IAfter our class last night, wherein we presented our digital mind maps on the SITE model via sites like Coggle and Bubbl.us, I was very impressed with what I saw my colleagues create. Although I acknowledged the fact that I was a tad intimidated by the tools, and therefore didn't master the assignment, I felt inspired to not just "lean into" incorporating technology in my classroom, but rather to dive right in, and soon. So I did! As a pre-writing strategy for my students' So What? posters for the novel The House on Mango Street, I decided at 6:30 a.m. that today they would work collaboratively on their own digital mind maps. After introducing the overall poster assignment requirements, I asked students what they knew about mind maps. To my surprise, not one of my 98 students knew how to define it. However, when I asked them to define brainstorm, most knew, so I began using the terms interchangeably to get them to associate the two. Next, I told them that I, too, was a student who had recently been tasked with creating this product and then displayed my sample. There were whispers among the students about how "cool" it looked, so then I decided to show them a few more models that my classmates had done (I hope I didn't violate any law or code in so doing!), and students noted the similarities and differences they saw.They realized that all of the samples contained the same SITE components, yet the style, form, and even amount of information varied from sample to sample. From there, student pairs selected from the following sites: Inspiration, Coggle, Bubbl.us, and Mindomo. They created text boxes for the following concepts in the novel in preparation for completing their collaborative posters: conflict, theme, character traits,and figurative language. In all honesty, I feel incredibly proud of myself for recognizing an opportunity to insert technology and jumping right in. I thought outside the box! I felt invigorated by doing something differently. Even one of my 1st period students, whom I have in 7th period READ 180 commented, "Mrs. De La Cruz, you were happy this morning!" And I was!
3 Comments
Marie Zorn
3/24/2016 04:41:39 pm
I love this post because you took another take on what I think thinking outside of the box is! Taking risks is thinking outside of the box and I think you did a really good job at it. You had played around with the program first, you had sample mind maps and you let yourself be vulnerable to your students and what a great outcome! I really love that you showed them different mind maps and had them inquire into how they were different and similar. I think this is a great thing to show students because a lot of time they believe everybody's presentation has to be the same to get an A. I bet it was fun too to hear their feedback on your presentation, which it sounds like they loved :).
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Kim
3/26/2016 05:41:51 pm
Good Job! I love those moments when we are able to step outside the box and realize that it is not as scary as we initially thought. I am slowly starting to work my way out the box but the fear is there.
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Kris
3/27/2016 06:56:53 am
I'm a bit envious of the junior and senior high teachers. Many things that we do in this class I can do on a teacher level but passing it down to my 2nd grade students is not always appropriate to their maturity and intellectual level. For you to be able to bring these tools to your students and have it open a new technology world is great.
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Kirstin
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