Ideaphora is guided by the mission to help students build critical thinking skills and lasting knowledge from the digital content they are increasingly exposed to in and out of school by offering a first-of-its-kind concept mapping and learning environment. The strength of learners' knowledge maps depends on the quality of the content they use as sources to create connections among concepts. To that end, Ideaphora is seeking the best open education resources (OER) to provide a robust library of materials that educators and students can use in building their knowledge maps. We want to hear from you!
Ideaphora adds new resources to its library after it has been "crawled" and analyzed to ensure that only the most relevant and appropriate concepts are extracted from the material and presented as keywords for learners to simply drag-and-drop into their knowledge maps. When our technology "crawls" content, it uses semantic analysis engines to identify, refine and present keywords to users. Completing this analysis ahead of time and making vetted resources available in the Ideaphora content library, helps teachers and students easily and quickly find high-quality material and the right keywords to use in their concept maps. They don't have to wade through irrelevant content or keywords, minimizing distractions to their thinking and learning process.
Additionally, Ideaphora is the only concept mapping tool that enables users to seamlessly identify and connect concepts from among a broad range of sources. Educators and students can use keywords and images from any number of videos, texts and other digital content in one map, all in one screen. Dr. Mary Chase's example of her journey of discovery while concept mapping in her post, Practice What You Preach, exemplifies the value of this feature. She was able to create a collage of ideas and connections from four articles and two videos that revealed a bigger picture and greater understanding of the cultural and historical catalysts for Vygotsky's learning theories.
We are in the midst of crawling and analyzing several OER sites and resource repositories, such as the Learning Registry, and have already processed numerous videos and articles from YouTube and Wikipedia that are readily available in Ideaphora. But we are not stopping there, and we need your help. What multimedia materials and websites do you love to use in your classroom? Please share with us the OER sites, as well as specific resources, you'd like to see in Ideaphora. To share your feedback, please fill out the form here or email us at info+feedback@ideaphora.com.
If you aren't yet participating in Ideaphora's beta or Classroom Pilot program, sign up today!