Once you register (for free), you have the ability to access a template in which you enter a guiding question along with Internet resources that learners can use to help them answer the question. There is also a link (a small one near the bottom of the page) that you can access to search RIBIT activities that others have created.

I think the tool can be useful, but it doesn’t do much without a good guiding question. There is even a ‘tip’ section on creating a good guiding question:

RIBIT is designed to stimulate student insights, to give students an opportunty to think “without a net” and to draw their own conclusions. For this type of thinking to happen it’s important to use open-ended questions when creating RIBIT activities. Open-ended questions cannot be answered by “yes” or “no”. Here are some examples of good RIBIT questions or guiding instructions:

• “How do the following items relate to one another?”
• “Make some sense of the following.”
• “Put yourself in the events described in the following links. How would you have acted and why?”

Discussing good guiding questions or instructions for RIBIT is difficult without knowing the topic and resources in the activity. Questions should be determined by the resources you select and the level of prior knowledge students have about the subject. But most of all, questions should find that optimal space between asking for something too specific and not giving students enough direction. There is a spirit to RIBIT—students have to know what you’re asking of them which is to think on their own. If everyone understands this then successful RIBITs and deep learning are just around the corner.

I did a search to see what sort of activities already exist. I was disappointed to see that so many of the guiding questions were really just factual, scavenger hunt types: find the following information. Yuck! In defense of the tool, it is a good way to organize an activity that asks learners to create some meaning out of Internet-based resources. However, the tool is only as useful as the user is at understanduing why they want students to think.