Transformation Teachers mind map
Originally uploaded by T Ware.
I’ve been playing about with OpenMind today – I’m not sure if we have it on the school computers but I’m pretty sure we have FreeMind, which must be similar. I thought that if I was learning to do it, I might as well use it to map some of the software and hardware we’ve been given on the programme, so that it helped me get my thoughts in order too!
It’s not finished, but I’ve used all the ideas in the quick start guide in the software. One aspect I really like is the way you can export out of the software. So this was exported as a picture and then I uploaded it to Flickr (I’ve just spotted the zoom function above the pictures in Flickr – so you’ll want to click on that to view this properly). But potentially more useful, they can be exported into Word and PowerPoint, a process that preserves the links made in the map. So in Word, it all comes out with a contents page and then expanded sections below, and on PowerPoint, each slide is a new subheading. I’ll need to fine-tune that export process, but I’m thinking students could use this for essay planning, then export, helping them to go from non-linear to linear, which many find hard. My only concern is it doesn’t then help them to see the correct order of ideas, which is the bit I think they find hardest.
You can also export into Html, which makes it all look like a cool webpage – but I’m not sure how you would then put that up on the web – is that easy or difficult? I guess it relies on webspace being available, among other things.
It would be great to be able to create collaborative mind maps, though I think that would be harder. I assume you couldn’t have students all working simultaneously on one map, but you could have pairs or groups filling in a different branch in turn, and adding links where they saw them. This would be logistically more difficult, but still possible.
Entries (RSS)
April 11th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I saw this photo first on Flickr. What a great mindmap – and I hadn’t realised that you could import in different ways, so I think I’ll go and have a look at that just now! I like the idea of pupils working perhaps in pairs on a mindmap like this. It’s a bit quicker than getting the pens and paper out, too.
April 11th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Great Mind Map Tessa. OpenMind is very useful and will help you to organise and complete your e-portfolio. I will be running a workshop on OpenMind in the next training block and look forward to showing you how to use another package called Mediator which is a partner package to OpenMind. Have you though about planning an essay for GCSE English, it is very useful. Oh by the way I think that you do have OpenMind on your system at school…..
April 11th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I had a look at Mediator … it looked really complicated! Think it’s a good idea that there will be training for that one …!
April 16th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
[...] One of the participants on the Transformation Teachers Programme in Haringey published her first exploration into OpenMind and you can see this by following this link. [...]
April 22nd, 2007 at 11:11 am
Tessa, thanks for the comments on Sue’s Blog. I have posted a comment there for you both on Sue’s Blog and cross referenced it on the DigiMemo blog entitled Take two teachers……
DigiMemo Blog is digimemo.edublogs.org