• Think about any mindset or attitude it would be helpful for the learners to be in.

• Describe the thinking they will do. Students think better when they have a handle on the "how's" of cognition.

• Be as specific as you can about the actual output you want learners to create.

Note: If you're still not making creative sparks happen, you might want to gather a group of friends and do some more formal brainstorming.

Last revised May 21, 1996 By the SDSU/Pacific Bell Fellows Applications Design Team/Wired Learning http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/beyond/acts.brainstorm.html Copyright © 1996 Pacific Bell -- All Rights Reserved