Engaging Students with Concept Mapping Activities

First off, I have to admit I had to download the free trial of Kidspiration because I was completely lost and confused while reading the testimonies about how it actually worked. To me, one of the coolest things about this program is that with a push of a button it takes your document in Kidspiration and makes it into a word document. This is caught my attention mainly because most students would not have access to Kidspiration. By being able to transfer a document to word, you would be able to send it home to finish and they would not need this program.

One way that I, thought I could use this is my future classroom was in the math section. There are two shapes, a beige square and a beige circle, that I thought you could use as a “shape bank” and put an “x” amount of different shapes in the bank. The assignment would be to have the students use all of the shapes in the bank to make another shape and be able to identify features of this shape, such as how many sides it has or how many triangles are inside of it. Shapes are great teaching tools and Kidspiration adds elements such as rotation and “perfect” shapes. Students don’t have to worry about tracing shapes out to make them work perfectly or anything like that, it is just a matter of placing the shape on the canvas. You can still easily change it.

Another thing I found while exploring Kidspiration was that you can make cartoons. I know that I am artistically challenged and so to be able to make cartoons on the computer would have been a huge relief to me. They have graphics pre-made and you can attach writing boxes just below them. This also seems like a good idea because it would put more focus on the writing aspect of the project versus the drawing of it. However, it would still be fun because it was on the computer and its not as if you would not be able to alter the graphics, students would just have a base to start with.

One of the lesson plans that they have already made on Kidspiration is to put together the fifty states of the United States of America. This lesson alone is very cool, but also instead of giving a normal map quiz/test you could do something like that for anywhere. To make it easier you could have an outline of where they were supposed to go and just have them place it there with a name. Or for older grades it could be like the lesson plan that is already there and just have all of them jumbled together. I think it would helpful to at least do a smaller set of puzzle pieces because I was struggling with putting the fifty states together just because I did not really know where or how to start. To provide a starting point would be helpful.

As one of the testimonies says on their websites, these students want to learn with technology. If it is as simple as adding a computer and computer program to our lesson that will engage students and keep them interested then I feel that we as teachers should do our best to supply that as much as possible. Just with the limited time that I have explored Kidspiration I can see why kids would think its fun. It is. I enjoyed looking through and trying some of the tasks. For the most part, it seems like it really is just doing a worksheet but instead of using paper and pen it is on the computer. Kidspiration seems to take the boring out of the worksheet teaching style.

Two criteria that I would use to decide whether or not Concept Mapping activities would be a part of a lesson for my students would be whether they would be learning everything that they should be from this map and that it enhances their learning. I think in general concept maps would add something to the lesson. However, it is important that we don't rely on technology to do our job and if a Concept Map doesn't enhance the lesson then there may be better options. It is important to keep the students engaged and interested. It is also really important that there is enough information on the subject that you are making the concept map for. If it has only a few ideas there may be better ways to teach about that particular subject.