Blog Entry #5: Digital Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are a great way to organize thinking and learning in the classroom.  Exploring the digital graphic organizers that were shared was fun.  It is so interesting to see how differently websites can be set up as well as how easy or difficult they can be.  For my two graphic organizers that I submitted I used bubble.us and Wisemapping.  Both of them were interesting and I think you could use them for many things.  The bubble.us app seemed to be a bit easier for the type of graphic organizer that I was looking to create.  However, I discovered that Wisemapping would be a wonderful app to use if you were looking to create a family tree.  (This is actually something that I have been thinking of creating for my family.)  Overall, I actually found that the Google Draw was easier for me to manipulate and use.  Again, I think it all comes back to what type of graphic organizer you are looking to create.  A few years ago I was trained on Thinking Maps.  It was a wonderful professional development where I learned about many types of graphic organizers and when it is best to use each type.  I have included an image below that explains it.  Since I have left my previous school, where I was trained on Thinking Maps, I have fallen off the wagon a bit on using it.  Bringing it back to the surface now really has me feeling anxious to work with it again!  Their website allows you to create all of these maps, however you could also create them on your own as well.

Some challenges I see would be that my students are quite young.  In order to use digital graphic organizers students would need to be taught about how to complete an organizer plus the program they are using as well.  At such a young age this can be very challenging for some students.  Another challenge would be that I do not have 1 to 1 technology in my classroom, so students would not each be able to create their own.  However, I do love the idea of using and completing a digital graphic organizer as a whole class to expose them to it.

Source: https://www.thebalancebetween.com/videos/videos/167-tm-overview-video-112018.html


Comments

  1. Megan HartwigJuly 25, 2023 at 9:49 AM

    Hi Kristen, I agree that graphic organizers would be difficult for young students. A lot of them require some abstract thinking and wouldn't be developmentally appropriate for younger students. I think you could use the circle map though. Maybe you could put a letter/sound or word family in the middle, and students come up with words that start with that sound or rhyme with that word family to put around the outside. Thanks for sharing!

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