Collaborative Concept Mapping Models

3rd CMC Tallinn - HelsinkiWorld Wide Maps: Antonietta Lombardi &Alfredo Tifi (presenter)

Why and how should distant students share learning experiences

Preparing the collaborationGeneral planningItaly-Panama ex.

Why should groups of students collaborate with groups of other countries?1. In the Age of Internet such an idea can't remain a possibility2. Students and their teachers often form closed learning

communities. Opening and sharing the learning and communication experience, they are given an opportunity to recognize, criticize and relativize some acquired social roles, self-evaluation criteria, and stimulate dynamic changes.

3. In the open class students have more chances to determine contents and focus of the subject to study/collaborate for themselves and to share different conceptions/experiences.

4. There are more opportunities to acquire and regulate social and collaborative skills and establish positive interpersonal relations

5. Opportunity to know each other culture, tradition, beliefs and life style, and to establish an intercultural dialogue

6. Language skills can be improved.

Why should be favoured shared C-maps as platforms for collaboration?1. Normal, "naked" C-maps permit dynamic integration of

knowledge by eliciting and ranking key relationships. Beyond the individual task, this dynamic integration and organization could be also necessary for collective knowledge to grow up in working groups.

2. Structure of C-map permits simplification and synthesis of knowledge domains. The resulting language can be easily mastered also by students unskilled in language 2.

3. For the same reason the engagement of teachers of any subject, from Maths to History and Music, is favoured.

4. Concept maps can be easily constructed or translated into two or three languages.

5. CmapTools furnish a plenty of Collaborative Tools for negotiating meanings, peer reviewing, leaving feedbacks, sharing knowledge soups and resources.

Which conditions for sustainable distance C-map-collaborations?1. Positive governance, as presence of feedbacks, support,

agreement, shared awareness of objectives and meanings of the activity and responsiveness to the needs (human resources, organizational flexibility), from the educative entourage, self-government of educative strategies. 

2. Motivation of children/students.3. Availability to carry on long term projects, necessary for

accurate planning, training, finding agreement and confidence between partners and, above all, setting up and refining in time.

4. Availability of reference models of collaboration and/or active projects to join.

5. Availability of technologic resources.

How to design collaborative activities to foster social interaction and motivation

A. Before of instructional path1. Introduce each other, octopus_map_ex1 ex2 ex3 ex4 2. Videoconferences, Chat lines3. Exchange of gifts, objects, artifacts4. Involve students in the choice of topics or sub-topics5. Involve students in the formation of sub-teams 6. Interactive training on the tools and on C-maps

B. Resources and Tools1. Provide multilingual sources of information– Implement the use of Collaborative Tools

How to foster ... social interaction and motivation (continued)C. Instructional path Design

1. Plan timing, criteria and a notice board to alternate, edit and notify the contributions of the team members

– Implement peer reviewing (ex. 1A 1B )– Quantitative monitoring of "Activity Rate "– Clear definition of the general objective to assign/choice to

every sub-team, and progressive focusing and tuning of the really feasible result.

– Teacher in each local-team should assure control of group processing, activating periodic collective reflections on the work of students and their interactions, and sharing these evaluations with the other partner(s).

Five models to carry out shared C-maps or Knowledge  Models. 

1. Alternated Contributions On a Single Shared C-map This "perfect model" was our "first love"... and we called "Living C-maps" the dynamical objects that were expected to grow up more and more.It is more feasible if each partner develops different parts of the same C-map (example)2. Comparison of C-maps constructed on similar topicsMotivation is based on curiosity. Children learn from peers instead of textbooks.Strength: simplicity, freedom of timing; weakness: little reciprocal interdependenceExample: Football in Italy vs Football in Egypt orPanama's channel vs Italian rivers

Five models to carry out shared C-maps or Knowledge  Models ... (continued)

3. Mixed Independent-Alternated Concept Mapping Partners initiate to construct individual C-maps and then, first to become more complete, these C-maps are examined and reviewed by peers. (ex. physics2 )

4. Sharing of Concepts - independent Cmaps - Peer Rev.4.1 Search of key concepts from different sources  4.2 collaborative editing of the gathered concept lists 4.3 apply model 3 to the same concept list and with the same focus question. (individual , reviewed )

5. Collaborative reading of book + Knowledge Soup sharing5.1 Analyze text; 5.2 Gather Knowledge Clusters and 5.3 transfer them in K. Soups. 5.4 Share Cmaps from KSs.

Collaborative reading of book + Knowledge Soup sharing (details)

Experienced model1. Different sub-teams read different portions of the chapter and highlighted relevant statements .2. Propositions were clustered as “mini-maps”. These “mini-maps” were collected in “gathering page ” resources by means of CmapTools.3a. Gathering pages of each member and of each portion of the chapter were associated to the same shared Knowledge Soup (a very huge one!)3b. In some instances the fragments of the Cmap were edited and connected becoming a complete Cmap on the sub-topic.4. C-maps of the whole chapter , with a general focus question, were collaboratively constructed by all the team members, picking out and fitting knowledge claims from the soup. Students followed a rule compelling them to put down a maximum of four propositions in each editing session of the shared Cmap. They also added further claims to the soup.

Reviewed model1. The  units of reading, from the book, should be narrowed to single specific contexts, each of them containing no more than 30 - 40 concepts, prior of being faced collaboratively;2. the analytical reading of each unit should be accompanied by individual concept mapping of all members, supported by direct publication of knowledge claims in a single shared knowledge soup for that unit;3. the whole team should deal with one of such units a time, progressing from each unit to the next, until the complete chapter would have been read and transformed in customized individual concept maps. 4. a skeleton C-map could be prepared to hyperlink- browse the knowledge model about the book, and, at the same time, it could be developed from top – down to give a deeper vision of the chapter as an ensemble.

Weakness points (to be fixed): excessive complexity, difficulty to create a global vision of the whole chapter and to assemble a single Cmap for it.Strength points: high levels of interdependence, analytical deepening of the content