Harvest knowledge, creativity with AnswerGarden
August 3, 2010
AnswerGarden is sort of like a virtual garden, in which you plant a question or query and wait patiently for folks to provide the answers or responses. The “garden” of responses then grows right before your eyes. Free to use, easy to set up, and even easier to respond to, AnswerGarden is an interesting brainstorming or response tool that uses the concept of “word clouds” to display what visitors have written.
Similar responses get more “weight” and therefore those words or phrases appear larger in size. Clicking on the word or phrase in the answer box also shows you the number of responses with that word or phrase. There is no log-in required and creating an AnswerGarden takes only a matter of seconds. Once you have posed your question, AnswerGarden provides you with a link to your garden or the embed code that allows you to place the question on your own website. The site also gives the creator of the question information about how many people have responded.
All in all, the simplicity and power of AnswerGardnen makes it an interesting possibility for a range of activities. Try out an AnswerGarden that I created that asks, Why do you visit the Instructify website?
In the Classroom
My first thought was that AnswerGarden has great potential for small reflection activities, such as emotions around the start of the school year, and as a means for students to share new ideas. It’s like a cousin to Wordle or other Word Cloud generators. One note of caution, though — I don’t see any way to edit responses. This means that if a student writes something inappropriate, it is going to show up in the answer cloud. This gives me hesitation and so I would advise you to take that into consideration before using it in class.
