Popplet

[|Popplet] is a great website/app for single person use or collaboration. It is a tool for mind mapping, graphically representing information, and working with an interactive graphic organizer. Users can create text, adjust color and size of the "boxes," import pictues or videos to support their theme. Once the popple is created, the originator hits share so others can post to it.

Applications in the classroom: 
 * Main Idea and Supporting Details:

> Writing: Expository writing with associated graphics. Let the kids pick a nonfiction topic they are experts on (ballet, XBOX, hockey, SpongeBob) and have them share as many aspects of their topic as possible. I am an expert on tennis, so here is my sample which I attempted to model after the DK Eyewitness books. >
 * Genres: Students can collaborate on a specific genre and make their own connections to represent them. EX: Historical fiction: show book covers, histoical photos or reenactment videos, newspaper clipping, etc.
 * Science: lifecycles, types of animals and their features (mammals, amphibians, etc)
 * Social Studies: Rural/Suburban/Urban, Decades (one person does clothes, another music, another politics), Texas history, History of McKinney.