Concept Mapping Software
Concept mapping software allows users to create a visual representation of the relatedness of ideas or topics. Some, such as Inspiration and Kidspiration, are relatively simple in that they allow students to create links to ideas as well as customize the shape and color of the actual "bubbles" in which the topics are placed. Others are more complex, allowing the author to not only "link" the topics, but add a relationship statement, called a proposition, to the linking arrow itself.
Although reading Regina and Jeff Royer's article , "What a Concept: Using Concept Mapping on Handheld Computers" gave me ideas about how to use handhelds with concept mapping, my own use of concept mapping for my Technology Integration class has proven to be far more informative. By experiencing this technology on my own, I was able to see what skills the learner must use to effectively communicate the relationships between ideas. First, the learner actually has to have learned (or read) about all of the topics. In addition, the learner must be able to find a relationship between the topics. Finally, the learner might have to categorize or organize subtopics hierarchically in order to most clearly communicate their relationships. That is a lot of analysis! Even after all that, students can still learn from each other's maps.
I can already see how concept mapping software can change my classroom.
Special Education Modifications
I have often been confused by the modification for graphic organizers that is included in many of my students' Individual Education Plans. This is compounded by the many special education teachers' different perceptions of that modification. I've always viewed it as providing graphic organizers so that students could see the interrelationship of ideas in a content area. In that case, I see concept mapping software as extremely valuable.
I am not saying that all students can do this, but many of these students who have passed through my classroom, would have been perfectly able to construct their own graphic organizers and that would have been much more valuable to them than the one I handed out and often found lying in the floor at the end of the day. The actual creation of the map requires the metacognitive strategies that students sometimes lack. There is a self- questioning that goes on during the creation of the map that makes it clear what a student understands and does not understand. Often, I ask a student what they don't understand and they don't know. This is a very concrete way of seeing what relationships or connections a student has not made- a very clear way of seeing what they do not yet understand. Special education students, in particular, need to develop an awareness of their own comprehension and I believe that concept mapping provides one way of helping them.
Prewriting
It is amazing how ineffective webs and maps can be when a child is planning a writing assignment. There are the children that write three bubbles and a single word in each and there are children who will write their whole paper inside a single bubble or two.
Concept mapping software (with the ability to create relationships) would not solve those problems. What it would do, though, is provide a place for everything. For example, in Inspiration, there is no place for proposition statements, therefore it seems very natural to write everything inside one bubble.
Using a different kind of software to create the relationships would allow me to have the students use the bubbles for keywords and use the proposition statements to link the keywords. Features like "knowledge soup," where students propositions and topics are combined into a statement, would be great because then, I could work on the use of simple transition statements to link the propositions together. This would help me to teach students how to organize their ideas effectively before writing and models to them how these relationships form their supporting details.
Posted at 10:24PM Jun 07, 2006 by svfelder in General | Comments[0]