The Octopus's Garden: Final Phase Begins

This week in The Octopus's Garden Project, Grade 7 and Grade 8 have been deciding on how to proceed with their final 21st century classroom design presentations. They created a list of guidelines using the feedback and reflections from Phase 2 topic presentations, along with a lesson on slide design.

  

Introduction to Slide Design: 7 Rules for Creating Effective Slides

from Alex Rister

Lots of critical thinking happened as learners made important decisions about how teams would be formed, how the presentation would work, what would be included and the order each section would occur in. Learners took part in a poll to decide on team formation for this Phase and then, using the guidelines and learning from the slides above, worked on planning out their section of the final design presentation.

Rubber Ducks: 'Walls' Presentation Planning

Using sticky notes, each team planned out exactly what they wanted to be seen on each slide and in what order, with notes about what would be heard whilst the slide was displayed - speech or music.

Two members from each team then circulated among the rest of the group, spending two minutes discussing the plan with the remaining members. Returning to their own team, they shared what they had seen and heard and adjusted their plans accordingly, (see right).

Plan for Slide 1 of
Final Presentation

Once each team's plan was made, all sheets were stuck up on the wall around a central overall plan - which included a general introduction to the whole project, (see left and below).

As a group, we then started to plan out the whole presentation bringing together all our ideas. Learners wanted to mix up the different areas in a logical way. By discussing links and connections between different topic areas, learners began to create a presentation plan that seamlessly links different areas together. For example, discussion of a ceiling painted like the sky (from G.O.A.T.'s 'Ceiling' plan) lead to a discussion of flooring like grass (from Dominant Innovation's 'Floor' plan) to create a more sophisticated presentation that shows careful thought about all the different elements and how they combine to create a whole.

Final Presentation Plan starting to take shape

Learners recognised that these thinking, planning and synthesising skills are essential for effectively showing all their designs in a clear and cohesive way; most importantly, they recognised that these skills are crucially important for organising their writing.