TodaysMeet

http://todaysmeet.com/

This is a video from YouTube showing you how to use TodaysMeet.

What is this?

This is a tool for gaining collaborative thinking for students and teachers to brainstorm and discuss ideas on the instanteous platform. Teachers and students are able make comments, raise questions, and use that feedback to design their presentation and develop points based on this platform.

How do you use it?

1. All you need to do is to open the site, name the room. Click on the 'Create a Room' button and then you can enter your own classroom with your students.

2. You should type your name(s) and ideas related to the topic into the blue textbar.

3. In order to join the room, the name of the classsroom should be provided for people to get in.

For example, if the name of the classroom is 'Topic', then the URL address(website address) for the room will be www.todaysmeet.com/Topic. Messages you typed on the blue textbar will be displayed on the whiteboard on the left-hand side. The name of the person will also be shown under the ideas. The second idea will be on the top of the first idea and so on.

4. After the discussion, you can simply click on 'transcipt' or 'projector' button, and then you can have all the points discussed throughout the whole page.

Why is the content good for language learning?

1. it is very easy to use, especially for brainstorimg acitivities
2. it allows shy students to speak up in the discussion classroom
3. pros and cons can be easily stated once students enter their ideas to the classroom
4. students can throw all the ideas out at the same time

Limitations

1. there is only 140-character limit for each discussion, long sentences and detailed discussion are hindered
2. students may become bored easily when discussion is all about typing
3. there are other tools like Facebook, MSN, Skype chat, etc providing longer length of discussion and having similar functions as what TodaysMeet do