Donna's Blog

Using Handheld Computers to Organize Vocabulary

Description

Concept mapping allows students to relate new information to what they already know, develop a deeper understanding of the knowledge they already have, and see relationships between concepts. In order to do these things, students must link concepts to subconcepts, describe the relationship between them with propositions, and create cross links. The more a particular concept is understood by a student, the more subconcepts, links, and cross links will appear in that student's concept map. So, the more complex a student's concept map is, the deeper his or her understanding is, engaging students in more meaningful learning. Although there are several software applications that allow students to create concept maps on desktop computers, they can also now be created using handheld computers, with a software application called PiCoMap. Using handhelds for concept mapping have several advantages over using desktops, as noted below.

Key findings from readings

In the Royer article, several reasons students preferred handhelds over desktop computers are given. Students felt that handhelds were faster and easier to use. They also thought their maps created on handhelds were neater and more organized. Students were also more motivated to use the handhelds. From a teacher's perspective, the article mentioned that using handhelds made classroom management easier. The class did not have to travel to the computer lab, the teacher didn't have to know exactly when the students would be ready to start mapping days or weeks in advance in order to reserve the lab, and students who worked at different paces had plenty of time to complete their maps. One advantage to using desktop computers to create concept maps was found, which was that the maps completed on them tended to be more complex. One possible reason for this difference may have been that the entire map was visible on the screen of a desktop at once, whereas students had to scroll to see all the parts of their map on the handhelds. Jeff Royer, the teacher who used handhelds in the article, recommended that teachers use the PiCoMap software with handhelds when students' maps were going to be smaller, and desktop computers for larger, more complex maps.

Applications to teaching

We have a class set of Palm Pilots at my school, and I would like to try using them to have my students complete concept maps for sets of vocabulary words from various subjects. We have a heavy concentration of vocabulary in math, social studies, and science. By using the concept maps, students could see "the big picture" by illustrating the relationships between vocabulary concepts. It would be a lot more effective than simply having them write definitions on paper. We do concept maps on paper now, but I think that using the handhelds would greatly increase student motivation, especially for an area like vocabulary, which isn't the most exciting thing for a student to do! Once the concept maps grew big and complex enough, we could transfer to using desktop computers with our Thinking Map software to create maps.

Posted at 02:57PM Jun 10, 2006 by DEAL, DONNA in General  |  Comments[0]