I’ve been reading up on concept / mind mapping in the classroom and at the same time I’ve been experimenting with mapping myself.

Again, it’s one of the technologies that I’m really excited about. (I know it’s nothing new - I was doing ‘brainstorming’ on paper with students in the 90s - but I think the multimodality and potential for collaboration online afforded with new tools is)

I’ve looked at a range of web based mapping tools and found that (unfortunately despite my hopes) they didn’t always offer the flexibility I wanted - I wanted something that would offer unstructured semiotic (using symbols, colours, images) mapping (see Jewitt, Kress, Van Leeuwen) for formative assessment at the beginning of a topic to see HOW the children already understood a concept (note: not WHAT) and what prior knowledge and experiences or observations about the world they brought to the classroom.
However, I also wanted the tool to offer a more structured mapping layout for teaching purposes - hierarchical, relational with nodes linked (see Novak and Canas on structured concept maps).

I think Mind42 is great and Wisemapping has potential but on the downside they only seem to offer ‘mind mapping’ (Buzan style).
Offline, I really like Logotron’s ‘Thinking with Pictures’ as it seems to offer that flexibility - you can create either concept maps or mind maps and you can use images, sounds, hyperlinks.

How would I use it in the classroom?

I’d use it where appropriate for formative assessment, summative assessment, investigating and encouragng ‘What If?’ thinking and discussion and as a teaching tool.

Here’s an example:

KS2 Science Unit 3C
Characteristics of Materials

1.(Formative Assessment) Pupils to create a map (structure is their own choice) using images, sounds, words to show what they already understand around the topic ‘Materials around the Home’ Could provide pupils with cameras to take images to use in map.

2. (Teaching / Modelling Investigation and ‘Possibility Thinking’) Teacher uses a map to model how it can be used for investigative purposes - ‘What would be the best materials for keeping food cool on a picnic?’ Demonstrate interlinking nodes.

3. (Learning / Summative Assessment) In groups children investigate a range of materials / questions such as ‘What would be the best materials for my tea cosy?’ ‘What would be the best materials for a bridge?’. Use mapping to plan/ask questions/generate ‘what Ifs?’ and document findings.

4. (Summative assessment) Return to original map and add to it / change links / change layout to mirror new understanding. Could even construct a class knowledge map from individuals maps.

Materials Around the Home - Example of Formative Assessment using Mapping (Note use of different colours of text to denote cold, hard, hot, metal. I would have preferred to use no text at all but the software I used didn’t permit it)

Example of Teacher / Modelling Investigative Planning Map (Needs some work)

Making a broad generalisation (!) many people of my generation and older find mapping an odd concept and something awkward and counter intuitive (I know I did). I think this reflects the heavily language based / hierarchical nature of teaching and learning that we experienced. For example, I was taught how to note take only in sixth form and even then it was mostly long hand and sentence based. I can’t remember being taught how to represent my thinking on paper any other way.

Since discovering mapping it has really opened up new possibilities to me - I think things through in map form (you’ll see one such example attached) and plan in map form - for me it seems to assist the lateral, creative right brained way of thinking.

Here’s an example of how it has assisted me in thinking about mapping and noting my research.