Abstract:

Concept maps are a cognitive tool variously used in educational research as a cognitive and assessment tool. Are considered a way to represent knowledge and to lead students to meaningful learning. Use of concept mapping software offers various advantages, among others, enhances collaborative learning and simplifies matters related to reconstruction and storage. Thus we consider them a proper tool for monitoring the learning process of individuals and of groups. A group is a combination of individuals. Group members have the possibility to share expertise from different perspectives, supplement one another, and make reciprocal contributions to the task completion. In an ideally collaborative situation, each individual plays a critical role and makes an equal contribution to the group. But in real learning environments we have to elaborate ways to closely monitor and study the kind of interaction between group members, the way that group knowledge is influenced by its members but also the way that collaborative tasks influence individual knowledge structure. The following paper presents the use of computer based concept mapping during a course that took place in real class conditions, with nine years old students, which constructed and reconstructed in various phases concept maps individually and collaboratively. Aims at highlighting through comparative analysis of the individually and collaboratively constructed concept maps the possible existence of interaction between individual knowledge construction and collaborative one and the opposite and additionally the kind of interaction and the possible factors that influence it.

Keywords:

Concept maps, concept mapping software, computer supported learning, conceptual representations, individual learning, collaborative learning.