Has anyone out there used Gliffy before?
After a bootlegged copy of Inspiration Software ended up on my desk the other day, I got to thinking. I knew I had run across a free version of a similar software at some point in the past couple of years. It just took the pressure of this blog post to make me look for it. Into my Delicious bookmarks I went, and--booyah!
Gliffy calls itself "Online Diagram Software." I created a free account and started messing around.
Gliffy seems really cool! It's very user friendly. You have multiple choices when you want to create a new document, from flow charts to floor plans. I made the flow chart, shown here:
Check it out. Concept mapping is SO helpful in the classroom. Having students interact with a text by mapping its concepts forces them to identify the main points of a text and organize the information being presented to them. English can be a bit trickier (mapping plot, characters, etc.) than something like science, but it can still be very useful.
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2 days ago
Do you know how we could motivate the students to use this software? I wonder if manipulating data on the computer would be more appealing instead of the archaic pencil and paper tools.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it would be! Anytime I tell the students we'll be using the laptops, it doesn't matter what we're doing--they get excited just getting them out. I'm sure they'd be game to use this.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Gliffy as much as inspiration (btw, do you still have the disk?) But I do like that you can access from the web at any time, and kids can collaborate.
ReplyDeleteYes, I do. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteI was just curious--I haven't used Gliffy extensively in a class before.