Let Your Garden Grow Through Answer Garden!

Recently, a graduate student of mine introduced me to a site called Answer Garden, which is an online brainstorming tool. All you need is a question and computers for your students to use to answer! Answer Garden makes it easy to embed on your website or just provide a link for your students to access.

How do you use it?

1. Visit Answer Garden and click Create Answer Garden
2. In the Topic section that comes up, type your question. You may want to experiment with the More Options section, where you can add an administrative password or limit the number of answers.
   
3. Click CREATE
4. You will get a preview of your question. You may want to send the link to your students OR embed in your website.
5. If you want to embed it in your website, simply scroll to the bottom of your page and click SHARE. Once you click SHARE, you will have the html code necessary to embed in your website.

How does this relate to UDL? Quite simply, it provides another means of engagement, by providing options for expression and communication. Students can brainstorm without needing a password or username! All they need is the link!

How could Answer Garden be used in my classroom? This would be an excellent tool to introduce a lesson or check for student understanding at the end of the day. In my UDL class, we used it as a way to check for student understanding. Students were asked to provide another word for UDL. What a great way to brainstorm without wasting paper!