Pinball from BBC Scotland has six different tools for generating and organising ideas. It’s a bit tricky to see how they work at first – the introductory video certainly...

Popplet describes itself as “a platform for your ideas.” It has a very simple interface that pupils will soon get to grips with for capturing and organising ideas. These pupils need to be over thirteen though as stated in the terms of use. That’s the downside as it’s...

Exploratree is a free web resource for pupils to access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides. It’s possible to share these and work on them in groups too. Probably more suited to secondary age pupils. The Exploratree web resource was beendeveloped by Futurelab as part of...

An online graphical dictionary – visual and interactive. Great for exploring words, meanings and what connects the words. A word of warning, it’s a full dictionary that contains ‘adult’ words…

Here’s one simple technique for coming up with ideas. I’ve tried this myself and it works. Only three simple steps to follow: Step 1 – Important Words Try and think of the most important words related to your project … usually 2 to 4 words. Step 2 – Word Association Next, for...

Bubbl.us is an online tool for simple mind mapping and outline planning. It doesn’t follow the principles outlined by Tony Buzan’s or offer the functionality of software for download. But it’s a simple and useful way to start ideas and for pupils to share these. It’s a...

Here’s a great list of techniques to help develop and challenge thinking. As an example (and this is just a few from the list) you can find techniques such as: Absence Thinking: Think about what is not there. Art streaming: Keep creating until you get through the blocks. Assumption...