This morning in the AT&T Classroom the Riverview first graders continued their study of key features of nonfiction text and how such features can be used to guide the reader to navigate and comprehend the content. After a discussion of specific features, Mrs. Nichols introduced Popplet to the students. Popplet is a free tool that can be used to create concept maps. A concept map is a graphical diagram that provides a visual representation of the relationship between concepts. Teachers often use concept maps as a strategy to facilitate students’ critical thinking and their ability to identify and understand similarities and differences among key concepts. Today the students used Popplet on the iPads to create a concept map to describe key features of nonfiction text. Each student selected a key feature that would be the focus of their popplet and then created “popples” (aka bubbles) to describe that specific feature. The students entered text to write a description of the feature. To illustrate the feature, the students used the camera function on the iPads to capture a photo from a book that represented that feature (e.g., a heading, a glossary, etc.). The photos were then added to the popplet to add additional detail regarding that feature. Students shared their finished popplets projected on the big screen. Popplet can be used on both PCs and iPads.
