28 Aralık 2009 Pazartesi
13 Aralık 2009 Pazar
MINDOMO
MINDOMO
www.mindomo.com
Mindomo is such a tool that you can use it to make visual representations. It allows you to create mind maps, to create problem and solution summaries or to make outline of a presentation, project or a study. In the website, there are mind maps already created by others which are accessible to get an idea how the mindomo works. On the other hand, to create your own mind maps, you need to create a basic account using a valid e-mail address in the website which will enable you to create up to 7 mind maps. If you find it useful and would like to use it more professionally, you can buy a premium account which will allow you to use more sophisticated features such as exporting maps in various formats, password protecting, spell checker, unlimited map creation and some others for 6$ per month. In addition, to be able to use this tool, Flash Player 7 is required. This tool should be a must for teachers who give importance to visual media in their teaching. Rather than boring – ordinary - hand outs, representations created by mindomo can have more impact on students and they will like to use mindomo when preparing their tasks for today, children spend more time with their computers and enjoy using it very much.
You can use mindomo with limited features by running demo version which doesn’t require registration. However, to have more options, at least basic account registration is required.
First, you can go to main page and click one of sign up buttons.
The next step is deciding on which account type works for you. We choose basic account in order to have a free account. We click the sign up button.
On the next screen, we are required to fill the gaps with some personal information such as our name, age and e-mail address and then we click the ‘I agree’ button.
This is the last screen of registration. If you get this screen, all you have to do is going to you e mail account and activating the registration link for mindomo. After that, click ‘sign in’ and enter your username and password, now you are ready to use mindomo.
Now, it is time to create our map. To do this, click on ‘create your first map’.
On the screen, we are given a list of editors and a central topic box. By clicking topics or subtopics, we can create the map according to our aim. Also formatting tools help us to edit our written texts. By dragging topic boxes we created, we can move them and subtpics connected to them freely. #1 is given to us as central topic, #2 is main topic which can be dragged, #3 is subtopics.
You can also add photos or videos to enhance you meaning. But if you don’t have premium account, only you can add via url since it doesn’t upload from your computer. You can use the left side menu to find proper multimedia from the net. You to write keyword when looking for videos from Youtube or pictures from Flickr or Wikipedia.
The last step is to save your map. Using mindomo menu on the top left, you can save it on your online folder or to use as handout or worksheet in printed form [of course without audio or video :)] you can import it as pdf or image file. Select a folder to save your document on your computer and that’s all. Now you have a document which is ready to be printed out if you wish.
Students can use the Mindomo as well as teachers. There are online versions of already created maps available to everybody, so you can benefit from any of them when creating yours. I want to state 5 ways of using mindomo with your students in foreign language teaching:
• Vocabulary study
This tool will help you both categorise and visualise your study. When teaching vocabulary, as the teacher, you can create several categories as verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. So at one time, as you are deal with one group of words, students will more easily follow you and this will more likely to help your students understand relations between words.
• Grammar study
By using grouping, grammar understanding is much more likely to occur more easily among your students. They can use it to see the connections, similarities or differences between grammatical points. For example, you can add a text in picture format and may ask them to group tenses used in this text and generate rules how to use them.
• Improve summary and analysis
Using mindomo in your presentations or teaching will improve student’s analyzing and summarizing skills. Because you emphasize key points on maps, students will get the idea of the concept and what to pay attention to. In addition, seeing the concepts, students fill find it easier to make connections among them.
• Enriched studies
When using mindomo, you don’t have to be sticked to only notes. You can add multimedia to your map to increase its effectiveness and this can help you to create more interesting tests for your students. For example, on your map, you can put a video which is produced by non native speakers and create two topics as mispronounced verbs and correctly pronounced verbs. Then you ask your students to list the verbs under the right title. After that, you can regroup the verbs as regular and irregular verbs and work on this as the whole class.
• Writing
Mind maps lead your students to brainstorming. Each of them may have different ideas about one topic. This can be benefitted from in order to improve writing skills.
This tool does not require too sophisticated computer skills, even a person with limited computer limited skills somehow can use it. However, one has to register to website to use it (with limited features). Since it is an online tool, to create maps, you need internet connection and a web browser with Flash Player. There may occur some problems related to verification mail. It may be sent to your spam box which may be too difficult to solve for inexperienced computer users. Also you can’t upload a picture or a video from your computer which may interfere with your work to some extend. One another problem may be option of importing limited extension without premium membership. Also only 7 map creation can be seen as a problem.
Most of this problems are related to premium membership or computer using skills. The only problems that are directly related to students are creativity skills and visual intelligence. They may not be able to think to create a map due to lack of creation or they may be kinesthetic or audotory learners who somehow benefits none from visualisations. To overcome these ones, including multimedias or preparing tasks according to students’ interest can help you to come up with solutions.
MINDOMO by SERCAN ÇELİK is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.mindomo.com.
www.mindomo.com
Mindomo is such a tool that you can use it to make visual representations. It allows you to create mind maps, to create problem and solution summaries or to make outline of a presentation, project or a study. In the website, there are mind maps already created by others which are accessible to get an idea how the mindomo works. On the other hand, to create your own mind maps, you need to create a basic account using a valid e-mail address in the website which will enable you to create up to 7 mind maps. If you find it useful and would like to use it more professionally, you can buy a premium account which will allow you to use more sophisticated features such as exporting maps in various formats, password protecting, spell checker, unlimited map creation and some others for 6$ per month. In addition, to be able to use this tool, Flash Player 7 is required. This tool should be a must for teachers who give importance to visual media in their teaching. Rather than boring – ordinary - hand outs, representations created by mindomo can have more impact on students and they will like to use mindomo when preparing their tasks for today, children spend more time with their computers and enjoy using it very much.
To Use Mindomo
You can use mindomo with limited features by running demo version which doesn’t require registration. However, to have more options, at least basic account registration is required.
First, you can go to main page and click one of sign up buttons.
The next step is deciding on which account type works for you. We choose basic account in order to have a free account. We click the sign up button.
On the next screen, we are required to fill the gaps with some personal information such as our name, age and e-mail address and then we click the ‘I agree’ button.
This is the last screen of registration. If you get this screen, all you have to do is going to you e mail account and activating the registration link for mindomo. After that, click ‘sign in’ and enter your username and password, now you are ready to use mindomo.
Now, it is time to create our map. To do this, click on ‘create your first map’.
On the screen, we are given a list of editors and a central topic box. By clicking topics or subtopics, we can create the map according to our aim. Also formatting tools help us to edit our written texts. By dragging topic boxes we created, we can move them and subtpics connected to them freely. #1 is given to us as central topic, #2 is main topic which can be dragged, #3 is subtopics.
You can also add photos or videos to enhance you meaning. But if you don’t have premium account, only you can add via url since it doesn’t upload from your computer. You can use the left side menu to find proper multimedia from the net. You to write keyword when looking for videos from Youtube or pictures from Flickr or Wikipedia.
The last step is to save your map. Using mindomo menu on the top left, you can save it on your online folder or to use as handout or worksheet in printed form [of course without audio or video :)] you can import it as pdf or image file. Select a folder to save your document on your computer and that’s all. Now you have a document which is ready to be printed out if you wish.
How to Use it with Students
Students can use the Mindomo as well as teachers. There are online versions of already created maps available to everybody, so you can benefit from any of them when creating yours. I want to state 5 ways of using mindomo with your students in foreign language teaching:
• Vocabulary study
This tool will help you both categorise and visualise your study. When teaching vocabulary, as the teacher, you can create several categories as verbs, nouns, adjectives etc. So at one time, as you are deal with one group of words, students will more easily follow you and this will more likely to help your students understand relations between words.
• Grammar study
By using grouping, grammar understanding is much more likely to occur more easily among your students. They can use it to see the connections, similarities or differences between grammatical points. For example, you can add a text in picture format and may ask them to group tenses used in this text and generate rules how to use them.
• Improve summary and analysis
Using mindomo in your presentations or teaching will improve student’s analyzing and summarizing skills. Because you emphasize key points on maps, students will get the idea of the concept and what to pay attention to. In addition, seeing the concepts, students fill find it easier to make connections among them.
• Enriched studies
When using mindomo, you don’t have to be sticked to only notes. You can add multimedia to your map to increase its effectiveness and this can help you to create more interesting tests for your students. For example, on your map, you can put a video which is produced by non native speakers and create two topics as mispronounced verbs and correctly pronounced verbs. Then you ask your students to list the verbs under the right title. After that, you can regroup the verbs as regular and irregular verbs and work on this as the whole class.
• Writing
Mind maps lead your students to brainstorming. Each of them may have different ideas about one topic. This can be benefitted from in order to improve writing skills.
Anticipated Problems
This tool does not require too sophisticated computer skills, even a person with limited computer limited skills somehow can use it. However, one has to register to website to use it (with limited features). Since it is an online tool, to create maps, you need internet connection and a web browser with Flash Player. There may occur some problems related to verification mail. It may be sent to your spam box which may be too difficult to solve for inexperienced computer users. Also you can’t upload a picture or a video from your computer which may interfere with your work to some extend. One another problem may be option of importing limited extension without premium membership. Also only 7 map creation can be seen as a problem.
Most of this problems are related to premium membership or computer using skills. The only problems that are directly related to students are creativity skills and visual intelligence. They may not be able to think to create a map due to lack of creation or they may be kinesthetic or audotory learners who somehow benefits none from visualisations. To overcome these ones, including multimedias or preparing tasks according to students’ interest can help you to come up with solutions.
MINDOMO by SERCAN ÇELİK is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.mindomo.com.
Kaydol:
Yorumlar (Atom)