Since discovering David Leat's book, Thinking through Geography, a number of years ago I've been making regular use of Thinking skills activities. The students enjoy them and they're designed to encourage increasing complexity in their understanding of a topic. As such, they're suited for use in conjunction with SOLO.
I decided to use a geographical mystery I found on the Staffordshire Learning Net website; the murder of Chico Mendes. I hadn't used this particular mystery for a few years and was interested to see whether Web 2.0 could breathe new life into it. The original mystery came in three parts - A Police evidence board, Suspect Sheet and Mystery Cards. The task is to make use of the information to deduce who murdered the environmental activist.
I decided to place the original evidence board and suspect sheet on a Prezi, along with some additional multimedia information I'd collected. I wanted to create the sensation of being in a Police incident room. A major advantage of using Prezi in this way is that the students can work together in class and at home. Here's a link to the Chico Mendes mystery:
Pupils are able to make a copy and collaborate with each other in real time, even when they're at different locations. They are able to edit the information and present the amended presentation to the rest of the class in order to reveal 'whodunnit'. Within the Prezi I created a path to guide the pupils through the information. A link to the mystery cards is provided at the end of the presentation.
The ability to change the size of the evidence helps students demonstrate its significance. Grouping evidence on the Prezi canvas allows students to make a chain of connections and present a coherent argument.
No comments:
Post a Comment