Having students identify the similarities and differences in the materials and concepts that they are learning acts as a powerful instructional strategy because it challenges them to restructure their understanding of the content and leads to a deeper understanding of the material. Technology gives us tools that we, as educators, can use in the process of teaching students to identify similarities and differences--primarily tools that are used to create graphic organizers. Every computer at my campus has Microsoft Word, so Word Processing Applications are a readily available tool that can be used to create graphic organizers that represent the similarities and differences in concepts. The Drawing toolbar of Word can be used to draw and create a variety of templates to organize similarities and differences--diagrams, charts, and other graphic organizers. The comparing and contrasting of text is a TAKS objective in 7th and 8th grade language arts; students are expected to be able to compare and contrast two similar reading passages. Word processing applications offer teachers and students a way to electronically organize such information visually, helping learners to better see and understand how two passages are alike and different.
A second technology tool, Organizing and Brainstorming Software, is created specifically for the purpose of organizing information and offers many methods of facilitating in the identification of the similarities and differences of many concepts. Since software such as Inspiration must be purchased and licensed, some schools may find the expense to be cost prohibitive. If this type of software is available, however, it can be used very effectively to reinforce the concept of comparing and contrasting. The application of organizing and brainstorming software (such as Kidspiration and Inspiration) is so powerful because it provides a visual portrayal of the similarities and differences of concepts (e.g. Venn diagram, comparison template). Inspiration even comes with a Book Comparison feature that is specifically designed to compare and contrast literature. This feature could be used in so many different ways in the classroom to reinforce the concept of identifying similarities and differences, an important (and often very challenging) learning objective. In the library, such software could also be used to reinforce this learning objective by drawing comparisons and contrasts between literary genres, information literacy concepts, and other library concepts.
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Organizing and Brainstorming Software is a powerful tool. Hopefully it will become more affordable. Until then, we can do many of the same things with Microsoft Office applications. The drawback is that applications such as Kispiration/Inspiration do much of the organizing for us so we can focus on the content. Using the tools we have forces us to spend some time doing the organizing limiting our time with the content. Many teachers may not be willing to make this sacrifice thus technology integration doesn't happen.
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