The Case for Webtools In and Out of the Classroom

*Note: I thought I published this post last week, but I had only saved it as a draft. Oh, technology! Thus, this entry is in reaction to Jonassen's Chapter 5.

It is in this course that I first encountered the concept of "mindtools," and I am making an effort to really understand the difference between use of technology in the classroom and use of mindtools in the classroom. Jonassen makes it very clear that casual integration of technologies is vastly diverse from engaging students in ways to purposefully model with technologies. He emphasizes how students must be thinking while using technology rather than mindlessly doing so, and it is this active cognition piece that deepens student learning. When building models to represent their thinking, students problem solve, reason logically and critically and synthesize and apply their prior knowledge, making new connections as well.

I was most interested in how students can model their knowledge with concept maps. As a current teacher, I am hoping that this course provides me with ideas for practical application of technologies in the classroom. I thought that Jonassen makes a solid case for ways that the mindtool of concept maps can be used by students to model, organize and analyze their thinking about big concepts and problems. In my current school, I've seen educational technologists and classroom teachers partner together to introduce older elementary aged students to concept mapping with Kidspiration. I've noticed that it is a very effective tool that students can use to brainstorm collaboratively or individually when beginning a new project. They can flesh out their ideas and have a visual representation of their thinking, which especially benefits visual learners but also most students in general. I'd like to figure out how and when I could use Kidspiration in the primary grades, this year with my second graders. I'm thinking that it might be most relevant and useful when my students plan for and write nonfiction books later on in the year. However, I'm also thinking that I could model how to use concept mapping as a tool right now, while we brainstorm about poetry, our current unit. I can model on our Smartboard a concept map showing what students already know about poetry, adding new pieces to it as we learn more through upcoming minilessons. It would be great for my students to see how their conceptual understanding of poetry will grow and change throughout the unit.