Engaging Students wtih Concept Mapping Activities

Concept mapping is not new. I remember using concepts maps when I was in elementaty school. What IS new is the way in which children can use and access them. The old way of paper and pencil works, but thanks to Kidspiration (http://www.inspiration.com/), a new and exciting website, students can record their ideas digitally. The website offers predesigned concept maps in which students essentially fill in the blanks. There are many ways that teachers can use this technology in the classroom. I will identify just at few of the ways that teachers can integrate this technology into their curriculm. I will also discuss how concept map acitivities will impact student learning, and how I can learn more about it to be able to integrate it into my future classroom.

Kidspiration offers many ways that tecahers can use concept mapping in their lessons. Some of the most innovative ideas that I found included reading and writing, math, and science lessons. For a reading and writing unit, a teacher could use a concept map to have their students characterize characters in a current literary work that the class is studying. (Charlotte's Web is used as an example on the website.) In science, students can use the maps to illustrate the relationship and properties of different substances, like water, ice, and vapor, for example. In math students can use concept maps to show the connections between numbers, as well as utilize the online manipulatives to help them understand a concept.

Concept Mapping would impact student learning in a very positive way. Because it is a visual activity it would very beneficial for visual learners, but in reality all students could benefit from it's use. I especially think that the use of concept maps on the computer through Kidspiration would be extremely beneficial. It allows students to work on their own in an engaging way. The editing process would also be extremely easy to do through the computer instead of using pencil and paper.

In order to utilitize concept mapping via the internet in my classroom it is essential that I familiarize myself with these programs. I can do this by going online directly to the site, and registering for the software. Before I actually utilized it in a lesson plan, I would need to do a test run to make sure that it works in my specific classroom. I feel that this would be an extremely useful resource, and would not be a waste of time for my students or myself. What an exciting new way to help students learn!