The fall semester is in full swing, and most European countries have already concluded their fall breaks. Creaza has attended a wide range of conferences and held lots of workshops this fall, especially in the Nordic countries.

Week 44 is a rather special week in Sweden. Most teachers are offered to partake in a massive skills development initiative, while the students are on vacation. Here at Creaza we are very impressed with the wide range of skills deveopment that is being offered over the course of that hectic week. Many of these offers also place a big emphasis on ICT.

Creaza was of course present in Sweden in week 44. We have been holding workshops and giving lectures in Helsingborg, Kalmar, Mölndal and Stockholm, in addition to a large gathering in Tromsø, Norway.

Creaza is being used by a large number students in a wide variety of classrooms all across the globe. We would like to use this blog post to highlight some examples of how a couple of Swedish teachers are using Creaza with their elementary and middle schools students.

Pernilla Larsson teaches Swedish, English and History at Söndrebalgs school in Ängelholm. She uses Creaza through Fronter, and has been an avid user of the mind mapping tool Mindomo, which she has been using to create presentations that the students can study before and after class. Below you can see two of the presentations she has made:

Science fiction:

August Strindberg:

"I felt like Mindomo opened up a lot of new possibilities for me, and that this way of presenting a topic made the teaching much more efficient. I was going to teach my ninth-graders about how "Fiction from different eras for youths and adults ... depict mankind's conditions and questions regarding identity and life" (Lgr11 - Swedish curriculum). I chose to focus on August Strindberg, whose life I consider to be nothing less than magical. I was able to use my old notes by copying and pasting them and then adding links, pictures, audio and video. The students were quite impressed, and several of them demanded that they, too, should be able to use the Mindomo. I concluded the lesson by showing them how they could use it themselves. Both the students and I were very pleased".

Patrik teaches Math, Technology and Science at Sånnaskolan, a middle school near Kristianstad. He has used Creaza in different subjects and for different topics.

Traveling to Mars:

Above the Cartoonist theme "Space" has been used in order to, through a variety of comic strips, depict how and why mankind would and could manage to colonize Mars. Cartoonist enabled the students to show how one easily could be faced with many different problems along the way. By using Creaza to work on this topic, the students were able to:
- Use the Swedish langage both orally and written in a rich and nuanced way
- Solve problems and turn ideas into action in a creative way
- Use modern technology as a tool for communicatiing, creating, learning and acquiring knowledge

Life and Cells:

As part of an introduction to the topic of cells and life, the students got to present their knowledge of the topic with Mindomo, as seen in the mind map above. The students had already written down a collection of terms they had been exposed to in previous biology lessons. These terms were used to create a mind map which was then presented to the teacher. The purpose was to find a way of presenting the topic orally with the help of only a set of carefully structured keywords. Questions and clarifications were voiced along the way.

Patrik and his students have also, along with students from all over Sweden, been part of a large science project about trees and leaves. Patrik's students have been using Creaza's MovieEditor to edit clips they have filmed of themselves, in which they ask, explore and answer questions about leaves and trees. This way of working enables the students to work on learning and explaining biology-related terms and topics while simultaneously working on mastering new forms of presenting this material. Below you can see two of the movies the students made:

If you have any good examples of how you are using Creaza in the classroom, let us know. You can contact us at: post@creaza.com