Transcript Connecting minds

MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Connecting minds
History Makers Molecules
A transferable experiment on collaborative reading, mediated by
Knowledge Soups – Concept Maps in L2
Partenariate eTwinning formed by:
Carlos Moreno Guallart and Carlos Ruiz, Colegio Santa María del Pilar Marianistas, Zaragoza, Spain;
Alfredo Tifi (speaker) ITIS “Divini” San Severino Marche, Italy; [email protected]
Pending: Adriana Smorto, Istituto Socio Psico Pedagogico “S.ta Rosa da
Viterbo”, Italy
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Why concept mapping should be
preferred for collaborations?
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
How this theory can help e-Twinning
and Med-Twinning
Collaborative
Concept Mapping
mediates
facilitates
Communication
among different
Languages
Interdependence
among partners
Conceptual
Widening
Are e.g.
Italian - Spanish partners:
Istituto Tecnico Ind.le
“Eustachio Divini”
San Severino Marche (IT)
Colegio
Santa María del Pilar –
Marianistas, Zaragoza (ES)
permits
Is going to be
developed on
Other new
welcomed
partners
How Molecules
Changed History
In 2006/07
may be
engaged on
Intercultural
Exchange
could be
has been
planned on developed on
European
Union
In 2005/06
Mediterranean
Sea Topics
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
A Basic Model
for Concept Mapping
Propositions have to be ternary, selfconsistent and meaningful
 Cmap has to be developed in function
of answering a Focus Question…
 …starting from the most inclusive (root)
concept to the more specific and
subordinated ones, in a pyramidal
structure.
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MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Why concept maps in L2 are easier
to understand than plain text…
TEXT UNDERSTANDING
 Difficulties in decoding
spread or metaphoric
messages
 Strong dependence by a
knowledge of logic structure
of the language 2
 Efforts to distinguish which
concepts are relevant, which
are accessory to understand
the text; which are repeated
with different labels and
which have a different
meaning in different contexts
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CMAP UNDERSTANDING
Predicates, linking
phrases, are reduced at
the least necessary to
establish relations among
concepts
Only essential concepts
are elicited
Hierarchic organization of
concepts determinates
their relative or absolute
relevance
Not repeated concepts in
unambiguous contexts.
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
…CM has also advantages in L1
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Opportunities of reading - decoding CM in L1
Opportunities to generalize, passing to abstraction
Elicitation and quantification of concepts from L1 texts
Recognize the same concept in different terms
Differentiate between similar concepts
Search for terms to generate precise meanings in
relations
Assign the concepts a rank in the map as in the
cognitive structure of the children
Habit to generate focus questions and to interpret text
according to general questions.
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Multilingual CM helps decision – strategy making
for teachers planning of the activities
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
A shared CM helps groups formation
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Reading from “Napoleon’s Buttons, how 17 molecules changed History”
Penny le Couter and Jay Burreson
It is assumed that Arab traders introduced pepper to Europe, initially
by the ancient spice routes that led through Damascus and across the
Red Sea. Pepper was known in Greece by the fifth century B.C. At that
time its use was medicinal rather than culinary, frequently as an antidote to poison. The Romans, however, made extensive use of pepper
and other spices in their food.
By the first century A.D., over half the imports to the Mediterranean
from Asia and the east coast of Africa were spices, with pepper from
In-dia accounting for much of this. Spices were used in food for two
rea-sons: as a preservative and as a flavor enhancer. The city of Rome
was large, transportation was slow, refrigeration was not invented, and
the problem of obtaining fresh food and keeping it fresh must have
been enormous. Consumers had only their noses to help them detect
food that was off; “best before” labels were centuries in the future.
Pep-per and other spices disguised the taste of rotten or rancid fare and
probably helped slow further decay. The taste of dried, smoked, and
salted food could also be made more palatable by a heavy use of these
seasonings.
By medieval times much European trade with the East was conducted
through Baghdad (in modern Iraq) and then to Constantinople (now is
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Contructing claims from excerpts
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A “Claim” is a simple affirmation, formed by a
[Concept1]--linking phrase [Concept 2] ternary structure.
This step is not as so easy as it seems, because it implies a) to elicit
concepts and relations, b) to decide which concepts are subordinated
to which and c) to choose the way to “quantify” the former, i.e. how to
cluster attributes and to create compound concepts.
We believe this helps meaningful reading and learning of students.
Arab traders introduced pepper to Europe...led through
Damascus and across the Red Sea
Pepper was introduced to Europe by Arab traders
Pepper passed across Damascus and the Red Sea
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Collaborative team working
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Sharing claims with “Knowledge Soup”
Working to the shared c-map (with two rules to
foster interdependence:
1. Students must pick up propositions and concepts from
the soup and cannot add them directly to the c-map;
2. only claims published by other students can be
validated and fitted in the c-map).
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Opening - Replying Discussion Threads
Enhanced concept mapping: adding other
resources.
MedTwinning Florence 11/12/2006
Added value for med-twinning
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Transferability (to any other interesting book or shared
source);
Applied training for teachers on high value technologies
for world wide collaboration
Possibilities of supporting intensive training online
courses on these methodologies for educational
institutions
Possibilities to find other partners world wide besides
us, to apply the same methodology in different topics
Possibility to experiment in educational research about
Collaborative Concept Mapping and related matters.