Collaborating with Your Peers ---Stormboard

🌏In the context of global education, collaboration has been paid more and more attention.

💬As teachers, we would design the activity through group work to raise students' awareness of collaboration. The traditional way of group work is through oral and face-to-face tasks. However, today we have to fight the virus which may cause some teachers and students to work at home. Instead of through Zoom or other videotelephony software program, is there any other good platforms that could support collaboration work in the online class?

✅The answer is YES! Today I would introduce Stormboard toyou based on my own experience.

📹Firstly, a tutorial video would be attached below and I hope it could help you to get familiar with this platform.

💭Next, I would illustrate the benefits and shortcomings of applying in class, based on my own experience with this platform.

😍Advantages:

1. The navigation of the website is clear, which would be convenient for teachers to create a "storm"

2. There are different kinds of sample templates for users to choose from, which could save time and energy. 

3. There are many kinds of tools that could help teachers to set up group work in the online class. 

For example, if brainstorming is required, teachers could ask students to enter their answers in the chosen area. Then, by choosing "REPORTS/EXPORTS", teachers could  generate a report "word cloud", which could be useful to find out students' thoughts.

4. Chatbox would be a useful tool for students to discuss their task if there is no other supported applications or devices. For example, if the students
are required to discuss the outline of an essay, it would be more effective if they could share their ideas in the chatbox.

😥Disadvantages:

1. It may cause chaos if more than three students try to edit the stormboard. 

Thus, in my opinion, this platform would be more suitable for adult students. And it would be better if teachers could lead students to browse and show them some tips for using this platform. Helping students allocate their roles and time for each period would be recommended for effective collaborative work. 

2. The communicative functions of this platform are weak.

Except for the chatbox, there are few tools for students to discuss on this website.

However, communication is of vital importance in collaboration work. Thus, from my perspective, some videotelephony platforms could be used together, such as Zoom or Teams.

💗Hope you would enjoy exploring this tool to help your students collaborate with peers.

💬If you have any questions, feel free to comment below.

😘I would be very delighted to answer.