Group applications
One mapper at a flip chart or large sheet of paper on the wall can
capture key ideas, enabling the group to watch as their ideas are
recorded and relationships made clear.
It is also helpful for each individual to create a document of his or her
point of view, preferences, or responsibilities. Next the group can
combine the maps to form a coherent record of their work together.
This process works well for clarifying goals, shared values, and visions
for the future.
Any member of the group can use the group's map or his or her
individual map to share ideas and insights with others by "walking
them through the map." During presentations, rather than showing
slides with sentences on them or distributing lengthy documents, a
comprehensive map can convey the overview and the details in an
engaging and memorable fashion.
(p.50)
Definition
Mind Mapping is an easy-to-learn, straightforward system for
generating and organizing any ideas. Using a central image, key
words, colors, codes, and symbols, the process is both fun and fast.
(p.10)
Advantages
...we can employ systems like visual mapping that don't restrict, but
rather promote, creative thinking. (p.12)
Mapping enables us to express our understanding as we take in and
transform information into knowledge and wisdom. (p.12)
Mindmap program
The Mindmap program is a tool designed to support mind-mapping
principles described by Tony Buzan. The main purpose is to create a
meeting place where distributed users can brainstorm, discuss and
build joint mind maps. (p.153)
Perry Zeus & Suzanne Skiffington 2002
The Coaching at Work Toolkit
Zeus, P. & Skiffington, S. (2002). The coaching at work toolkit: a
complete guide to techniques and practices. Sydney; New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Advantages
Mind-mapping, developed by Tony Buzan in the 1970s, is an effective
method of organising information and improving thinking skills. Mind-
mapping allows us to see the big picture and the details. It enhances
the free association of ideas, generates creativity, and integrates logic
and imagination. (p.289)
Classroom activities
During the exercise, it is important for the instructor to circulate among
the groups to help those groups that are having trouble getting started
and those that need prompting to broaden their thinking. Because
Mind Maps are generally not familiar to most students, the groups also
benefit from encouragement to incorporate color and small pictures as
organizational aids and prompts. Once started, however, some groups
also need to be redirected away from elaborate drawings toward more
substance. This is an informal method of continuous feedback (Huba
and Freed 2000). Circulating among the groups also gives the
instructor a chance to interact with the students in a more personal
manner than a traditional chalk-and-talk lecture affords. Lastly, the
Mind Map exercise was not graded and
lacked formal mechanisms to ensure participation of all group
members. Moving from group to group during the exercise allows the
instructor to observe the extent of participation and to get the more
passive group members to be more active. For example, I frequently
address questions specifically to the passive group members and then
turn their answers into concrete action steps on the Mind Maps. (p.39)
Mind Maps can be used to add active and collaborative learning to
courses. Students are engaged in active learning as they wrestle with
ideas, associations, and categories in creating a Mind Map-they are
creating their own Mind Map, not simply looking at one created by the
instructor. The exercise is collaborative because the Mind Maps are
created as a small group effort. A collaborative relationship between
the instructor and students can also be established as the instructor
helps with the constructions of the Mind Maps, but as a "guide on the
side" not as the "sage on the stage". (p.40)
Michael F.Ruffini
Designing an eMap to Teach Multimedia Applications Online 2004
Ruffini, M. F. (2004). Designing an eMap to teach multimedia
applications online. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 31(4), 383-391.
eMap operations
A word more on each of these features is merited. One can easily
restructure a computer-generated maps in seconds, moving words
and trees of words around without reconstructing the entire map. This
makes the computer-generated mind map ideal for quickly creating
new ideas and ordering them into a meaningful structure. If a series of
branches gets too large, a user can collapse them by inserting and
activating a minus circle on each subtopic branch. To open the branch
subtopics the user simply selects a plus circle. (p.385)
Colored arrows, which are easy to draw and insert, can indicate
connections between terms. A user might also choose to explain
certain parts of a map by adding supplementary comments. (p.386)
With the symbol gallery, a user can even choose a set of images to
consistently associate with different types or categories of informations
book icon to denote supplementary readings, for example, or a
teaching icon to denote learning activities. (p.387)
One of the best features of an emap is its malleability within other
computer programs. emaps (computer-generated mind maps) can
instantly be exported to a plain text file, a Microsoft Word or rich text
file, a Web page, or a PowerPoint presentation. (p.387)
Meaningful learning
Mind mapping is a powerful graphic organizing tool that can facilitate
"meaningful learning". Meaningful learning is based on cognitive
psychologist David Ausubel's Meaningful Learning Theory. In
Ausubel's view, to learn meaningfully, students must relate new
knowledge (concepts and propositions) to what they already know. He
proposed the notion of an advanced organizer as a way to help
students link their ideas with new material or concepts. Ausubel's
theory of learning claims that new concepts to be learned can be
incorporated into more inclusive concepts or ideas. According to
Ausubel, to learn meaningfully, individuals must relate new knowledge
to relevant concepts they already know. Meaningful learning can be
contrasted with rote learning which also can incorporate new
information into the knowledge structure but without interaction. Rote
learning occurs when a student simply memorizes information with no
attempt or motivation to relate that information to prior knowledge.
Rote learning
is easily forgotten and not easily applied in new learning or problem
solving situations. Meaningful learning occurs when links between new
information and the learner's preexisting cognitive structures are
connected. Mind Maps provide learners with a graphical way to
organize information and thoughts for understanding, remembering,
and are powerful tools that can be used to enhance learning.
(p.383-384)
e-Map
An e-map can organize and sequence content nonlinearly on one web
page by placing the main topic in an image-centered diagram with
interrelated main and subtopic connections or branches in a radial
format. E-mapping thus offers a powerful e-learning and organizational
technique that visually displays main topics, subtopics, concepts, and
images and the relationships between them.
(p.56)
Mind-mapping software
...a new generation of "mind-mapping" software can also be used as a
digital "blank slate" to help connect and synthesize ideas and data --
and ultimately create new knowledge.
Drawing to know
'Drawing to know' is the use of drawing as a way of mapping
relationships, whether physical or abstract, geographical
(cartographic), mathematical (for example, geometrical and
topological) or scientific, enabling the sorting and classification of
observations, ideas and concepts about the physical world and
supporting the development of cognitive schema to construct broader
conceptual relationships. This mapping of the perceived world
includes the use of drawing to model abstract ideas and relationships
as well as using drawing to explore and represent the position of
objects in space. (p.120)
Relational mapping
The plotting of ideas and relationships that spread out from a single
central idea are variously called concept webs, mind maps, spider
diagrams and so on. The term 'concept plot' seems to cover all of
these diagrams, and be the one that might prove most useful. Books
that describe a whole range of diagrams that may be used in different
circumstances are sometimes sold under the banner of 'accelerating
learning'. What they are doing is teaching children to objectifying their
conceptual understanding through creating visualizations and
employing graphics to support their thinking about specific topics.
Underlying the genre is the general premise that many different kinds
of problems have the same relational form. Since the essence of
genius is to perceive a common form in two or more apparently
incompatible, conflicting or divergent data-sets, ideas, concepts or
areas of knowledge, it is argued that if children can be taught the
basics of relational mapping, then their thinking will be so much the
more powerful. (p.127-128)
Cognitive capabilities
Providing children with a range of graphical techniques for clarifying,
analysing and seeking solutions to problem scenarios enables them to
see common forms within apparently diverse situations. These
graphical devices (which form part of the foundations of system
analysis) can be taught to children, even though their perception of the
potentials of this systematic way of thinking will be limited. They will
begin to perceive vocabulary and diagrammatic toolkit that they can
learn to apply across many different disciplines and areas of
knowledge. It may not accelerate learning, but it will enrich children's
cognitive capabilities. They will have a greater range of 'containers' in
which to store their understanding and ideas. (p.128)
Problem solving
Many of these devices are genuinely helpful in supporting the
categorization of problems and of simplifying them into known forms.
Bruner (1979) cites Weldon's assertion that the essence of problem-
solving is the ability to convert the problem into a puzzle form that is
already familiar and for which a solution or methodology is already
known. Using graphics to model these puzzle forms is a powerful
strategy. The Venn diagram, the mind map and other graphic forms
described above all fall into this category. Children can begin to
appreciate the power of these kinds of diagrams as analysis tools
through such activities as designing board games and using tree
diagrams to represent the structure of websites, and Key Stage 2
children may find it helpful to plan out the links between their pages
with pencil and paper before creating the hyperlinks on screen. They
can then check that the links they make via the keyboard conform to
their intentions. (p.128)
Visualizing relations
Concept map, mind map and knowledge map are all successful
solutions to visualize knowledge. (Zhao, Huang & Lu, 2005)
After instruction design and classroom instruction, teachers will get a
clearer view of the relations among the knowledge units. It is time to
provide chances for teachers to describe the relations. But it is not
ensure that they can describe it easily. Relations among knowledge
units will trouble them a lot. To solve this problem, visualization, like
concept map, could be helpful. (p.411)
Zhao Guoqing, Huang Ronghuai & Lu Zhijian (2005). Theory and
Mehtodology of Knowledge Visualization, 11(1), 23-27.
Classroom activities
A few examples are discussed within this article: how to help high
school students set up research papers or a paper in general, a
discussion of Jacquieline Briggs Martin's Snowflake Bentley
(Scholastic, 1999) with elementary students, and an overview of the
Big6 process for middle and high school students.
Ideas coming from Cristine Goldberg:
Show a mind map with a few main branches and let students create
the whole.
Show only the central image to let students redraw the previous map.
Show a complete mind map and let students to add their own
keywords, icons, images.
何嘉華 2006
畫出思考:「思維導圖」 的學習與運用
何嘉華 (2006)。《畫出思考:「思維導圖」的學習與運用》。香港:匯
智出版。
三大類用途
「思維導圖」對學習任何一科都有 助,學生可以用「思維導圖」做
筆記、預習、構思寫作內容、複習、計畫讀書報告、建構「專題研習」
的主題網、引導小組開會、協作學習......。 (p.66)
1. 自由隨意聯想
「自由隨意聯想」是只有一個主題,無任何其他資料限制,可以隨意
聯想。同一個題目,各人的「思維導圖」都不一樣,因為構思的寫作
內容各有不同。聯想的過程,著重流暢性,以便產生更多意念。
2. 展示對已有知識的理解
「展示對已有知識的理解」是學生把一些已有知識,如四邊形的定
義、種類及各類四邊形的特性,展示在「思維導圖」這幅平面上,使
人看到它們彼此的連繫。又或者將學生的思考過程,用「思維導圖」
展現出來,如計算一條數學題。
3. 重新整理課文
「重新整理課文」是將一些文字,如一個單元、一篇文章或一個段
落,用「思維導圖」重新建構一次,突破傳統的純文字的限制,以便
左、右腦同時思考。
Visual learners
Visual learners are students who learn best when images are
incorporated into instruction. They usually outnumber other kinds of
learners. Research tells us that the number of visual learners in a
typical classroom is usually well above fifty percent.
... Another form of instruction that is helpful for visual learners is the
graphic organizer.
Sometimes called "mind maps" or "concept maps", graphic organizers
are illustrative tools that assist with managing thoughts, directing
learning, and making connections.
Visual tools
While visual tools have been shown to be effective in schools,
educators need to become aware that visual tools and software
programs are now commonplace throughout the world, around the
world. Graphical software tools for organizing information are now
added to word-processing and database spreadsheets to help workers
and clients communicate smoothly as novel ideas, information,
inventories, and solutions to problems are moved through systems.
(p.5)
...all students may be engaged with visual tools at the highest levels. It
has become ever clearer that visual tools as high-quality nonlinguistic
representations are designed as practical, effective, dynamic,
collaborative, and learner centered. Importantly, these proven tools
are theory embedded, transferable across disciplines, and are
becoming part of the assessment and self-assessment processes of
learning. (p.5-6)