What is it?
After 30 days, you'd have to get your DOS to pay, but
Conceptboard is a useful tool for brainstorming, which is a short-term activity anyway, so it's worth a demo in class to get your students continuing to share ideas outside of class.
Speedbumps?
The site takes you to an introductory video, at which time you'll realise that Conceptboard is a Business tool rather than something designed for education. On the other hand, business design is often much clearer and easier to follow, with plenty of support for prospective clients. After creating the trial account, you will be greeted with an IM from a friendly guide named, no joke, Captain Conceptboard! Let him/it take you on the interactive tutorial, which is pleasantly brief and hands-on.
How would I use it?
You'll see it's a simple drag-and-drop platform for multiple users to store, as well as comment and present on, various materials. There's a clever feature that allows one to display the mouse and screen positions of all contributors. One can imagine the learners at home, discussing a project over Skype while indicating which part of a text or idea they'd like to develop; thus Conceptboard lends itself to presentations or writing tasks that require research. It would be a nice user-friendly way to encourage EAP and BE students to work in groups, but I haven't yet hit upon its usefulness as a lesson component. Any ideas?
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