Pre-Research Fun?!?

I've been playing with Twiddla and Dabbleboard as possibilities for use in pre-research activities. In the end, I found Dabbleboard to be my favorite for creating graphic organizers. While Twiddla has more bells and whistles, I found the simplicity of Dabbleboard more appropriate for middle students to use. Twiddla would be better suited for sharing documents, photos, and e-mails throughout a group project.

I just started using Dabbleboard with my students to help them think about how they are going to organize their research. Never before have I had students so excited to do a pre-research activity! I almost had to pinch myself at the positive student response.

For very broad topics, such as the Revolutionary War, creating a map to plan research can help students develop sub-topics. These sub-topics could be used to narrow their research topic or to help them create areas of focus for their research. Depending on the age and/or ability of your students, the Dabbleboard could be completed as a class, in pairs, or as an individual.

Also, the map gives them a structure to use in their note-taking. Anything that helps students in their organization cannot be a bad thing:)

There are a lot of other great ways Dabbleboard could be used. I think it would be great for students to create charts comparing two topics/ideas. Here is an example I created on Dabbleboard comparing McCain and Obama.