Concept Mapping

[Cyndi Danner-Kuhn]

Teachers from the Trenches
What software do you use for Concept Mapping and what benefits do you see. If you don't use one of the Inspiration products, what do you use and why. What are your recommendations and thoughts about Concept Mapping?

TECS 290 Students:
Now that you have explored the Inspiration software and ready what the Teachers form the Trenches have to say, how do you see yourself using Concept Mapping in your classroom someday.

[Vicki Schmidt]

We have been using Inspiration in our school district for the last couple of years. Oddly, our grade school students have access to it in their labs, but our high school students do not have it yet on their laptops. I hope this is a change that will be made this year as it really is an unbeatable tool for organization in any type of project. As kids become more and more visual stimulated, this type of concept-mapping software really helps them to organize and construct their own thoughts in a way that is easy for them, and others to understand at a glance. With the school days fragmented and projects extending over time--it sure beats the heck out of traditional methods. (In fact--when I first saw it I had flash backs to my early days learning computer programming and the dratted flow charts we were constantly creating!) This is a great tool for grade school and high school students alike. I hope to see more widespread use of it in our district this year!

[AbbyMaska]

I have used Inspiration in the classroom before. The tutorial was a good refresher and after watching I wish I would have used it more often. I believe I will try to use concept mapping more this next year. Inspiration is a very impressive program from the standpoint of visual effects. It is also pretty user friendly after the brief tutorial. In my experience students really got into their concept maps and tried to add as much detail and features to their map as possible. It was great to see students getting excited about something educational that they were creating. Furthermore, its great for a Social Studies classroom (and many more). Its important for students to sometimes SEE how things connect so they can have a real understanding. Plus it seems as though students are quite visual and like to be hands on with the material they are learning. Online concept mapping satisfies both of these things.

Also thank you to the Teachers from the Trenches who shared what they have been doing with concept mapping and the free programs they use! Your expertise is much appreciated.

[Alice Mercer]

Okay, I feel like an idiot! DEN (Discovery Educators Network) had a webinair today on using Inspiration which focused a lot on embedding unitedstreaming videos in Inspiration and using it with Kidspiration (you can't embed video in Kidspiration). I know I told you all about these trainings, but I should have thought to point out there was one on Inspiration.

Here is her web site, with materials from the training: http://web.mac.com/jennifergingerich/iWeb/jennifergingerich/Blog/Bl...

[Melissa Beyer]

I could see Inspiration being a great tool and asset to any classroom. I liked it becuase it was easy to work in. The tutorial was easy to follow and just after playing around I felt more comfortable using it. I looked at all the pictures you can use and linking websites. I can already so a ton of uses with the Math symbols when working with geometry and shapes. However, I am going to look at bubbl.us becuase it looks like many of teachers from the trenches are using this. Does anyone know what Inspiration costs? Also, do the school districts pay for this software or are you responsible for paying for it. I like the idea of free but I am glad to hear that many of the school districts are using it. I think that this is great becuase students use so much visualization when they learn. Concept mapping is a great way for students to learn and visualize concepts.

[Alice Mercer]

It's pretty cheap ~$70 for a single license - http://www.inspiration.com/store/main/index.cfm?fuseaction=insp.single

[Deidra Chestnut]

I was amazed by the quality of visual effects Kidspiration offered. I was not at all familiar with Concept Mapping before today and found it interesting. I could see myself using Concept Mapping in my classroom someday because I truly am a visual learner. For me, things are SO much easier to understand if I can see a picture. The different examples given in Kidspiration seemed endless. I could see Concept Mapping helpful in subjects ranging from social studies to math to science and everything in between!

[Kayla Krinhop]

I chose to download and explore Kidspiration and I absolutely loved it! What a great learning tool! I really liked that the tutorial was easy to follow and understand and yet once I started playing around with Kidspiration it just seemed to get easier. I have not heard of concept mapping before this assignment, so it was great to explore and learn more about it. I cannot even begin to give all the ways that concept mapping could be used in the classroom. To me concept mapping is great for any classroom, because a wide variety of children are visual learners. Although there are so many ways to use Kidspiration in the classroom I think it would be the most useful in a math or science class!

[Laura Anania]

Inspiration looks like it would work great in a science and social studies setting because it would be useful in mapping out time spans and different groups of animals. Kidspiration looks very fun with all those cute pictures and bright colors, I am sure the kiddies would be having a blast. I had never heard of concept mapping much but it is great they are easy to set up. I took a gander at Bubbl.us and think it could be very versatile in the classroom.

[Mike Diggs]

Kidspiration and Inspiration are really popular at my school district. Kids really seam to like the control they have within the program. Kids get really involved and seem to really benefit from the program. The school district I work for pays for the programs for teachers to use in the classroom. My opinion comes from a different perspective than most of the other students in this class. I’ve heard of a lot of this software but never dabbled deep into the programs. It’s refreshing to learn and know first hand what teachers are using in the school district. I know when teacher’s software such as Kidspiration or Inspiration isn’t working correctly because they seem to really depend on the software for a lot of lesson plans.

[Cory Triplett]

I used Inspiration. I really like the visual characters that you can place in projects, I feel this will allow my students to remeber more of what they are talking about. I also like the fact that you can change the diagrams into outline with a single touch. I know that I am always using things like character webs to relate ideas that I have for art projects and I would encourage my students to do so as well. I also found a handy lesson plan feature and goal planning feature that I intend on using quite often.

[Lyndi Wolf]

This is the first time I have been introduced to concept mapping. I really enjoyed learnging about all the different things inspirarion offers. Their visual effects are great and will really help the students who learn by seeing things and not just reading or listening about them. I feel that this will be a great tool that I can use in my classroom and I hope my students will benefit from it.

Thank you to everyone for sharing different websites for concept mapping. I will continue to research the sites as I have time.

[Paul Carver]

We've used concept mapping quite a bit in our internships in the on campus internships. I've been able to see some of its use in my mentor teacher's classrooms. As we know, students have many different types of intelligences, one of these is visual. Concept mapping is a great way for those visual student to learn. To answer the question, the usefulness for concept mapping in the classroom is almost limitless. I think all content areas and subjects have the potential to be supported with concept maps.