It's Chico time- Geography mystery reboot

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:

http://prezi.com/k9yvfpe-enav/chico-mendes-suspect-wall/

Yn Gymraeg/ In Welsh:

http://prezi.com/ve_pu0ehyuog/chico-mendes/

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.

Using Prezi for learning

Prezi is a cloud based presentation software that allows you to zoom and navigate to text, objects and YouTube clips on a canvas.



 I've started using it as a learning tool. Here's why:

• It's pretty intuitive and the tutorials are very good.
• There are a number of advantages associated with cloud storage, including ease of access, collaboration and sharing.
• As a Geographer, the ability to explore an issue or topic spatially and at different scales is very appealing.
• A good prezi needs planning; this encourages students to think about the context of the content they wish to convey.
• When done properly, creating a prezi is a creative process. They can be visually stunning and a real hook for students.
• The prezi viewer for the  Ipad is a great app.
• You can breathe new life into Powerpoint presentations by importing slides into a Prezi.

Here are some of my thoughts on using prezi:

Thinking Skills

1. It is possible for students to create a multimedia mind map of a subject.

2. A prezi could be created to incorporate multimedia clues to a thinking skills mystery activity, in much the same way as I did with Photosynth (I describe this in a previous post). For example, I'm thinking of creating a prezi 'suspect wall' full of information to help students solve the mystery of who killed an environmental activist.



3. Students could make an editable copy of a prezi produced by the teacher which is full of information, pictures etc of a topic. They could then sort and group the information, make connections and re-size according to importance. They would then be able to present their findings to the rest of the class.

4. Students could be asked to follow a presentation path for a prezi that has been produced by the teacher. They could give a commentary on what they see and understand. This could be recorded using Audacity (audio only) or screencasting software.


Collaboration

5. As  prezis are stored in the cloud, it is possible for students to collaborate- for example, individuals could be given responsibility for a particular continent on an outline map of the World. They would then populate their continent with relevant material. The prezi brings their individual research together and the geographical context is clear.  The ability to edit and create prezis with others in real time is a real plus; there's nothing stopping teachers and students on different continents working together on a presentation. It could also be a good platform for transition work between Primary and Secondary schools

Revision 

6. The 'understanding a topic template' provides an ideal framework for revising a topic or unit of work. The ability to incorporate YouTube clips means that it is possible to incorporate screencasts (see my previous post). Making a prezi public means that everyone can have access to it.



We're having fun with Prezi, but be warned, a path that jumps too much from one end of the canvas to the other can make you seasick!