Using concept maps to facilitate learning

Mindmeister case study four.

These case studies look at the ways in which concept maps can be used to facilitate learning. Mindmeister (http://www.mindmeister.com/) can be used collaboratively, both at school and at home, to support and extend work in the curriculum. The key affordances brought by the use of concept mapping programs in the classroom are learner involvement, collaboration and an awareness of audience.

These sources can then be integrated and shared between the other contributors to the maps.

Collaboration (possibly with some on-line shopping thrown in as well):

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Dai Barnes is Head of Academic and In-Curriculum ICT at St Benedict’s School, Ealing. He qualified as a teacher in 1995 and spent eighteen months as a supply teacher in a broad range of London schools. Hestarted work as a full-time ICT teacher at a secondary school where he was quickly promoted to Head of Department. Since then he has worked in schools with various ICT responsibilities, but using technology in his classroom only became brilliant after attending a MirandaMod where he started to develop his Personal Learning Network on Twitter and began participating in the EdTechRoundUp weekly podcasts. More information cxan be found on his Google profile.

You can follow Dai, the teacher who ran these lessons, on Twitter: @daibarnes, or his blog.

The Video Team

Theo Kuechel and Leon Cych produced these video interviews.

Theo Kuechel is involved in Technologies for Learning, Archives – Collections, Open Educational Resources, Music and other social activities. You can follow Theo on Twitter: @theokk, or on his blog.

Leon Cych is a web designer, coder, teacher, poet, artist, broadcaster, journalist and educationalist. He set up the nationwide poetry magazine – Poetry London Newsletter in the seventies. You can follow Leon on Twitter: @eyebeams, or his blog Learn4Life.

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