Inspiration

Multimodal Concept Mapping and Visual Learning

This seminar, funded by Inspiration, was held at the WLE Centre, Institute of Education, London, on July 2nd 2007, and was part of the series 'Fascinating Cultural Objects: 'Multimodal concept mapping in teaching and learning'. It was followed by a session about writing challenges for teachers as researchers.

Christina Preston, MirandaNet; John Ralston and Deidre Cook, Open University; Nigel Riley, Plymouth University

Chair: Christina Howell Richardson, Plymouth University

We are grateful to Chris Purday of the Institute of Education, who made a video of this seminar and subsequently created the Visual Podcasts which are linked below. Please note that there are three different formats for you to choose from for each part of the seminar, depending on which player you have installed or prefer to use, and there are two resolutions for each version. Go for the High Resolution version unless you are on a slow connection.

Video Podcasts: there are some technical issues regarding the use of video podcasts which you might like to refer to at the end of this page.

Audio Podcasts: If you are unable to view the Podcasts, we also made a sound only recording of the seminar which you can use either to listen to online, or to download the MP3 files for your personal player.

Find out more about the Audio Podcasts.

Introduction: Christina Howell Richardson, Plymouth University

Multimodal mapping: innovation in the assessment of teachers’ learning about ICT:
Christina Preston, MirandaNet Fellowship and WLE centre, Institute of Education, University of London

This socio-cultural perspective on the multimodal literacy of teachers provides an account of how one particular cultural artefact, the multimodal map (MMM), is used as an innovative method for summative, formative, self and group assessment of teachers’ understanding of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) concepts.

Collaboration, ICT and mind-mapping
John Ralston and Deidre Cook, Open University

This study, an investigation of collaborative activity in a Primary school, explores the ways in which visual material helps children to establish shared meanings. It looks at the ways in which multimodal-mapping software can support children’s exploration and presentation of ideas. It also considers ways of analysing the children’s’ maps and looks for evidence of collaboration and negotiation.

Investigating the impact of concept mapping in developing effective learning dialogues:
Nigel Riley, Knowle Primary School Plymouth and Associate Lecturer at Plymouth University

This study concentrates on the use of the maps in a Primary school to increase higher-order thinking skills. The findings suggest that using collaborative concept mapping in compositional activities increases concept and propositional transfer from talk into writing. A tentative conclusion is that the dynamic interactions between talk and resulting concept mapping enhances propositional transfer between talk, concept mapping and writing.

Challenges for teachers writing up practice based studies for academic publication

The speakers will discuss the process of developing case studies in the classroom and talk about the challenges of writing up practice-based case studies for a special practitioners’ volume of Reflecting Education called 'Fascinating cultural objects' : multimodal concept mapping in teaching and learning which will be published in September 2007: www.reflectingeducation.net

Technical note: if you have installed a particular player on your machine which is 'associated' with all of the formats available, the video will open in that player regardless of which link you select! The different links might not work with all the players: RealPlayer might be unable to display a QuickTime movie, for instance.

The links are of the type 'rtsp', as opposed to the normal 'http': if this is the first time that you have used such a link, and depending on the browser you are using, you might receive a warning asking you to confirm that you really do want to open the external application. To view the Podcasts you will need to click on 'Launch application'. There is a box to check if you wish to avoid receiving this message in future.

Download links: RealPlayer | QuickTime | Windows Media Player

Alternative: Sound-only Podcast

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