Coggle
By: Mikayla Plafcan
By: Mikayla Plafcan
Coggle is an online concept mapping and mind mapping tool. This user-friendly digital tool has many features which make it an appealing technology for the classroom. The website can be found here: https://coggle.it
Here is a tutorial video:
Coggle can be used as a prewriting strategy to build ideas and organize essays: "This study has proved that mind mapping as a prewriting strategy helps in improving the quality of essays and helps students to enhance their writing skills in a given time frame" (Vijayavalsalan, & Dhabi, 2016, pp. 147-148). This prewriting strategy helps students make connections and organize their thoughts.
Word webs, such as Coggle, helps to demonstrate the connection between different words: "Developing breadth and depth of vocabulary depends on building connections between words and developing elaborate webs of meaning" (BoulwareGooden, Carreker, Thornhill, & Joshi, 2007, as cited in Dalton, & Grisham, 2011, p. 308).
Morphology is an important aspect of literacy instruction that should not be overlooked "...60% of the nearly 90,000 words they encounter can be understood with morphology" (Nagy & Anderson, 1984, as cited in Ganske, 2019, p. 209). Teaching morphology should be done explicitly though strategies such as word webs (Ganske, 2019, p. 219).
Above and below are two examples of the beginning of an essay concept map. Each color may represent a different paragraph. You may choose to record ideas and research or structure sentences for each paragraph.
Here are two examples of how to create word webs on Coggle. The above picture describes the different meanings a word can have. The below picture demonstrates using Coggle to expand vocabulary by brainstorming related words.
Above demonstrates using Coggle to show how prefixes (or suffixes) can be used. The image below is an example of how a base word can be changed to show different meanings.