Graphic organizers are an important part of planning, programming, projects, and papers in the classroom. They create a vivid and visual map of ideas, especially where learning is not linear.
Visual ideas splattered about may be shifted quickly to an organized and logical order in a graphic organizer. Learning templates are very useful to get students started. Our digital resources allow for great flexibility in creative design, including the ability to add in audio and video.
There are many websites and apps that can be used for this purpose. Keynote and Numbers are applications your students are already using that may be customized for their graphic organizer needs.
I like Keynote because links may be created quickly to connect topics with sub-topics and their researched data. This is especially helpful for our younger learners.
I like Numbers because it has an 'unlimited' canvas to create on. Zoom in/out and navigate as needed.
A counterpart of mine, Jamie Clark, @XpatEducator, created a Graphic Organizer Pack in Keynote that may be used by you or your students. Click here to download his Keynote templates. Select from the list provided and remove the other slides.
His category groups include:
- Recalling, Grouping, Classifying, and Summarizing Ideas
- Sequencing Events and Ordering Ideas
- Showing Casual Links (cause and effect)
- Deeper Analysis - Breaking Down Ideas and Exploring Elements
 | I added my own twist that you may want to consider for your classroom. Slide decks in Keynote do not need to be 'presented' in a linear order from first to last. Any picture or shape in Keynote may be linked to any slide or website. I modified one of the templates to show how details may be linked between multiple slides in Keynote. Click here to download my version. |
| To create custom links between Keynote slides: From your iPad, tap once on the object you would like to link. Tap on Link. Now, decide what direction you want to go, whether it is another slide, a website, or an email address. | |
 | Numbers will provide a much larger canvas for your student projects. This may be useful for your older students or for larger projects. If you are looking for a larger canvas for your graphic organizer, but like the templates here, you can use cmd-A to Select All of the items on a slide and paste it into a Numbers worksheet. Numbers will give you a flexible canvas size that works for almost any project. When you first open Numbers, you will see a data table. It may be deleted to clear off your canvas. |
Please share with me how your students use templates to create graphic organizers.
