Exciting new tool for BE classes

January 25th, 2008
by Cleve Miller

Oh I love this.

Exploratree is a free web-based “thinking tool” for idea generation, planning, and many other types of cognitive activity that are fundamental to any kind of project. You select from a menu of frameworks that structure the thinking process, which are similar in concept to regular BE frameworks actually. Or, you can develop your own framework.

What’s neat is that you can easily see how you can use the different frameworks to work on specific language objectives, especially structures and functions.

• the Futures Wheel framework helps your students “Think through the consequences and impacts of an event. What are the knock-on effects?” and could be useful for practicing the conditionals. You’d set it up to by using a real business situation of the student or group, then work through the Future wheel framework using conditionals.
• The Reverse Planning framework is to “work backwards from an imagined perfect future to a feasible and possible present”. You’d set this up as if the group were actually in, say, 2010, and their plans had succeeded, and they relate the imagined “history” of 2008-10 that got them there, using past tenses and storytelling techniques.
• The Compare and Contrast framework should be pretty much self-explanatory for BE teachers.

Can’t wait to try this with some clients.

Hat tip to soulsoup.

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