SpicyNodes

=**SpicyNodes**~ Leslie Lieman=

About the Tool:
====Want to give a graphic organizer a boost? Or have a way to display it on a website, blog or online course? Do you want to help your students visualize the relationships of different concepts, starting with a topic and branching out to the various elements that support the main idea? SpicyNodes is a visually pleasing tool that you or your students can use as a graphic organizer, concept map, or idea map. You or your students can organize, prioritize and summarize information. SpicyNodes offers a graphical and visual way to present information.==== ====I tried SpicyNodes out for the first time imagining that the non-linear organization of our first 5-days of coursework would offer a helpful summary (and perhaps be more useful than the linear Google doc for visual and non-linear learners). Therefore, my goal was to test and evaluate this 2.0 tool by using some of our coursework themes and activities and organize our work together by "topic" rather than by "day." Thus, all “Storify” summaries and Willingham chapter summaries would navigate together, rather than be subsumed in other material from our daily work. With this in mind, I gave SpicyNodes a try. I tested as many of the features as possible, embedding links, images, YouTube videos and text.====

Here is a sample Nodemap: @http://www.spicynodes.org/a/0a8a91b8e078496e3bb713872ff0eac9

====Graphic organizers enable and encourage students to make connections between content categories, topics, thoughts, ideas and knowledge. In the language arts classroom this can mean asking students to represent themes or characters, where they further sub-divide those categories by character traits, quotes or actions that reflects students’ understanding or summary of the literature. A graphic organizer can be a visual construction of knowledge (represented at various stages of learning), which leaves room for adding or removing elements as more connections or understandings are formulated. This form of communication, which can be used in all content areas, asks students to represent his/her understandings or ideas.====

====Cause and effect can also be visually organized to represent how events in a story or history are connected. Whether using the tools of paper and pen or online web 2.0 tools, constructing a graphic organizer can help students comprehend text and “see” connections. Perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to outline and organize any inquiry-based project into a visual concept map can support students’ critical thinking skills. It is a way for students to express their understandings about how different subtopics connect to a topic as a whole.====

====Teachers can model the development of a graphic organizer for a particular topic/idea or can use them as a "jumping off" point for students to do further inquiry on a topic. Students can create graphic organizers as they collect information, reflect on information or as a way to capture facts and understandings before they write about a topic.====

====As you will see from my discussion below, SpicyNodes affords us the opportunity to represent connections with online resources and a variety of multi-media. However, as you will also see, it is a finicky tool that may not yet be ready for prime time.====

Strengths:

 * ====Students and/or teachers can create their own “nodemaps” on an online interface.====
 * ====Multi-media (images, YouTube, videos, music, links, text) can be integrated into nodemaps====
 * ====Nodemaps can be shared with others====
 * ====Nodemaps are non-linear and are likely to be especially appealing to visual thinkers====
 * ====SpicyNodes is free for individual use and has educational memberships for teachers who want to track (an unlimited number of) student nodemaps or multiple classes.====
 * ====Nodemaps can be published and then linked to or embedded in a website or wiki (and can be shared via Facebook or Twitter). Like the home page of this wiki, if a teacher or student has a website or blog, this feature (if not too many categories) can offer a fun visual for content around a main topic.====

Weaknesses:
> ====- Several features are “finicky” and unreliable.==== > ====- I needed to recreate links/text when the “save” feature did not work.==== > ====- Images need to be saved as jpgs (so screenshots or other file formats need to be changed to jpgs before using).====
 * ====The tool claims to “encourage deeper understanding of materials.” Clearly, information (facts, links, thinking, knowledge) can be organized on this tool and might help students consider how concepts can best be navigated. However, it is unclear if/how measuring deeper understanding would be achieved simply by using the tool. The important part of the “work” is creating an organization structure in advance of building the Nodemap.====
 * ====SpicyNodes can be shared but not worked on collaboratively (as far as I can tell).====
 * ====As more layers of information was offered, the visual display actually became more confusing to me with overlapping "nodes."====
 * ====Very frustrating:====
 * ====Despite the awards and accolades written up on the website, this tool is not ready for prime time work with students.====
 * ====If a teacher wants to display/summarize/offer material visually, they you might want to give it a try. Otherwise, move on.====