Stephanie+Jaegers-+AnswerGarden



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Introduction
AnswerGarden is a “minimalistic feedback tool”. To create an AnswerGarden you simply visit the main page and click “Create an AnswerGarden” and then type in your topic. You then have the option to create a password. When using this in the classroom, you definitely want to create a password so you can delete any answers you may not want on your AnswerGarden. Creating a password is the only way to control inappropriate posts. Once your AnswerGarden is created, it is ready for anyone to submit an answer to your question or comment to your topic. When you post you can click on an existing answer to submit the same response. You can put your mouse over the answer to see the number of people who said that response.

I chose AnswerGarden because of the versatility and simplicity of the site. As soon as I saw how it worked, I started thinking of tons of ways to use this tool in the classroom. I like that it is easy to use so it could be used with young students. You can share the link to your AnswerGarden or actually embed your AnswerGarden in your website or blog. You can also export your AnswerGarden to Wordle or Tagxedo to make an image to print. There are options to customize if you go to the Customize tab you can learn how. [|Customize AnswerGarden]

How to Incorporate AnswerGarden in the Classroom

 * Spelling Patterns
 * Example I made: []
 * Vote on a class reward (party, movie, bring stuffed animal day, etc.) Students can come up with their own idea or vote for someone else’s.
 * Post words describing someone in the class or a character in a book
 * Beginning of the year “get to know you” activities. You can post questions such as favorite color, ice cream flavor, animal, etc.
 * Brainstorming
 * Students could create their own AnswerGardens

Really to me the possibilities are endless. I think it would be really easy to incorporate to any subject area. I think there are also many ways to utilize this site with older students.

Resources
[|About AnswerGarden]