Why use Cmaps and not Inspiration or PowerPoint? Because Cmaps allows multiple students to work on a Cmaps all at a time in real time. I can have a group of four students all working on the same one, and each student can see in real time where the other is moving a word or what they are typing in.There are some troubles with this however. It is (apparently) a bit more difficult for students to grasp. First, it takes some experience just to get to the Cmaps for my class, making it difficult for the non-computer-savvy students to get started. Second, students tend to rush through things instead of reading the instructions carefully, making them miss significant details and require teacher troubleshooting.
I believe once we get used to it as a class, the students will actually get behind it, especially when we can actually link each word wall to every other one, and create a course-long hyperlinked Cmap that organizes all of the vocabulary and essential questions for the entire course. Either way, it sure beats using a wall and just throwing them up there.
That is an awesome idea! I never tried Cmaps, but in my class I use Bubbl.us to help with a student that has extensive accessability handicaps. They use an computer speech and communication aide. It has worked well for her when we do our vocabulary wall organizers and general graphic organizing. The only thing is that the free version only lets you create three mindmaps at a time. another site is wall wisher. Both are good for real time collaboration. Just food for thought. I'm excited to hear more about how the 1-1 works in the high school.
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