My Sandbox & Concept Mapping

Considering that I believe I am primarily a visual learner, it's not be surprising to me that I am drawn to concept mapping as a powerful learning tool. It was, though useful, somewhat impractical prior to the internet. That may have changed. What is it and where did it come from?
According to Joseph D. Novak in his article, co-authored by Alberto J. Canas , "The Theory Underling Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them", published by the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola Fl, 32502 (www.ihmc.us) in 2006 and revised in 2008;

"Concept maps were developed in 1972 in the course of Novak’s research program at Cornell where he sought to follow and understand changes in children’s knowledge of science (Novak & Musonda, 1991). During the course of this study the researchers interviewed many children, and they found it difficult to identify specific changes in the children’s understanding of science concepts by examination of interview transcripts. This program was based on the learning psychology of David Ausubel (1963; 1968; Ausubel et al., 1978). The fundamental idea in Ausubel’s cognitive psychology is that learning takes place by the assimilation of new concepts and propositions into existing concept and propositional frameworks held by the learner. This knowledge structure as held by a learner is also referred to as the individual’s cognitive structure. Out of the necessity to find a better way to represent children’s conceptual understanding emerged the idea of representing children’s knowledge in the form of a concept map. Thus was born a new tool not only for use in research, but also for many other uses."

I'll leave it to the reader to delve deeper into the article. It's a great read!

There seem to be three leading online concept mapping, aka "Mind Mapping" tools; Inspiration, Bubbl.us and Cmap tools. At the risk of oversimplification, Bubbl.us is basic in nature and is easily learned. Inspiration and it's little brother, Kidsperation, have more bells and whistles and are not free. CMap Tools are a high level serious tool with a somewhat steeper learning curve.

What, exactly are concept maps? Again, Novak says:

One of the powerful uses of concept maps is not only as a learning tool but also as an evaluation tool, thus encouraging students to use meaningful-mode learning patterns (Mintzes et al., 2000; Novak, 1990; Novak & Gowin, 1984). Concept maps are also effective in identifying both valid and invalid ideas held by students, and this will be discussed further in another section. They can be as effective as more time-consuming clinical interviews for identifying the relevant knowledge a learner possesses before or after instruction (Edwards & Fraser, 1983). People often confuse rote learning and meaningful learning with teaching approaches that can vary on a continuum from direct presentation of information (which may be conceptually obscure or conceptually explicit) to autonomous discovery approaches where the learner perceives the regularities and constructs her/his own concepts. Both direct presentation and discovery teaching methods can lead to highly rote or highly meaningful learning by the learner, depending on the disposition of the learner and the organization of the instructional materials. These distinctions are shown in Figure 3. There is the mistaken notion that “inquiry” studies will assure meaningful learning. The reality is that unless students possess at least a rudimentary conceptual understanding of the phenomenon they are investigating, the activity may lead to little or no gain in their relevant knowledge and may be little more than busy work. In fact, the research basis for support of widely recommended inquiry learning is largely absent (Mayer, 2004; Kirschner et al., 2006; Sweller et al., 2007).

I have worked with Bubbl.us and it is quite practical and refreshing simple; however my sandbox activities have moved on to CMaps Tools. If you would like to see more examples created and posted by Cmap, go here and drill down through the "child" cmaps. It's quite enlightening. Further examples, (some very basic and others complex) are as follows:

Our Solar System The Crow and the Pitcher Canada's Geography Speech Production Impingment Syndrome Political Participation & Elections Several Chess Openings Modal Verbs Catechism of the Catholic Church Centre for Teaching Excellence Weather (incredible!) A Book Review? Cmaps in Schools

Note that some use only linking mechanisms and others use the resource attachments and nested Cmaps. All of theses examples are located on IHMC servers and are public. They can be accessed at these servers on line.
If you have downloaded Cmaps Tools, you can collaborate with others with maps in construction. Further, you can build your own maps and when and if you wish, load them to these public sites. Is your curiosity piqued? Download from here.
View these Cmaps Tools on YouTube.
Enough for now. In future blog posts I'll share some of my sandbox efforts with Cmaps, scaffolding and it's theoretical constructs.

Funding & Financial Issues

Paul Lamping and his Funding & Financial Issues subcommittee recently posted a Powerpoint presentation on the wiki. The Action Items in the presentation have been posted on our wiki.
Paul has asked all committee members to contribute where they can, relative to the Action Items. This can be done with "comments" or in the "Notes" section of the Objective 8 page. Any expense items; tactical or strategic must ultimately find their way to Paul's report.

Response to Michael's Thoughts

I don't think your "verbiage" is at all out of line. I think it is the kind of provocative projective thinking that will cause all of us to examine the expectations we may have and posit in our '"recommendations" in this plan.

I certainly agree that a transformation in our thinking about education as it morphs into the future is in order. Laura has brought to our attention the more ubiquitous nature of cyber learning in the educational sphere; which, by the way, is not restricted to the buildings we call schools. We must embrace cyberlearning as part of our transformed curriculum at North. As Tom Friedman has pointed out, the walls, ceilings and floors of schools are going away. Any person, any where, at any time can now take any course in the M.I.T. course curriculum on line. Talk about your "flat earth". Daniel Pink, in his book, "A Whole New Mind, Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future", talks of the Agricultural Age (farmers), the Industrial Age (factory workers0, the Information Age (knowledge workers) and the Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers). He calls it High Concept, High Touch. He points out that graphic designers have increased ten fold in a decade and that they outnumber chemical engineers by four to one. He sees required aptitudes to be ingenuity, rapport and gut instinct. Are these aptitudes in any way fostered in to today's schools? He argues that we need to compliment our left brain directed reasoning by mastering six right brain directed aptitudes.

1. Not just function but also DESIGN
2. Not just argument but also STORY
3. Not just focus but also SYMPHONY
4. Not just logic but also EMPATHY
5. Not just seriousness but also PLAY
6. Not just accumulation but also MEANING

Note the article by Ian Jukes and Ted McCain, "Living on the Future Edge". It's a great read and further amplifies Michael's observations

I like your reference to team sports as a means of learning to be collaborative. Much of what is inherent in what we have been calling '21st century skills" fosters collaboration.

Fortes in Fide

Some Thoughts from Michael Spring

I think the verbiage below may be out of line, but at least it will provide fodder for discussion, and if deemed appropriate, some wording that may be used in this report. I had started to add it in as a thread, but found the amount of text was limited. Feel free to delete this or move it to a subpage. I don;t mean to suggest it at this point as a strategic oversight.

A strategic view of the importance of technology in education is almost an oxymoron. A strategic or long term view implies that we have some sense of the future trends and likely impact. Given the rate of change in technology, this is almost impossible. None-the-less, we begin by making several observations:

• Education has generally used a model of today's social needs as the model for education that inevitably prepares individuals for a future that is not yet here. For example, for most of the twentieth century, regimented school structures prepared individuals to work in highly structured hierarchical organizations -- corporations. Sociologists and economists have suggested a future that is much more chaotic and ad hoc. Many projections of the future suggest employment patterns will be more ephemeral -- more jobs for a shorter period of time, the rate of change will increase -- the best organizations will be characterized by their agility, learning will be life long -- new things will need to be learned on a regular basis, work teams will be global in scope and the us will not necessarily be at the center, etc. The question of how the overall educational experience prepares individuals for that future is complex and involves many things beside technology. As just one example, if individuals will need to integrate into new teams on a regular basis and be sensitive to working as a team member, team sports may become ever more important as a part of the preparatory educational experience.
• In terms of computing and information technology, we can note several patterns emerging. Ubiquitous computing will become a reality. That is, networks connectivity will be continuous and seamless. We will always be connected and our personal data will always be accessible to us from any computing device. We will use the vast information store available as an intimate memory supplement which will replace most of the traditional mechanisms, including memory. Our network presence will be a composite of many aspects of our personal preferences and requirements such that a software agent will undertake many of our more mundane tasks on our behalf. Our ever present assistant will know who we do and don;t want to take calls from, how we like to book our flights, what are preferences are for meals, etc. etc. etc. So, computing will be ubiquitous, personalized, location based and very very knowledgeable.
• Computing software will continue to become smarter and more and more of what has historically been considered human information work will be relegated to computer bound algorithmic processes. For example, some process re engineering efforts have found that 95% of commercial loans formerly handled by human agents could be handled by an algorithm. Similarly, while some student admissions decisions still require a committee, a high percentage can be handled by a program. This suggests that the optimal knowledge and skills for today's students will involve critical thinking and problem solving skills that cannot be relegated to a program.

• Computer will become commodity devices. It is already the case that most of the computing needs, with the exception of dynamic gaming, can be handled by computational devices with the $400-$500 range. Within the next five years, it is likely that dynamically networked devices -- components using ubiquitous wifi, bluetooth, and zigbee will make ad hoc connections that will give an individual the equivalent of today's wired desktop systems. More explicitly, one vision suggests that the iphone three generations in the future will have the ability to shift its display to the HDTV in the room, use a printer anywhere in the building, have good touch screen and voice recognition input tailored to a single individual. Thus, instead of buying all the components, my single phone, camera, watch, gps device will serve as the computational hub that will drive devices as needed. Everyone will carry as their cell phone a single device used for communication, storage, and processing more powerful than anything they have today, and it will likely cost less than $300.

Our July 23th Meeting

Our meeting scheduled for July 23th at 5:30 will be held at the Osborne Elementary School in the Quaker Valley S. D. Our guest speaker for the evening will be Dr. Joseph Morrone, Senior Director of Administrative Services. Joe came to Q.V. from his technology work in the Phoenixville S. D. in 1991 and has been primarily instrumental in raising Q. V's technology program to a world class level.

In 1991 he, on behalf of the district, entered and won the state wide competition to become a "Digital School" in Pa. The Quaker Valley School District was one of three districts selected by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to receive a two-year “Digital School District” grant beginning in 2001. Key technology provisions in Quaker Valley’s proposal were to supply laptop computers to every student in grades 3–12, to set up wireless networks in all district buildings and several community sites, and to provide wireless Internet connections in the homes of all students in grades 3–12. Joe consults nationwide, instructs at UCLA in the summer and is a founding member of the National Education Computing Conference (NECC). Joe has seen it all.

In 1993 the Rand Corporation conducted and published an 83 page study of the program. They gave praise in many areas and found fault in some. I am sure Joe will make reference to the report in his comments.

I have asked Joe to speak about the following:

• The efficacy of 1-1 computing
• Types of equipment; whiteboards, laptops. etc.
• Infrastructure in school & at home
• Architectural considerations in the planning
• Security
• Bumps in the road - The Rand Study
• Partnerships!!!
• Staff development
• Funding
• Return on investment
• Curriculum integration
• Technical support

Please make every effort to be present for this very important meeting.

Fortes in Fide

Web Technology & Our 50th Reunion

And now for something completely different. Three years ago I, and some of my classmates from North began organizing a 50th reunion celebration. None of us in 1956 in our wildest dreams had any conception of "the Web". The organizing committee never met face to face. All of our deliberations and plans were made using telephone conferencing. I found a site in Canada that provided on-line templates for reunion planning. The site was interactive in some respects. We developed the site and notified our classmates by email. We also used the web extensively to locate "lost" classmates. Using video tapes and stills from the four day event, we produced a DVD using iDVD, iTunes and iMovie. We also produced a CD of the top twenty five hits for 1956 and burned copies for everyone. We contracted the site for five years.

None of us had every heard of social networking or web 2.0, but here we were using early versions of what now are ubiquitous examples of the web as a work platform. Take a look at the site; you may have a reunion coming up.

Mission and Vision Statements

We are at a point where we begin to think seriously about our learning vision statement. The mission statement should be the current NCHS mission statement. Agree?

There is an overarching strategic vision for technology application which encompasses the learning vision, but which is more generally formulated for all aspects of technology in the school building. This, too must be addressed as we look at goals and develop ways to reverse engineer our way to their fruition.

I have posted in the Program Planning and Evaluation page of the wiki some thoughts to get us started. As mentioned there, the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) has published new lists of standards (2008) for teachers. Meantime please share your thoughts through the wiki or here at the blog.

Fortes in Fide