Go1-yED Live
As a high school student, I learned to use semantic maps to explore ideas in doodles. It soon became an essential way for me to pick out the critical vocabulary words and concepts in academic readings. In fact, it was such a powerful tool for me that I adopted it for note taking, brainstorming, and playing with words.
That’s because semantic maps offer a visual way of viewing “meaning-based connections between a word or phrase and a set of related words or concepts” (source: Reading Rockets).
Step #1 - Discover Why
Semantic mapping is a visual strategy for vocabulary expansion and extension of knowledge by displaying in categories words related to one another” (Kholi and Sharifafar, 2013). These almost graphic organizers are not pre-made, but made by the students to help “web” out their ideas. [Semantic maps] build on students’ background knowledge or schema. While drawing on prior knowledge, it recognizes important components and shows the relationships among them” (Kholi
and Sharifafar, 2013) as cited in Vocabulary and Fluency Classroom Strategies.
Step #2 - Explore On Your Own
yEd is a powerful desktop application that can be used to quickly and effectively generate high-quality diagrams. Create diagrams manually, or import your external data for analysis.
Arrange large data sets with just the press of a button. yEd is freely available and runs on all major platforms: Windows, Unix/Linux, and macOS.
Browser-based yED Live makes it easy to add a hand-drawn effect to any semantic/concept map you construct.
You can also add a variety of images/icons from a clipart library or your own images on your device.
Step #3 - Give It A Go
As we work throughout the next hour, make a word map that captures words you may be unfamiliar with. Add them to your list of words to explore, then draw connections. Are you a sketchnoter? Fantastic, draw some pictures. If not, start with a circle (or square/oval/rectangle) in the middle then begin adding content.
As you discover new ideas, add them. As you find connections between concepts, move the words or concepts around.
