101 Activities For Teaching Creativity And Problem Solving

Rice Storm Handout

To illustrate Rice Storm, Michalko (1991) describes a group of computer specialists using

Rice Storm to consider ways to improve the home computer. The group first lists verifi-

able, relevant problem facts:

• We can produce computers that operate twenty to fifty times faster than standard
  computers.


• Computer screens can be mounted on walls.


• Fiberoptics make higher resolution possible.


• Full-motion video can be mixed with computer graphics.


• Laptops are becoming more portable.

After considering these and other facts, you describe the essence of its challenge as

follows: “In what ways might we develop a home computer that is faster, multiuse, mul-

timedia, and high resolution with multiscreens for a variety of purposes?”

Next, group members individually generate ideas. The following ideas are suggested:

• A portable computer so small that you could carry it while holding two bags of gro-
  ceries


• A merger of video and computer capabilities with a very high bandwidth link for
  video access to every movie ever made


• Electronic publishing involving home computer access to data banks about education,
  travel, medicine, sports, and so on


• Cellular transponders in wall outlets to permit placement of computer screens any-
  where, allowing movies to be embedded in such novel objects as desks or work areas

These and other solutions are grouped into sets, named, renamed, and grouped again

into an all-solution set that best describes the essence of all the previous solutions: “A

home multimedia Roger Rabbit.” This solution involves a home computer networking sys-

tem with such features as entertainment (access to every movie ever made); handwriting

machines that transfer thoughts automatically to the computer; a scanner; smart software

agents to scan databases for useful information and store it in the computer; and custom-

designed screens that can be embedded in desks, hung on walls, or carried around.

Brainstorming with Related Stimuli 281

101 Activities for Teaching Creativity and Problem Solving.Copyright © 2005 by John Wiley &

Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. http://www.pfeiffer.com

09 VG 247-294b 10/6/04 12:22 PM Page 281