Ali Erkan and Joe Rodriguez presented a poster titled "DESIGN OF LINK: A TOOL FOR STUDENTS TO EXPRESS CONCEPTUAL CONNECTIONS" at the ISSOTL 2014 conference. This work is based on the creation of a new web application to visualize the formation of conceptual connections made by students in introductory courses.
Since 2008, we (Ali Erkan, Michael Smith, Drew Winston, Steve Lam, Joe Rodriguez) have been exploring ways in which learning in an introductory history class can be enhanced by the use of software that allows students to create and visualize connections between different concepts. Our goal has been to make it apparent that while linear arrangements and the associated perspectives (such as a chronological order) are sometimes unavoidable, concepts are ultimately arranged in the form of a web (network) and that the creation of meaningful webs of concepts is itself a learning exercise.
Our initial attempts started out with wikis since a wiki allows one to create distinct pages for distinct concepts and to interconnect these pages to express relatedness. While the visualizations we drew from such student-produced wikis proved to be revealing, we encountered a number of obstacles that prevented our approach from leading to a precise instrument. Some of these obstacles were pedagogical in nature. Others were technological in nature so we were able to overcome them by creating our own software; the focus of this poster is the design of our latest system, called “Learning in Networks of Knowledge” (LINK).
We outline how students first create precursory webs (to demystify the notion of “conceptual connection”) through a labeling activity and how these webs are then refined to truly convey the students’ understanding of conceptual interconnectedness. We overview some of the architectural decisions and use-cases. We also explain how this tool will be available to the community (i.e. our dissemination plans). Finally, we make the case that while the resulting system has its roots in a history class, we believe it is usable in other courses.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20150116090541808