*+Online+Graphic+Organizers

=**//Online Graphic Organizers//**=

====Within the current classroom, teachers use many different graphic organizers in order to scaffold learning for many students including ESL students and students with learning disabilities. As we move into the future, many of these graphic organizers will be available online making them not only a scaffolding tool, but a collaboration tool as well. By creating and working with graphic organizers online students can not only share with others their thoughts and ideas, but they can have an ongoing document to help them organize thoughts and concepts. One such site that exists now is Bubbl.us, which is a site that lets a user create concept maps online on which you can organize concepts about a topic. Also the site allows a user to write in connector words showing how the concepts are related.====

====This is an example of a concept map about soil for part of a science class. It has all of the terms from one unit of study, and the next unit of study is connected so that the students can add onto the map once they start learning about the next unit. There could be even more detail added to the concept map depending on how much the student needs the topic to be scaffolded.====

====[|Text2MindMap] is a website in which a user can enter an outline in text and the site will create a mind map for them based on the outline they entered. For students who are not sure how to create a concept map, this is a good place to start the concept map process.====

====Another graphic organizer that has taken the Wikipedia model one step further is [|WikiMindMap]. The site allows the user/student to search a term then it comes up with a concept map with links to names and definitions that go along with the terms. It allows the user to find all the concepts they would potentially add into a concept map of their own.====

====The picture shows the concept map created when "dinosaur" is entered to search. All the terms in Wikipedia associated with dinosaurs are part of the concept map and when you hover your mouse over each link it gives the first few sentences of the article that goes with each topic. When you click on the branch, it takes the user to the article in Wikipedia that term is taken from.====