CMap: Learning Models, or…

how I learned to stop worrying and love CMap.

Actually, I don’t love it at all, especially the way it automatically puts in a link idea mid-arrow. But I am getting used to it. And I realize this isn’t really a concept map: it’s more of a chart with connecting links.

One thing about concept maps — I can’t have one for the whole course (due in November). Each set of ideas I’m making into its own map.

My own (so far small but global) network came into play with this one. After meeting in Webex with Steve Mackenzie and Maru del Campo on Sunday, I added the all caps words to the bottom of each column.

(Click on it to see it bigger — it’s too hard to read here!)

I do notice as I make these that the process is forcing me to see things differently. I have to find ways in which things connect, and if I “think” they do but they really don’t, I have to abandon the idea or clarify it. It reminds me of when I was writing big history papers and laid all the index cards out on the floor and moved them around (although, technologically, that was easier to do than this is).

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