organic computing

Blog It Projects

A school or class blog is an excellent way of communicating what is happening in your school and a way of developing discussion and comment.

Content

Explore using a blog to communicate ideas and comment on them This session introduces how blogs can work, it can involve setting up a blog from scratch or working from an existing project.

Aims

• understand what a blog is
• understand some of the conventions of posting, tagging and commenting
• explore a topic through sharing ideas in text form as a blog

Extend this

Set up and maintain a class or group blog over a period of time.

Here is an idea ... Mystery Life

This session gets children to look closely at a mystery object, describe it and then post their comments up on the blog site. It encourages discussion and establishes the basic ideas of contributing to a blog. Visit the explore pages on the organicARTS' site for the full collection of images by Tom Allsop. There are some fantastic photographs of insect life out at West Town Farm.

Mind Map Projects

Mind and Concept Maps allow us to gather, structure and communicate our understanding and ideas in a very visual way. Mind mapping software allows ideas to re-ordered and connected very simply but very powerfully.

Think it ... Map it!

Using either examples drawn from a working farm or from subjects which you are exploring in the classroom Think it ... Map it! gives children the chance to share their ideas, look closely at them and then restructure them to give a greater understanding.

Aims

• understand different ways of mapping ideas and explaining the links between ideas
  
• apply these skills to the creation of  imaginative factual texts
  
• learn to use software to create idea maps
  

I can use either software you have in school or introduce you to effective free software.The ideas mentioned below use MindMeister as a simple online mind mapping tool that is easy to embed and share on webpages.

The Badger Tales page on this site  develops one strand of this.

Extend this session ..

Track through a project with a group of children and see how their mapping of ideas changes

Explore with teachers different ways of using computer software to develop mind mapping techniques.