Content Delivery Organizer - Camo

To organize the lesson, Mindmeister and Google Docs were used.  What I started with for my portion of the lesson was reviewing a larger tech project I was preparing on camouflage.  I analyzed the information, ideas, strategies and technologies used in that project to determine what I thought were the key items to extract, use and modify to fit within a the shorter delivery time frame.  By mapping it out on Mindmeister and in the more descriptive Google Doc, I could play it out in my mind and on paper how a more abbreviated lesson would come together.  The organizing tools helped me refine, condense and connect the key information yet kept me mindful of the need for engagement.  I personally found the Google Doc more helpful to me in building this lesson.  It allowed me lay out the lesson in a structure that offered more detail and description.  The detail helped me identify the where and how for student engagement taking place in the different parts of the lesson, which gave me a more critical eye for the things to cut, modify and add. By writing it, then reading and mentally visualizing it, then rethinking it, then re-writing and reading the new draft version, and so on, it helped me build the lesson and have it flow in a logical way that would link concepts.  For example, in my larger tech project I created a construction paper board to illustrate camouflage through the use of color (visibility of color on light and dark backgrounds).  I put it in my outline initially but then when I thought about the main point I wanted to make (colors blend in to create camouflage) and the time constraints with the lesson, which caused me to rethink the construction paper board's use, and ultimately came up with the bush/person example.

The content map offered limited value to me; however, I think it was helpful to my partner who could then have an idea of what I was going to cover without having to go into the detail I wanted/needed (and vice versa).  It was a brief summary that could guide her through my lesson structure, and she could use the Google Doc if she wanted to in order to get additional detail.  If I were preparing a lesson in the future with a partner, I would use a content mapping tool because of the value it gives to my partner and me by summarizing the key items and sequencing of those items to guide us through the lesson.  I would also use the Google Doc or a similar tool for the reasons cited earlier.  However, if I was going it alone, I would not use the mapping tool and only use the Google Doc.  The mapping tool is not as value-added and doing it would be extra work, as my Google Doc provides the structure and detail that meets my needs.