Better learning will not come from finding better ways for the teacher to instruct but from giving the learner better opportunities to construct.
A graphic organizer is a visual communication tool that uses visual symbols to express ideas and concepts, to convey meaning. A graphic organizer often depicts the relationships between facts, terms, and or ideas within a learning task. It is often referred to as a "map" because it can help teachers and students "map out" their ideas in a visual manner. There are many similar names for graphic organizers including: knowledge maps, concept maps, story maps, cognitive organizers, advance organizers, or concept diagrams. Although many students plan with paper and pencil, technology tools can be very helpful because they allow easy editing.
Inspiration:
You can down load a 30 day demo of Inspiration and Kidspiration from the Inpspiration Web site. For tutorials go to the staff development area. There are also lesson plan ideas.
Webspiration
New free, for the moment, online version of Inspiration
Cacoo - Nice site for creating online charts and graphs with a built-in chat feature for collaboration
FreeMindA mind-mapping program that allows you to take a diagram and use it to represent words, ideas, tasks or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. It can be used to generate, visualize, structure and classify ideas, and as an aid in study, organization, problem solving, and decision making.
Exploratree
You can access a library of ready-made interactive thinking guides, print them, edit them or make your own. You can share them and work on them in groups too. A great tool that is simple to use and creates wonderful results.
Holt Interactive Graphic Organizers
Dozens of templates students can fill in online. HIGHLY recomended for all ages.
Gliffy
Similar interface for those who are familiar with Visio. Nice variety of text box shapes. You can share your concept maps with others online. Text boxes on links are not automatic, so you have to place a regular shape on a link. The premium version has a fee.
Dabble Board
Take the tour to see the possibilities. Web-based interactive drawing features. Good example of the interative potential of the Web.
Best4C
This graphic organizer has an excellent selection of graphics and linking options.
CMap
Free downloadable concept mapping program. More options than online graphic organizer tools. Even includes text boxes on links like Inspiration.
Creately
In addition to diagramming tools, it has to capacity for collaboration
TheBrain: Mind Mapping, Brainstorming
Its a powerful information visualization and organization software for free. Simply type in your ideas. Drag and drop files and web pages. Any idea can be linked to anything else. Using your digital Brain is like cruising through a Web of your thinking. See new relationships. Discover connections. Go from the big picture of everything to a specific detail.
Touchgraph
Visualize spreadsheets in a graphic organizer format. Upload a spreadsheet and this application will transform into a graphic organizer to help see interrelationships.
Bubbl.us
Easy-to-use, online graphic organizer that is shareable.
Slatebox
Visualize concept mapping
Mindomo
This is an online mind mapping application has the advantage that you don't need to use up your own hard drive space to store the software or the maps that you make, and you can edit your mindmaps from any machine. You do have the option to download them onto your own computer when you have finished or just leave them up online saved into your account. A drawback is that Mindomo does not have text boxes onlinks capabilities. However, you can use graphics which CMap cannnot.
Mindmeister
Create, manage, and share graphic organizers online and access them anytime from anywhere. In brainstorming mode you can simultaneously work on the same mindmap and see each other's changes as they happen. You can also use Skype to toss out new ideas and put them down at the same time.
Slick Plan - What's not to like? Easy to use, create beautiful flow charts, then embed to a site.
Diagrammr- Quite simply the easiest mind mapping site to use, no registration is necessary, then share the URL w/ others.
Imagination Cubed- Nice looking site that is ideal for the electronic whiteboards w/ the ability to draw your own mind maps.
Edistorm- Real-Time mind mapping w/ sticky notes.
ClassTools
Provides flash-based templates for the creation of graphic organizers, puzzles, and worksheets
ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool
The Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer for activities that ask students to pursue hypertextual thinking and writing.
Mayomi is a Flash-based toolset for creating simple visual diagrams, and provides an online community where visitors can share their mind maps. In the process of sharing them, users are also contributing to a growing web of word associations.
Circle Plot Diagram
The Circle Plot Diagram can be used as a prewriting graphic organizer for students writing original stories with a circular plot structure as well as a postreading organizer used to explore the text structures in a book.
Essay Map
The Essay Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to organize and outline their ideas for an informational, definitional, or descriptive essay.
Graphic Map
The Graphic Map assists teachers and students in reading and writing activities by charting the high and low points related to a particular item or group of items, such as events during a day or chapters in a book.
Literary Elements Map
Students can map out the key literary elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution as prewriting for their own fiction or as analysis of a text by another author in this secondary-level interactive.
Persuasion Map
The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.
Story Map
The Story Map interactive is designed to assist students in prewriting and postreading activities by focusing on the key elements of character, setting, conflict, and resolution.
Innovative Teaching Newsletter is a vast resource for graphic organizers
EdHelper K-6 resources
North Central Regional Education Laboratory K-6
K-8 graphic organizers
Graphic organizers in Word make it simple to use without a special program.
Notestar
NoteStar is an Internet utility to assist in the preparation of research papers. Teachers and students can set up research projects with topics and sub-topics. Students may then take advantage of NoteStar's many features to collect and organize their notes and prepare their bibliography page.
Quicklyst is a nice tool for taking notes and creating outlines. Quicklyst provides a simple outline template that you can use to take notes. There are two features of Quicklyst that really stand out. First, you can do basic web searches within the framework of taking notes. To do a search just type a question mark (?) before a word then press enter. Quicklyst will then fill-in that line with some basic information about that word. For example, when I typed ?egypt that line on my outline was filled with some basic information about Egypt. The other useful feature offered by Quicklyst is the option to search within your notes. If you've created a lot of outlines in your Quicklyst account you can use the search function to quickly locate your notes about a particular topic.
School 2.0 An interesting brainstorming tool designed for schools and communities to help envision the future of education. The tool is a diagram showing various possible scenarios or visions of the future with example student, teacher, and parent conversations, class room activities and technologies, and more.
aMap
Allows people to communicate various sides of an idea. The underlying structuring of aMaps is based around "informal logic" - this is the logic people use to argue in everyday life. This can be applied to the classroom by using their site to create student debates on various topics.
Answer Garden
A minimalistic feedback tool. Teachers and students can use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on their classroom blog or personal website as a poll or guestbook. It is an easy way to brainstorm with a class all at the same time and creates interesting word clouds from these brainstorming sessions.
SCAN
Collaborative tool featured on the website, www.yourtake.org. The website offers scenarios based on current topics and historical innovative learning to get students reflecting, collaborating and writing on real issues that affect their lives. Yourtake uses a motivating discussion format to help students implement a stepby-
step process that will help them appreciatemultiple perspectives while they “discuss” issues online in a safe classroom-based community. This tool
actually teaches kids the "art" of collaboration using a simple 4 step process. Get kids talking, thinking, readingand writing on authentic current or historical issues.
Visual Ranking Tool: anaylzing and evaluating information
"The exercise of ordering your favorites...ranking one a level higher than another, and then articulating why you chose the way you did-requires a depth and clarity of consideration and comparison that inspires richer appreciation and enjoyment."
Michael Gelb, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci
Free Visual Ranking Tool from Intel
Seeing Reason: mindful mapping of cause and effect
"Any collection of related facts is difficult to grasp when expressed by figures in tabular form, but the same may be seen at a glance when presented by one of the many graphic representations of those ideas." Gardner C. Anthony, An Introduction to the Graphic Language
The Seeing Reason Tool promotes cause-and-effect thinking through visual mapping. Students create visual representations of the factors and relationships in a cause-and-effect investigation. These maps make thinking visible and promote collaboration as students work together to refine their understanding
Showing Evidence: analyzing and evaluating information
"When learners use mindtools to process information they are able to engage in crtical thinking to help them the uncover lynchpin ideas"
David H. Jonassen, Computers as Midntools for Schools
The Showing Evidence Tool helps students learn how to construct well-reasoned
arguments and prove their case with credible evidence. Showing Evidence gives students a visual framework for constructing an argument or hypothesis that is
supported by evidence.
Doris
Organize, prioritize and group tasks.
Primary Resource Learning Tools
The Primary Source Learning portal does more than locate primary resources, it provides tools for investigating them for primary and secondary students. Tools include zooming into historical maps and an interactive simulation to help students investigate historical pictures like historians. Click on the Students' Tab to access the tools.
Google Education Tools
Overview and access to Google's education applications. These range from spreadsheets, wordprocessing to 3D architectural drawing, SketchIt is impressive.
Google Education Home Page
Newspaper Clipping Generator
The Newspaper Generator helps students summarize articles. Students take an article or a blog post and make decisions as to what to include, what to delete, and what to substitue in order to summarize.
Create a Graph
The Create a Graph application provides 5 types of graphs to communicate information visually.
Primary Source Learning
The primary source portal has mapping investigation tools for primary and secondary students. You can analyze historical maps and interactivve guides to the the types of maps. Click on the Student sections to locate the tools.
Questioning Toolkit
Jamie McKenzie's questioning toolkit provides a hyperlinked guide to asking a dozen or more categories of questions ranging from
The Biography Maker
The Biography Maker uses questioning to the approach to researching and writing a biogaphical report
Bio-Cube is a useful summarizing tool that helps students identify and list key elements about a person whose biography or autobiography they have just read. It can also be used as a prewriting activity for student autobiographies.
The Great Question Press
The Question Function provides an interactive question generator for developing various thinking skills.
