Concept Map Essay

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Concept Map Essay When I taught high school English in the late 90’s I used the computer lab for one main unit; the research paper. At that point, computers were simply glorified Encyclopedias. After reentering schools and immersing myself into both a local middle and elementary school, I am not sure that 13 years later they are most commonly used for much more than that. I believe that mapping tools such as Inspiration/Webspiration could occasionally be used in my classroom but worry that I would spend way too much time teaching the students how to use a program such as this, that it would end up taking away from the lessons. After spending at least five-six hours on my concept map I think I could have done just as good a job with two pieces of paper and a pencil in a quarter of the time. This is coming from someone with over 35 years of computer experience. Yes, this view may seem extremely pessimistic but the TeachThought staff agrees in their recent article when they state, “The unfortunate reality here is that in lieu of significant progress in how technology is used in the learning process, significant work remains to do a better job understanding how these tools can function to increase depth of knowledge, learning curiosity, and critical thinking skills.” (TeachThought Staff, 2013). I feel that there is still so much work that needs to be done to figure out exactly how to put into practice such programs to make it worth the time to have my students use it. There are some really fantastic ideas in the 50 Uses for Inspiration and Kidspiration article (http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/50uses.cfm) and I could potentially see using Inspiration in my high school English class in a number of ways. I already use flowcharts and brainstorming thought clouds with every essay I assign and could see using Inspiration for such Concept Map Essay

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