Margaret MindMapping

"My Life In Graphs: A Guided Journal"

2011-06-14T11:48:00.007-04:00

"My Life In Graphs: A Guided Journal" (created by Knock Knock and distributed by Who's There, Inc.!) is the title of a book I received for my recent birthday. The reader is prompted to reflect on her personality, goals, friends, and many other aspects of life and then represent these thoughts in various graphs. It's the perfect gift for me, really, (Thanks, Sue) since I delight in visual organization tools so much. There are no mind maps in the book so far, but bar graphs, venn diagrams, flow charts, and pie charts.

I have only completed three charts--I'm tackling one per day--and some require more reflection than others. Yesterday's pie chart asked me to estimate how much time I spend on each task in my morning routine. It is no surprise that my commute takes up almost half of my time. It was illuminating to look at this budgeted time represented in colorful pieces of pie. I had to think mathematically, too, to fit my ninety minutes of morning preparation into a pre-drawn circle marked in equal divisions of ten. Also, those ninety minutes have to add up to 100 percent. Tricky.

Today's bar graph had me think of four childhood dreams and then plot on the graph how close I have come to attaining them, if at all. This was an interesting exercise, because my natural inclination was to list current bucket-list-type goals. That's not the task, though; I had to come up with childhood dreams. Also, taking stock of what I've accomplished as an adult and then listing them as childhood dreams would create a colorful chart but would not be realistic.

As the cover says, the book is 76% reflection and 24% naval gazing. So far I find that to be accurate, but I have also found it to be 60% fun and 40% thought-provoking, and 100% perfect for us mind map types.

Cool New Tool: spiderscribe

2011-06-07T10:22:00.003-04:00

I presented my new and improved mind mapping (etc.) presentation four times this academic year, and I always get the same question: "What about software?" I've blogged before in this space about my preference for making hand-drawn mind maps because I feel that I get more out of that process. For me, the drawing (and coloring) of a mind map helps me get to the synthesis, the deeper learning, and the flow of a concept easier.

That said, I do understand that mind maps can be used for other purposes: presentations, memory aids, organizing notes, and pulling together assorted media. Until very recently, I didn't have a favorite electronic way to organize this stuff. It seemed that since I started paying attention, mind mapping software has disappeared from cyberspace, has gone from free to not-free, and is just plain clunky. Tony Buzan's iMindMap is super, but you have to pay for it. I'm just not comfortable recommending an expensive tool like that (however snazzy and useful) to educators who will be using it with students.

Today in my inbox was an email from a friend with just a simple link in it: http://www.spiderscribe.net. This might be the one. I watched the short introductory video and then toyed around with it. It's simple to use, and can bring together photos, text, Word docs, and even maps easily. It would work an effective presentation tool, but without the established path function that Prezi has. There aren't many color, shape and clip-art choices, but the spiderscribe is designed to be visually apealling without those bells and whistles. There's not an embed option, so I can't plunk my sample into this blog. However, here is the mind map I created this morning to test out spiderscribe: Cape May Lighthouse. Maps can be public, private, or findable only if a viewer has the link.

I like it. I like how it reminds me of Evernote for organizing data and images but Prezi at other times when considering presentation. Try it!!

Glogster Works for Visual Organization

2011-04-22T11:34:00.009-04:00

Glogster is a free, snazzy-looking, online poster-making tool that can be used to organize information visually. I had to create an assignment for a Media Literacy Institute I attended this year using social media tools. I used Glogster for the front part, incorporating an Xtranormal video explaining the assignment, then showing the phases of the assignment (finding, evaluating, and using information ethically) graphically, and ultimately linked out to an example of a finished assignment. I used Prezi for this (also a great free tool for visual organizers) and featured Screenr and Evernote. I thought it looked pretty cool and covered the assignment well.

Click on the following link, then follow the arrows. At the end, the Glog should link to the Prezi where you'll have to advance manually, clicking on the triangle.

http://margaretmontet.glogster.com/il-assignment/

"Organizing Information Visually for Deeper Learning, Efficiency, and Continuity"

2011-03-06T13:43:00.004-05:00

Before the Presentation in San Diego (photo by Linda McCann)

This was the title of my latest mind-map-related presentation, at the Innovations 2011 conference in San Diego. It's a cumbersome title, I know, but I wanted to be sure my audience of community college educators understood I would be speaking about more than just mind maps. I was including other techniques for organizing information as well as how to use these tools to inspire ourselves and our students towards deeper learning.

This presentation evolves every time I offer it. For the San Diego presentation, I added some ideas from the book Ways of Seeing by John Berger. This is an older book, first published in 1972 and consisting of seven essays, explores how humans learn to process concepts with pictures before they master language. This idea reinforces the teaching of mind map guru Tony Buzan who claims this is why mind maps are so helpful for organizing and remembering information. I contend that this is also why mind maps could be so beneficial at a community college where there are many developmental students and students for whom English is a second language. Start with pictures. Use images to remember information.

I also added some feedback into this presentation to support my ideas. When I explain that I understand not everyone in the room will take to mind maps and other forms of visual organization of information right away, I usually encourage attendees to keep an open mind. That is what happened to Brian, a colleague, who on a recent bike ride with his son, came upon a bear. this is rather unusual for out part of the country, and while he was primarily concerned with their safety, he wanted to make sure his son saw the bear himself and retained the priceless memory. A mere narrative did not suffice because there were so many parts to the story. Brian ended up creating his first mind map to record the details of the day and the many emotions conjured up by the bear sighting. The story went over well.

The Ah-Ha Mind Map, the book Snow in August (photo by Liz Sette)

I had warned the attendees that the presentation would seem memoiry at times because the best mind maps (and other graphic representations) are the ones that come from real life and represent content that is important to me. This made sense. I was free to show mind maps (etc.) from my articles that were influenced in form and content by organizing information this way. I also included some mind maps that were essentially cheat sheets and simple timeline organizers because mind maps work for those purposes, too.

The presentation was a success, I thought, and as icing on the cake, one of the attendees likened the use of mind maps (and others) to Hegelian Dialectic. In fact, that's pretty much it in the original sense of the idea: there's the concept to be studied (thesis), the breaking-up or analysis of the concept into branches or linked boxes or whatever the chosen format dictates (antithesis), and then the forming of new thought or deeper understanding (synthesis). I'll probably borrow that in my next presentation.

Don't Worry, Hand-Drawn Mind Maps, I'll Defend You

2011-01-26T15:37:00.005-05:00

Something happened this week that made me think of the hand-drawn mind maps that I use in an educational presentation propelled by some snazzy technology. My presentation has been well-received, and I have a few engagements coming up in the near future. The content was there first: mind maps, other visual organization tools, and how they can help a person get to higher thinking and deeper learning. The snazzy technology (especially Prezi, a visual organizer itself) was carefully selected afterwards in order to highlight the content. My concern is that this is not always the case, and too often the content serves the technology rather than the other way around. The zeitgeist of education is changing and there's less pedagogy, less intellectual curiosity, and an emphasis on technology.

I use technology in all of my presentations, or I would run the risk of appearing extremely dry. I've endured the paper-presenting-conference scene and hope to never have to do that again. (For the uninitiated, this is where you write a scholarly paper, submit it to a conference, and if selected, show up at the appointed time and literally read the paper to a captive audience.) Today's more engaging technology-laced presentations are a better use of time, as long as the technology serves the content. Prezi, the popular presentation software with which I have replaced PowerPoint, looks cool with its zooming and spinning, but it also serves as an organizing device. Animated Xtranormal videos and Glogster posters get the "listener's" attention to be sure, but the content has to be ready to take over.

My content is mind maps, content maps, knowledge maps and other examples of visual organizations and explanations of information. Most of these are my own, and most of these are hand-drawn. One of the points I make in my presentation is that these tools are extremely helpful for visual and kinesthetic learners. I believe I am a combination of these and that the very act of drawing these maps and assigning colors helps me remember, organize, and make connections.

My goal is to help my listeners and readers find ways to organize, remember, and schedule and attain higher-level thinking and deeper learning with these tools The hand-drawn techniques will work better for some. The problem is that I perceive, especially through the "perfect storm" of events this week, that there is an aversion to non-electronic learning objects and ideas. The pendulum of teaching has swung to the extreme, a focus on technology rather than learning. I'm hoping that pendulum will come to rest in the center where the focus will be on using these snazzy technologies to create more effective teaching and learning.

Here's a piece of visual technology with a pendulum in it because this post has no other pictures.

New Article with No Mention of Mind Maps Specifically in the Title

2011-01-14T11:31:00.004-05:00

Notification just arrived that my short how-to article on using visual organization tools has been published on this British website. I've expanded the techniques described, and because of this I thought the mention of mind maps in the title would be misleading. Sometimes concept maps, knowledge maps, and other tools fit the content better. Mind maps are still my favorite, and I use them more often than the others. What do you think? What's your favorite technique?

The New Presentation

2010-06-26T16:17:00.005-04:00

I tried out my new, improved Mind Map presentation on Thursday to an audience of seven: five K-12 teachers, one college professor, and one professor emeritus. I'm pleased with the response and glad I decided to use the Prezi presentation embedded in my previous post here as the vehicle to propel the show. I was also able to make the point that mind maps, Prezi and Twitter are all tools that get right to the good stuff (the heart of the matter). Always the jokester, I pointed out that in high school and college I was never able to pad my essay answers with "BS" as most of the other students did. My answers tended to be concise and rather short. (My friends will tell you that my storytelling is not, however.) This is why I love mind maps, Prezi and Twitter: they eliminate the extra padding and get to the core concepts.

Since my attendees were all teachers, I threw in another point. I showed them how mind maps (and other visual organizations of information) help a visual learner make connections and attain deeper learning, climbing up the ladder of Bloom's Taxonomy (usually also represented with a visual). I showed them the mind map I used to organize my essay about the Delaware Bay into a rondo form. I never would have thought to do that while staring at a bunch of linear notes. And then there was the mind map I created when my book club read the book Snow in August by Pete Hamill. I portrayed the various characters in my mind map as heroes or villains as the young narrator did and then realized that there was also a recurring theme of fairy tales running through the text. Many details from the boy's life had to do with the Brooklyn Dodgers, so those got their own mind map branch. Without the experience of making a mind map, I don't think I would have made the connections between the fairy tale and Dodger details.

I told the group about the time I helped my goddaughter with a science fair project on the fruit fly. I hoped this story would convince them that mind maps are a help to any age learner. (We grasp the concept of pictures way before we learn language.) Hope had done some fruit fly research at school and I had gathered a few things for her. I debated whether I should introduce her to mind maps to organize all of her information. I decided to watch how she approached the task and was delighted to see that she started with a mind map! She called it something else (the nomenclature is somewhat elastic), but it was without a doubt a mind map. That story was a hit.

The Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html) provoked an audible reaction as did my Delicious.com link loaded with resources (http://delicious.com/margaretmontet/mindmaps). Among the many positive comments at the end, one teacher told me she was going to try mind maps to organize her students. If nothing else, I gave these teachers some practical, usable ideas to take back to their classrooms in September.

Click here for a link to a Prezi slideshow of selected mind maps and other types of visualizations.

2010-06-14T18:24:00.005-04:00

It took me awhile to figure Prezi out. After seeing many sharp-looking scholarly presentations that used Prezi instead of PowerPoint, I thought I should get serious about shedding the "Death-by-PowerPoint" look. It took me a few hours of solid experimentation to create something usable, but I like what I have. I'll be debuting it later this month at a mind mapping presentation for K-12 educators, and I am expecting as many questions about Prezi as about mind maps. Take a look (but remember on this small screen the mind maps are teeny):

Mind Mapping on Prezi

VoiceThread

2010-06-07T14:15:00.002-04:00

I have just discovered VoiceThread, a free online cool tool to use for discussions about images and video. This is my new favorite, and I've started discussions on my concept map and my knowledge map used in my mind map sabbatical project: http://voicethread.com/share/1199512/.

The maps are not new, but I still hope you check them out if you haven't been to my mind mapping LibGuide (http://bucks.libguides.com/mindmaps). I'm curious how effective you think VoiceThread is for discussing images like mind maps and such. I think it is very effective. The first time I saw this tool, it was being used to discuss fine art. That worked very well, too.

Please leave comments on the VoiceThread site or here if you prefer.

The Back of the Napkin

2010-05-27T10:04:00.005-04:00

The human brain thinks and imagines naturally in pictures. As children, we communicate with pictures and have no inhibitions about drawing. As we grow older, we become more comfortable with language and most people become less confident about their drawing skills. Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin, believes that we never lose the ability to understand concepts and ideas conveyed with pictures, and that we can use very simple drawings to explain ideas and influence decision makers. In this book, he breaks down his process, or toolkit, for solving problems and selling ideas with pictures by using the same process he is teaching.

First he explains the process of Look-See-Imagine-Show where we analyze the idea and decide how to show it. Then we proceed to the SQVID analysis where we decide where our picture will fit on one or more continuums: simple/elaborate, qualitative/quantitative, vision/execution, individual/comparison or change/status quo. Next is The Six Ways We See, where we decide how to present the idea: who/what (picture), how much (graph), where (map), when (timeline), how (flowchart) and why (plot). Here is my Napkin-inspired flowchart of the book:

More than one choice from the SQVID and The Six Ways We See can be incorporated into our graphic in order to represent or sell our idea. (Notice that the first continuum in the SQVID analysis is simple/elaborate.)

I like this book and started using its process to graphically represent my own concepts before I had gotten halfway through. Here's a timeline explaining information literacy that I am hoping will inspire and illuminate college students:

Mind maps are useful for almost anything, but over the course of this project I began to feel a need for a way to show time and process. This is it.

Musicophilia

2010-04-24T11:49:00.004-04:00

I just finished a book about the brain and music called Musicophilia. It is by the psychiatrist on whom the movie "Awakenings" focused, Oliver Sacks, and is more a recounting of tales about patients he's seen than a step-by-step description of how the brain processes music. (That was the case with the other book I read for this part of the project, This is Your Brain on Music.) He recounts fascinating tales of people experiencing musical hallucinations, musicogenic epilepsy, and musical savantism. He describes what is really happening when we find ourselves with an "earworm." Now I have to transcribe notes from my underlined passages in the book and make some mind maps as that is what I'm writing about--not so much the brain and music.

Sacks writes at length about dementia patients and how music alone has the ability to bring their "self" out. I can relate to that part, of course, because of my experiences with Dad (stroke and aphasia) and more recently Mom (advanced dementia). I wish I would have tried music on Mom. She wasn't musical, but perhaps the music from her young adulthood would have brought her some pleasure. I don't know. Dr. Sacks also wrote at length about music therapists. There were music therapy majors at the universities I attended as an undergraduate music major, Duquesne and at Temple, but I never really understood what they did. I assumed they worked mostly with children. Music therapists also work with adults suffering from brain disorders and it brings much success. Dr. Sacks supposes that the reactions to music are based on subcortical (rather than cortical responses), which I have learned is commonly referred to as the reptilian brain. I'm amused to remember that under my name in my Temple University yearbook, I am labeled a "Music Therapy" major. It is, of course, a typo for Music Theory, and I always thought my classmates would wonder that I never seemed a caring or outgoing enough person to choose to study Music Therapy.
All of that is the content for my learning-with-mind-mapping project, but what I'm really looking at is the process of organizing and learning the content. Early on in the reading of the book, I realized that linear, outlined notes would be easy, but a graphic representation would be much more difficult. This is because the book is made up of a series of tales of Dr. Sacks's patients with some explanation of why they act as they do and what might be going on in their brains. I created mind maps, but they are simply chronological, chapter by chapter. Perhaps these mind maps are an intermediary step and a more creative way to organize the information will occur to me later.

That said, the discussions on dementia and Williams Syndrome are extensive and could warrant their own mind maps (or other type of visualizations). These are the two brain conditions that are the most intertwined with the brain's processing of music, and so there is a lot of information to organize from Dr. Sacks's studies and observations in addition to many citations of other studies.

In any case as I have said before, the mere act of creating a mind map helps me see connections and hierarchies, and I will have the mind maps to refer to as I read the other books on my list.

This is Your Brain on Music

2010-04-02T11:30:00.004-04:00

Since I am studying how mind maps can help us learn, I decided it would be informative for me to use them to learn something new. Whatever content I choose should be unfamiliar to me, or I would simply be organizing learned information (what I usually do with mind maps). The content should also be interesting so that it stays compelling to me. I decided to tackle a small (but ever-growing) pile of books I have been meaning to read about how the brain listens to and understands music.

The first of these, Daniel J. Levitin's This is Your Brain on Music (2006), explains in detail the parts of the brain involved in listening to and performing music and how each contributes to the musical experience. The brain functions are new to me, but the music fundamentals are mot. Even so, the parts of the book that describe how music is put together are extremely interesting, elegant, and easy to understand for the layperson.

The meat of the book details the cognitive neuroscience going on in our brains when we encounter music by listening, performing, or even simply imagining it. The descriptions of the brain parts and what they do are easy to understand, making this book a good introduction to the field. In order to get my own brain to understand and retain the information, I took traditional, linear notes, but I also made a mind map for each part involved in music cognition. The linear notes are more wordy with quotes and explanations. The mind maps are color-coded and show where the brain part is located in the brain. Here is the Cerebellum map:
The colors I used in these maps correspond to a larger, more complex mind map which summarizes the various processes involved in listening to or performing music, and which brain parts are involved:
(Also, I couldn't resist retrospectively color-coding my linear notes to match these mind maps. My brain responds to and remembers colors.)

Both kinds of notes are helpful to me. The linear notes are good for review. I can repeatedly read over the sections I want to master and the words eventually stick. The mind maps help the visual part of my brain remember the spatial stuff, and they serve as a brief review of concepts. Once the details are mastered from reading and linear note review, the mind maps will prompt the concepts and their relationships and provide the framework for future writing and speaking. Simply from taking the notes, creating the mind maps (and assigning colors), this process has already started to occur.

Using Mind Maps to Learn Stuff

2010-03-17T08:28:00.009-04:00

My sabbatical project is on mind mapping: using these web-like, image-laden diagrams to study, recall and communicate information. Although I usually draw my mind maps by hand, I am fond of a few of the programs available. Today I'm experimenting with MindMeister. This program is interesting because it allows the mind mapper to store mind maps in The Cloud and access them from anywhere. Cool. These mind maps can also be accessed by others for collaboration and brainstorming purposes. Very cool. The stripped-down sample MindMeister is free, and there are two more elaborate versions that cost some money. Free is for me, or course, so whatever you see here from MindMeister will be from the free version unless I fall in love and dish out some precious cash. (It's possible as it's really not that expensive.)

My first experimental MindMeister Mind Map will be used to map stuff for the mind map article I am working on. What I plan to do since I am studying mind maps in education and learning, is to learn something completely new to me and evaluate how effective mind maps are in helping me learn and organize information. My background is in the arts, and more specifically in Music, but recently there have been some very interesting books on how the brain processes music. The brain part--Science--is completely unfamiliar to me intellectually. I am fascinated by the brain and how it works, especially after losing my father to a stroke and my mother to dementia. First hand I saw, twice, how the brain can go haywire. Both cases were horrifying and heartbreaking at the same time that they were fascinating. I couldn't (and didn't want to) take the time when I was living through those ordeals to learn more about the brain, but I can now. Linking what I learn to music will make it even more interesting to me.

So here is my MindMeister Mind Map, begun this morning, on that project. I am sure I will be adding lots to it and becoming more familiar with its functions. Click on the square icon in the bottom bar to open the map in a new window and view the whole thing.

Mind Maps to the Rescue

2010-03-13T13:37:00.005-05:00

Mind maps have come to my rescue again. This time I was struggling to become proficient with some complicated (to me) educational stuff for a meeting where I might have to actually speak with knowledge. In prior meetings with this group I had experienced the uneasy feeling that everyone could speak this unfamiliar language but me. Of course, it wasn't a different language--it was English with a whole lot of jargon.

In advance of the meeting where I might have to speak, I created a mind map which included what I felt to be the important points and vocabulary. I linked similar items and relationships. Then I studied it every day. The initial process of organizing the information and creating the mind map helped me assimilate the information, too.

I only shared the mind map with one person from that group who also admits his facility with the concepts and jargon is less than what he would like. His experience will be different with a ready-made mind map, (from mine because I created it), but as he's also a visual learner, I think it might help.

I am reminded of another time I was stuck for a way to communicate a multifaceted idea of mine. The idea was to be communicated visually rather than verbally or with text only. This would be a poster session with a display on that tri-fold science fair cardboard sold at craft and office supply stores. This should have been a no-brainer for a lover of mind maps like me, but it took about a week of rumination before it dawned on me. I made the mind map in the shape of an apple tree with the main concept on the trunk. The branches each represented a higher-level subconcept, and the leaves and apples represented the next level of detail. It worked intellectually and the browns, greens and reds grabbed the attention of attendees at the event.

The moral of these stories is this: mind maps are not only organization and memory tools. they are dynamic methods for learning, teaching and communication, whether in the form of an apple tree or in a complex computer-generated diagram. Save information, brainstorm it, learn it, and communicate it.

P.S. There are no pictures in this post because I don't know what happened to the Apple Tree Mind Map, and this week's education example, although in technicolor, is probably one of the least visually appealing I have ever made. And my scanner is ill.

Snowmageddon Reading

2010-02-23T15:50:00.006-05:00

I am always amazed at how my seemingly random choices of reading (and movies) serendipitously overlap. What I mean is, I will choose two movies with the same star or that are set in the same obscure place and I had no idea of this when I chose them. With books, randomly chosen, I'm amazed at how one will mention the other, or the content overlaps.

For my recent blizzard adventure (Snowmageddon I) in Cape May, I brought a stack of books chosen from my "Sabbatical 2010 Book-a-Week Reading List" and some others. these books turned out to be my primary source of entertainment after the electricity went out and stayed out for three days. here are the three books I actually read from the stack: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck, and Notes from the Shore by Jennifer Ackerman. I thought I was choosing very different books, but I was surprised (and delighted) by the overlap.

Travels with Charley, where Steinbeck leaves his home on Long Island and travels across the county with his dog in a customized pick-up truck, and Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's groundbreaking environmental book, were both published in the very early 1960s. In the very early 1960s, I was a newborn and living in the very house in which I was experiencing Snowmageddon I. (I lived there until I was about three and my father got a job in Manhattan to support this late-in-life surprise baby. He had just retired from the US Coast Guard.) We lived on Staten Island, but visited the Cape May house often on weekends and in the summer. I remember the mosquito trucks driving around the neighborhood spraying their fog. Between the Delaware Bay four blocks away and all the salt marshes in the area, we had a lot of mosquitoes and they especially loved my father and me. (Mom could stand still out there and not get a bite.)

Anyhow, both Steinbeck and Carson describe the same America but from different perspectives. His is that of a writer who observes people, and hers is that of a writer who observes nature. Both describe a country and culture that has changed enormously in about fifty years.

Jennifer Ackerman's Notes from the Shore is a much more recent book, published in 1995. It is a collection of nine essays about Cape Henlopen, across the Delaware Bay from Cape May. That is where the Cape May-Lewes Ferry takes us, but I had only driven through it and not explored until about a decade ago. Ackerman is also a nature observer and writer, and describes this environment which is very similar to Cape May in some ways and very different in others. There's way less tourist traffic for one thing, so I imagine Cape May probably used to be more like Cape Henlopen. One of her essays is dedicated to the osprey, a large bird of prey that was almost wiped out by DDT spraying in the 1950s and 1960s. The poison chemicals made their eggs so weak and brittle that the mama osprey would crack them when she went to roost. The osprey population has rebuilt itself now, and we can see pairs of them in the warm weather on their nests. By page 48 of Ackerman's book, she had mentioned both Rachel Carson and John Steinbeck. Carson was no surprise since she was largely responsible for the public awareness that put an end to blanket pesticide spraying that allowed the ospreys to come back. But Steinbeck? Well, it seems that John Steinbeck found, in his Long Island garden, a gigantic osprey nest (they usually are) that contained three shirts, a bath towel an arrow and a rake. How cool is that? (A naturalist in Cape May once told us that an osprey nest there contained a hula hoop.)

Since I'm documenting everything during this sabbatical, I wanted to show the relationships between these three books. A mind map wasn't going to work for this because it wouldn't allow me to compare. Instead, I took a stab at a concept map, which is a way to map out similarities and differences between things. since I'm still without a scanner, I took an iPhone shot of my concept map to share. Also, if you are interested in what I'm reading, I'm keeping a list on LibraryThing where I am known as MargaretMontet.

My first attempt at a Knowledge Map

2010-02-13T14:10:00.006-05:00

After studying the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods (see previous post), and admiring the Knowledge Map, and deciding that those don't require too much drawing skill, I tried one. My printer/scanner is on the fritz (sorry Jackie), so I iPhoned it:

This is for an article on Twitter and Facebook and the different ways they are used. For the local publication that will be publishing the article, eventually, I brought in some local uses of the two tools.

Social Media is represented by the mainland on the left, and Twitter, Facebook, etc., are countries. In fainter print I've reminded myself of the various uses of each. The local users in Bucks County are represented on the green island. I made a few notes on their handles so that I can mention them in the article. The best quotes I received were from Peddler's Village (a quaint shopping village that features popular restaurants and many events), and Bucks County Community College (my main employer). Peddler's Village is linked to the mainland of Social Media by bridges, and BCCC runs a ferry service there. A road sign at the bottom points the way off-page to other social media countries I didn't treat in the article. I tried to work in a lighthouse because I could probably draw a decent one (better than the ferry anyway), but couldn't think how.

I enjoyed this exercise and, just like with a Mind Map, the act of drawing it helped me organize my thoughts and data. Just like with a Mind Map, many of the items works as prompts to help me remember the details I want to include. I'm hoping to wrap up this article tomorrow, but if I have to leave it for a few days, my Knowledge Map will help me pick up where I left off.

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

2010-02-13T10:26:00.003-05:00

I could sit and look at this Periodic Table all day. No, it has nothing to do with chemistry, of course, it illustrates many ways to visualize information.
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
Take a few moments to hover your cursor over the various elements, and see which your brains responds to most.

I'm partial to the aqua Concept Visualization elements: Mi for Mind Mapping and Co for Concept Mapping. However, I am drawn (no pun intended) the Compound Visualization elements in cornflower blue: Lm for Learning Map, Ri for Rich Picture, and Kn for Knowledge Map. I will probably be experimenting with the Knowledge Map for some current projects since it doesn't require above-average drawing skills. (There's the other part of the pun.)

Step back a bit and appreciate the Periodic Table itself. Organizing these visualization methods into such an elegant image took some research, deep original thought and obviously a knack for visualization.

I'm going to go stare at it for just a little while longer.

How I Use Mind Maps Most of the Time

2010-01-17T11:19:00.005-05:00

Before my big Mind Map project begins to take on steam, I thought I might explain myself a little. I've been using Mind Maps for about twenty years, since I was introduced to them in a book club meeting. I realized their potential for note-taking right away, and frequently draw up a Mind Map before book discussions. Incidentally, I began using them for creating schedules and triaging deadlines, too. Later on, when I discovered Mind Mapping software at an education conference I realized that they were also great tools for presentation, both for organizing and presenting information, and I began using them at work.

Today, I use Mind Maps most often for organizing ideas and making connections between points of information when I write. I do a fair amount of freelance writing which involves research, visiting destinations and interviewing experts and public relations people. Information from all of these sources has to be organized somehow, and for me (a visual learner) a Mind Map is the most effective way. Not all my writing makes it into print or online publications. Sometimes I'm content to write about my travels on my other blog devoted to writing (http://margaretmontet.blogspot.com/) with photos and videos added. Sometimes these blogposts grow or combine to make bigger articles, but sometimes they just occupy space on my blog and remind me what I saw and what I thought while I was in a place.

The following picture is a typical Mind Map that I would make as an aid to writing about a place. I visited The Vizcaya Museum & Gardens in Miami at Christmastime and organized my information in a hand-drawn Mind Map. I like Mind Mapping software, and I use it almost always when other people are going to be looking at my notes, but I enjoy the process of creating the visual representation of my topic with colors, lines and varying font sizes when the Mind Map is just for me. Some thought had to go into the initial organization of this Mind Map before I started drawing. I decided to start with four main subtopics (History, Mansion Inside, Waterfront and Garden) before I started adding subtopics. The best Mind Maps have little pictures associated with their topics, but I shy away from attempting drawings, even the most rudimentary. I do enjoy using colors, and my brain tends to remember colors that I associate with concepts. I only took the time to apply colors to the first level of subtopics in the Vizcaya Mind Map, but sometimes I go a little crazy with my Crayola colored pencils (you'll see in my future posts here), coloring-in boxes and circles, reinforcing connecting lines, and shading entire areas.

So take a look at the Vizcaya Mind Map, and if it interests you check out the corresponding blogpost at http://margaretmontet.blogspot.com. I would love to read your comments, too!

Speaking from Mind Maps

2009-08-06T22:33:00.002-04:00

Today I did a marathon presentation for 25 librarians: five hours on information literacy, best teaching practices, and emerging technologies for teaching. Five hours is a long time to speak, but I have my mind map to thank for organizing all of this information and keeping me on task while speaking. I had one main hand-drawn mind map to refer to during the workshop, and this launched me to two older mind maps and my Delicious.com site for certain sections.

No, I didn't project a mind map for the participants since there was just too much information and too many visuals to show. The mind maps were for my purposes only. But, I did show them the mind map I was using and I made my mind map business cards with this address and my Twitter name on them available. My Delicious site also has many mind map links on it (including this blog), so I am hoping I at least created some curiosity about the effectiveness of mind maps.

If anyone from today's session is reading this, please comment! I'd love to know what you think.

Twittering for Mind Maps

2009-05-18T14:01:00.004-04:00

I am delighted with the amount of mind map information I have gathered with Twitter! As an experiment, I set up a second Twitter account dedicated to mind mapping as part of my upcoming sabbatical project. I intended this to be a way to share interesting sites, software, and uses for mind maps, but I am learning much more than I'm contributing so far. After I did a search for mind maps and mind mappers on Twitter, I was rewarded with a host of Twittering mind map experts from around the world. It seems that mind mappers also tend to be Twitterers and bloggers! Now in addition to my project journal, I have begun a binder of Other People's Mind Maps that I find especially useful and aesthetically pleasing, and I've added to my mind map links on www.delicious.com. (Don't worry, mind map creators, the Librarian's Code of Honor etched on my brain requires me to give credit to any work that is not my own in any of the products I create from this project.) My mind map sabbatical project does not actually begin until January 2010, so this is all advance work until then. For preliminary stuff, it is very exciting.

Therefore, this post has three purposes:

to invite any interested mind mappers out there to follow my mind mapping Twitter self at www.twitter.com/margaretmndmpng and peek at those that I follow, and,
to urge researchers to use Twitter as a research tool in order to find interesting and current perspectives on their topics, and,
to prove that mind maps are a practical tool for writers, speakers, teachers, and anyone who needs to organize information, brainstorm, or improve memory.

What do you think?

More on Mind Mapping Software

2009-03-31T11:32:00.002-04:00

My good buddy and sole-blog-Follower, Tony, (also a crackerjack librarian and technology guru) sent me this post all about Mind Mapping software. My favorite is not on the list, but I'm intrigued especially by the free ones. (I love the Mind Map topics, too!)
http://lifehacker.com/5188833/hive-five-five-best-mind-mapping-applications

Rhode Island School of Design

2009-03-25T09:41:00.004-04:00

They may call them Concept Maps, but Rhode Island School of Design is requiring students to learn how to map their ideas. Librarian Ellen Petraits created a tutorial showing students how to organize their research ideas before plunging into databases and catalogs. Check out this great tutorial here:

http://www.risd.edu/pdf/conceptmapping.pps

Reno

2009-03-16T08:59:00.006-04:00

It's a long way from Philadelphia to Reno, and there are no direct flights. We got to see Las Vegas's airport and an aerial view of the Strip and Lake Mead on the way here. "Here" is the Innovations 2009 conference at the Grand Sierra Resort. The place is huge with a large casino (more poker than in Atlantic City), restaurants, stores, bowling, a movie theater, a live entertainment theater, and...a wedding chapel. Those white sticks in the photo are the frame for a big slingshot swing, but Bill won't volunteer to go for a ride so that I can get a better picture. But I digress.

I'm here for the conference, to learn about the newest stuff and newest ideas in education. This is an especially relevant conference because it is aimed at a community college audience. After only one day I've written down pages and notes to put into practice when I get back to the east coast. I attended presentations on clickers (classroom response devices) and You Tube among others.

In the exhibition hall (and this is my point), I visited the MatchWare booth and talked to Dave Hamilton about my upcoming sabbatical project. This is the software I use for making Mind Maps on the computer, and there's a spiffy new update out which I will have to procure. The new name is MindView 3, so I will have to update all my presentation handouts. MatchWare also now has desktop recording software that will put my Mind Map making into a movie so that I can insert that footage into next year's humdinger of a tutorial next. These two products are designed to work together, and the ScreenCorder 5 is much more streamlined than Captivate and Camtasia. I can use it for other desktop recording, so it will be a great addition to my current gear.

Don't ask about the weather--we haven't been outside since we arrived at the hotel. We seem to be surrounded by mountains and highways. I know there's a downtown out there somewhere, but we may just be too busy being inspired to check it out. These photos are from my window.

Clickers

2009-03-13T14:37:00.005-04:00

I am back to the routine today after spending two days in Philadelphia (Temple University!!) learning how to use "clickers" (okay, classroom response systems) in teaching. I had experimented with these briefly, but when contemplating how to use them I had only imagined the tip of the iceberg. Yesterday's Turning Technologies conference breakout sessions gave me new ideas on what kinds of questions to ask students, how to use clickers in presentations, and other innovative ways to incorporate clickers to engage listeners and encourage discussion. I think our new set of library clickers will be a popular teaching tool. I transcribed my notes from the various presentations onto cards today so that I'll be able to make a coherent presentation to the librarians. Of course the cards will transform into a Mind Map for presentation! We're even going to have one of the presenters from yesterday visit our group to speak as a knowledgeable user with hopes that his enthusiasm will infect our librarians.

Why is this post in my Mind Mapping blog? Because occasionally I do presentations on Mind Mapping, of course, and clickers would work in that setting, too. In the future, we may be using mobile devices as clickers in online presentations, and this would be a great technology for collecting demographics on users, tutorial usability, along with content assessment information. (This online clicking technology exists and other institutions are using it already. Give us time.)

One of the best parts of this conference was that I won FOUR prizes! The sessions I attended used giveaways as tools for engagement. It's too late for me to incorporate this into Monday's Embedded Ebrarian presentation, but in the future... I'd like to also point out that I snatched my new red Frisbee out of the air with my left (non-dominant) hand. I also have a new red squishy ball, a mug from Fairleigh Dickinson's Education Department, and a bright yellow Turning Technologies T-Shirt that says, "Push my buttons!" And we had live harp music at lunch in Mitten Hall.

An Actual Mind Map Sample

2009-03-05T10:43:00.002-05:00

In case you're wondering what the heck a Mind Map is, I've posted a sample at the bottom of this page. Yes, it is teeny, and yes, it is only a picture of a Mind Map so any functionality (links, hidden images, etc.) do not work. Better samples will be posted in the future. But the picture will give an idea about how dynamic a tool Mind Maps are for brainstorming and finding relationships between subtopics. On the right side of this particular sample, I have listed the components of my grand sabbatical project, each with their own branch and sub-branches. On the right I started to imagine what benefits this will have for the college community. I'm sure the left side will fill out once I start working in earnest and there will be surprises as well as examples of benefits for folks outside the college community.

2009-03-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

In anticipation of my long-dreamt-about sabbatical on the many uses for Mind Mapping in education, I am now presenting the offical Margaret MindMapping Blog. Please share with me your ideas about the uses of Mind Mapping whether you think your ideas are innovative or not! I'd also like to hear about unexpected places where you have seen Mind Maps used. So far, besides in classes and in students' homework assignments, I've seen them used on the show "Without a Trace" where police brainstorm to figure out what has happened to missing people, and on a Sylvan Learning Center commercial where one is used to show a young student how to organize her thoughts about a favorite topic.

I'll be sharing my own ideas, discoveries, adventures, and Mind Maps in the months leading up to the long-dreamt-about sabbatical (beginning in January 2010), and once my sabbatical starts I will post with greater frequency.

Please comment if you are interested in Mind Mapping!