Popplet is a great tool for brainstorming, mind-mapping, and organizing your thoughts.

The product is very good as a teaching tool because it is very simple but provides the student with a lot of knowledge. Connecting ideas from a main subject allows the student to better understand what they're learning, without having to be lectured by a teacher. The ideas are self driven and keep the students engaged with an entertaining design.

Although Popplet is not a tool that helps teach content, it is a fabulous tool to help students use their creativity to visually share their learning and create multi-media organizers. Popplet can be used cross-curricular, which I believe is always a bonus to have a versatile web-based tool in one’s toolbox! The free version, using the Try It Out mode is plenty for students to be able to create, organize, and re-organize ideas, thoughts, and data. The only negative is that students cannot save a draft and return to work at a later time in the Try It Out mode and the free version limits users to 10 Popplets (but these are savable in draft form). Though, for a minimal yearly fee, Popplet is a tool I would consider purchasing an account for. Finally, Popplets can be saved as .pdf, .jpeg, and .png files, which makes them easily sharable in blogs, websites, newsletters, etc. This feature can really be helpful in generating communication around an organizer a student created, both peer-to-peer and teacher-to-peer.

Overall, this is a great free app to make deep connections to larger topics. Students are able to be creative with the app and use its features to further their understanding of a topic. After students finish creating a Popplet, they are able to export their work so they can print or view it later. I love that this app is easy to use and functions across all grade levels. It is also nice because it can use used on a tablet or a computer. I definitely recommend this app!