The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) gives their Cmap Tools to schools for no cost, so announced eSchool News.
Cmapping stands for concept mapping, a way to display mainly nouns in a topographical array around a core idea. In some ways, it offers a visual way to go beyond sentence and paragraph diagramming.
Scientists and educators use it show relationships among ideas, facts, and speculations to develop propositions about a core idea. Proponents use Cmap tools such as The Giant to support collaboration among students in schools to develop these propositions.
Cmapping seems a natural for use with a Tablet PC.
I’ve participated with teachers in developing displays manually. It’s awkward at best for someone who uses straight line thinking. I still wonder how teachers convert a nominal level visual display to higher order thinking without injecting unidentified and untestable value judgments. Maybe these judgments indicate a limit to visual concept mapping?
Support for pen gestures would be nice….Great product for the price — especially for schools!
I hope the link provides you with a way to get in line for a copy through their free distribution announcement.