collaborative learning and stromboard

(The picture is from Stephen Paris, https://www.pexels.com)

What happens in a traditional teacher-centered classroom?
A teacher gives a lecture and then an assignment is given. Students work on the assignment individually and hand in the assignment. At last, the teacher marks everyone's work and give general feedback to the whole class or detailed feedback individually. 

BUT

If students work together,.......
👧👦🧒🧑👩

(The picture is from  rawpixel.com,  https://www.pexels.com)

Students can ask other group members questions, learn from others work, monitor each other, compete and help each other. It seems that the students learn in a collaborative environment where every member devotes their resources into a  shared resource library. Every one can capitalize on the shared library. This is collaborative learning. 

🔴The structure of this blog
This blog can be divided into two parts. The first part is about collaborative learning and the second part talks about a tool called stormboard based on collaborative learning. The first part is the basis of the second part because the first part helps you understand the second part.

What collaborative learning is has been talked about. Then this blog will provide an example for collaborative learning to further explain the definition of collaborative learning and evaluate the benefits of collaborative learning. Afterward, a tool called stormboard which can be used in collaborative learning will be introduced and evaluated in terms of limitations and advantages. Finally, suggestions will be given.

🔵Example
Postering and commenting on blogs is a process of collaborative learning. I write blogs about based reflections on ICT course. Through posting the blogs, I share my thoughts and ideas with other blog users. Other users comment on my blog, evaluating my blog, responding to my ideas and ask questions. It also provides a blended learning environment. This learner-centered learning mode can promote students' engagement and motivation. This learning mode is quite similar to stormboard that will be talked about afterwards in this blog.

💖other benefits:
1Increase students' satisfaction in the learning experience so their retention will be improved.
2 Interactions among students promote the development of communicative skills.

Then I will introduce a tool can be used for collaborative learning.
This tool is underpinned by the concept of collaborative learning.

👀Stormboard

(The picture is from https://stormboard.com)

👉click here and you can find the homepage of stormboard.

Stormboard can be used to record your ideas whenever you get inspirations and share them with people around you or very far from you online. Everyone who joins the same storm is an ongoing participant even before and after the class, sharing their ideas. This learning process here is very similar to the blog learning method mentioned above. Students using stormboard can share ideas and interact with each other. This is why it is relevant to collaborative learning.

After creating a storm, you can share your storm with others by link or email. You can add a sticky to your storm by using the numbers on your keyboard (1-6) :
1 Text
2 Whiteboard
3 Image
4 Video
5 Index Card
6 File
That is very easy and time-saving.

Here is a video in youtube instructing you detailly how to use the stromboard.

👍 (1) Advantages and functions of stormboard
1A a significant number of templates are available to you organize your storm.
2 Easily and quickly add stickies and comments in the shared workspace.
3 Participants can vote for ideas they think are good. Users can see what ideas their team like best and then focus more on the ideas regarded as the best.
4 Stormboard helps connect remote individuals or teams. Wherever they are, they can work in one shared space.  
😨(2) Limitations of stormboard
1 Because everyone has the right to do something to the shared strom, you cannot make sure every student is doing what the teacher required to do. Some naught students may draw a big tortoise on the whiteboard. I think stormboard is more suitable for high school and college students. Too young students may be naughty. 
2 If the group is too big and everyone has their own ideas to organise the storm. It will be in a mess.

👩‍🏫(3) How can it be used in language learning?
It can be used for brainstorm, collaboration, and communication in high school. The teacher may create a storm before the class and asks the students to post their ideas on it. The teacher views the ideas and comments on it and based on it prepare the lesson. It saves time because the time of a class is limited and guides the teacher's lesson plan.
 It can be used in colleges. Students post their thoughts about their research, project or dissertation on it and get feedbacks from classmates and tutors.
If you are primary school teacher, I do not think stormboard is suitable for you.

😘(4) some suggestions for teachers when using stormboard:
1 Consider the allocation of group members. The diversity of group members are important. I think it not good to put students with the same gender or from the same background in the same group. You can find more different ideas and learn more in a group whose members are quite different.
2 Monitoring students' using stormboard in case some naughty students make jokes on the shared storm because every participant has the right to make changes to the storm.
3 If the task is so difficult and complex. The teacher should guide the students to allocate the working responsibility. Every group member should be aware of the role he or she should play in the group.
4 Try to make the group size not too big. I think 5 people is OK. If the group is too big, make a regulation on how to organize the layout and the structure of the storm.

👉 Just click here. There are many other collaborative learning tools introduced in this website.

👉 Click here. This website did a good job in terms of giving suggestions on collaborative learning.