Mind Maps

Mind maps are an interesting thing and can be used in so many different classes. I think they fit in an English class perfectly- of any ages! Not only English but any subject that has an essay/writing based content - English just happens to fit with my disciplines.

All students are different with the way that they learn and concept for ideas for essays or stories. I found that when I was younger, and even while studying at University I was more of a 'pen and paper' kind of girl/learner. I am aware that my students will not all learn the same way as me. Because of this I have decided to learn a new way of concept mapping - online and electronically. 

Trying out this www.text2mindmap.com idea has opened my mind to try and explore concept mapping my next assignment. 

This idea of concept mapping was quite simple and not much effort goes into the creation of one - this can be both good and bad in a classroom. The good aspects to this is that students will be able to create ideas and the basis of essays or other assignments and the only difficult or time consuming part will the be input of the data and the coming up of their ideas. The down side to it being a simple idea is that students could potentially waste time and make it 'pretty' by changing the text font/size/colour when it really only needs to be basic.

This digital tool requires no 'safety' of children on the internet, except for them to be regulated and their use be monitored.

I feel that if students learn visually and with the use of technology - this concept is a good, safe and easy way to go. You are able to create different branches and sub-branches for ideas and more complex ideas that stem from previous ideas. The concept maps that are created are able to be saved and downloaded - this way, students will be able to save and access them at anytime they want.

I created this concept map of a story that I am writing for another university subject.