(It was too wide for the blog)
Uses
in the classroom
Mind maps are an
excellent process to help students organize ideas, form larger projects and can
even be used as a form of formative assessment for a large culminating project.
However, in this case I think there is considerable benefit to having the mind
map BECOME the project. Products like Gliffy offer us a great way to create
graphical, and great looking mind maps that can be used to basically explain
any topic you can think of. For this assignment and history in particular these
types of assignments can be used to show symbolic links between complex ideas
and events. This becomes particularly useful when examining long drawn out
events that can last for several years and often have many important
components. In this fashion, the teacher can easily assess exactly where the
students are and the correctness of their conceptual understanding of the
concept. Take for instance a mind map about World War 2, if a student
mistakenly creates a picture or block in the mind map for the Battle of Vimy
Ridge, I can assess in seconds that they’re confusing World War 1 and World War
2.
Issues
to Consider
One of the first
issues to consider is that this content is not easily accessible. Yes, you can
embed it into a web page and export it or show it on a projector, but it’s not
the prettiest export in the world. When working through this project I found
the software itself very easy to use, however I was craving more interaction. I
wanted to embed a YouTube video or post the audio of the Gettysburg address
into my Gliffy, and then create an interactive Gliffy my students could click
through more easily. I think interaction is the key with any type of
technology-enabled learning, the more you have the better. Gliffy is off to a
great start, but for me it needs more.
Secondly, when
completing my project I found it much easier to draw the mind map out on paper
before trying to construct it with pictures. I found myself easily overwhelmed
when trying to find good images, pay attention to the direction of the arrows,
and analyze historical facts. It might be a good idea, particularly with
students that have learning disabilities, to have a “facts sheet” handy or a
rough outline of the big picture ideas for the mind map before the Gliffy
software even starts.
Copyright
· Giffy is the flagship product of the
Gliffy corporation. All rights reserved.
· Images pertaining to the US Government and
some public record historical pictures were downloaded from the US Government Public
Photo Library.
· All pictures were located using the “Reuse
with Modifications” search feature in Google Image Search.
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