The perspective that I will take for this brainstorming activity is that of an instructor/trainer. The audience would consist of adult learners. The content area that I will address is the Internet, specifically, how to use the world-wide web (www).

• Create a list of important WWW sites, then have the students perform WWW searches to locate those sites as an exercise in search engines and browsing.
• Use the yellow pages and look up different companies as a metaphor for locating information via the WWW.
• Have the students collect URL's of the sites that would best describe them and share it with the class.
• Have the student's brainstorm uses for the WWW -- first in small groups, then share with the class.
• Have the student's locate their personal heros on the www and share with the class.
• Have a contest where students race to find www sites the fastest using search engines.
• Give the students a copy of the source code and have them try to figure out how the code works. This may also be
• a cooperative activity using think-pair-share.
• Have students think of the limitations of the www. What couldn't it be used for?
• How could the www be improved? Group share.
• Have the students develop their own web pages that tell a story about themselves. Share with the class.
• Make mind-maps and concept-webs to illustrate the connected nature of the WWW

• Have the more knowledgeable students work with the less knowledgeable students.
• Team competition to find the most unusual websites, most entertaining websites, and other extreme websites.
• Have students create www stories by connecting websites, and then have other students follow the story.
• Given a theme, have the students work together to find information on that topic and create their own class page and links to other pages.
• Divide into groups, and have a group quiz on www related items.
• Group presentations on different uses of the www and have them demonstrate several sites that depict their uses

• Have students review each other's web pages and critique them based on a self-developed criteria.
• Have students create their own home pages. Have them share their pages with the class and explain the rational behind their site.
• Have them write brief essays describing their web-surfing and/or home-page creating activities
• Rive a class discussion on the. PMI regarding the WWW.
• Midway through the unit, conduct a KWL to determine where, to go next giving the students an opportunity to have a vote in the direction of the remainder of the unit.
• Debate the pros/cons of the WWW regarding security, privacy, and other controversial topics, Find www sites, newspaper articles, etc, for factual data to support the arguments.
• Have the students critique their experience with the unit, a unit evaluation What was, done well? What could be done better? What should be added/taken away?

Part 2: Ranking and Reconfiguring Brainstorm ideas.

Key: Scale 1-5; 1 =easy to implement - 5=difficult to implement. Scale A-E; A=important - E=Iess important

Rank:

I-A • Create a fist of important WWW sites, then have the students perform WWW searches to locate those sites as an exercise in search engines and browsing.

I-C • Use the yellow pages and look up different companies as a metaphor for locating information via the WWW.

I-D • Have the students collect URL's of the sites that would best describe them and share it with the class.

I-D • Have the student's brainstorm uses for the WWW -- first in small groups, then share with the class.

2-E • Have the student's locate their personal heros on the WWW and share with the class.

I-B • Have a contest where students race to find WWW sites the fastest using search engines.

I-C • Give the students a copy of the source code and have them try to figure out how the code works. This may also be a cooperative activity using think-pair-share.

I-D • Have students think of the limitations of the WWW. What couldn't it be used for?

I-D • How could the WWW be improved? Group share.

3-C • Have the students develop their own web pages that tell a story about themselves. Share with the class.

I-B - Make mind-maps and concept-webs to illustrate the connected nature of the WWW.

2-B • Have the more knowledgeable students work with the less knowledgeable students.

2-D • Team competition to find the most unusual websites, most entertaining websites, and other extreme websites.

2-D • Have students create WWW stories by connecting websites, and then have other students follow the story.

2-D • Given a theme, have the students work together to find information on that topic and create their own class page and links to other pages.

3-C • Divide into groups, and have a group quiz on WWW related items.

3-B • Group presentations on different uses of the WWW and have them demonstrate several sites that depict their uses.

2-A • Have students review each other's web pages and critique them based on a self-developed criteria.

3-B • Have students create their own home pages. Have them share their pages with the class and explain the rational behind their site.

I-B • Have them write brief essays describing their web-surfing and/or home-page creating activities.

I-C • Have a class discussion on the PMI regarding the WWW.

2-B • Midway through the unit, conduct a KWL to determine where to go next, giving the students an opportunity to have a vote in the direction of the remainder of the unit.

3-C • Debate the pros/cons of the WWW regarding security, privacy, and other controversial topics. Find www sites, newspaper articles, etc. for factual data to support the arguments.

2-B • Have the students critique their experience with the unit, a unit evaluation. What was done well? What could be done better? What should be added/taken away?

I have not been, nor plan to be, a public school teacher, however, I realize the need for more creative, collaborative, and critical experiences in learning. As a result, I have adapted the assignment for my benefit, such that the topic area and the ideas therein revolve around adult learning and www training. As it turned out, I don't think the processes were much different, only in content area and choice of training/teaching methods.

At first, I didn't know what to do, and the reference pages in the readings help focus my attention to the types of activities that would be created. Without the readings, I don't know if I could have come up with as many activities as are listed. However, after reviewing the readings, I felt that I could have created twice as many items as this list, but I do not have unlimited time nor space to conduct such an activity right now. I have found that I have a trend that relates to the creativity and focus of this assignment. I have trouble creating initial ideas, but once an idea has been created, I can piggy-back on that idea and generate many, many more. Perhaps I suffer from one or more of the mental blocks that was discussed in class that inhibits my initial idea generation. It seemed evident with this assignment.

One of the techniques that I tried using with this assignment was a role-reversal. Rather than trying to think from the instructor role, I thought about the types of activities that I would find helpful if I were a student/learner in this class. By simply changing perspectives, similar to the depiction in Dead Poet's Society, I was able to generate many ideas that were otherwise blinded from my thoughts.

After ranking the importance and implementation difficulty of each activity, I look at the list a little differently. While I think the activities have value and can be implemented, I felt somewhat discouraged about actually implementing the activities listed This feeling is primarily due to, the practical importance of the activities. For instance, having students find websites that relate to their interests and that say something about themselves has very little practical significance. I chose to leave the activity on the list, since you can always re-purpose activities for different outcomes and I didn't want to lose the idea. However, the outcome desired from this www unit does not fit well with this particular activity. There are other activities on the list with higher importance and ease of implementation. As a result, I did not delete items from the list, but the usefulness of each activity can be somewhat inferred by the rankings given.

Finally, I wanted to comment on the assignment itself, and not merely the activities listed, specifically the mental processes that were used in generating the list of activities. The processes that I used during this activity were simple brainstorming, role reversal, reverse brainstorming to generate opposite ideas and stimulate new thought patterns, and P-M-I. I found it interesting that I was using creative techniques to generate more creative ideas. Apparently, creativity breeds creativity and it was an experience that I found rather interesting.