MindMup mind mapping tool

I’ve started experimenting with this mind mapping tool which is now available through Google as an app. This is a very simple tool which can be easily used and manipulated to gather your ideas with students. Once you get the language of the tools you can follow keyboard shortcuts to add new nodes to your maps.

You can also use MindMup from the URL http://www.minmup.com I’ve connected mine to my google account so that I can then save directly to my Google Drive, otherwise it’s saved to the cloud and you need to keep track of your URL location.

Once you have finished creating your mind map you can then export to various formats (including as an image or table).

What I like most about this tool is the simplicity. I will be teaching my students how to use this tool and incorporating it into some pre assessment and post assessment work.

 

 

Why should we tweet?

I love Twitter! It is one of the most amazing source of information for 21st Century educators. Twitter is a social media tool where users can send short messages (up to 140 characters) into the Twittersphere for others to read. Tweets are usually hashtagged (eg. #education #ICT ) to allow people to search for topics. You can follow people and see their tweets and they can follow you. I follow many different people and hashtags. Edudemic, Cybrary Man and OzTweechersPLN provide a quick guide to educational hashtags for teachers. While the Index to Educational Twitter Hashtags is another great place to start out.

TWEETING IN SCHOOLS

There are many reasons why we should tweet within schools but there are also concerns that are raised by some who believe that social media is not suitable for children. In my opinion social media can be successful in schools as long as it is used properly, like all teaching strategies used in schools. I’m sure we have all seen teaching strategies and methods that make us cringe because they are not being used properly of safely. Social media is the same. Use it within the guidelines set out by your school and it can be a phenomenal tool.

The following are some articles which highlight some of the positive and negative reasons for the use of social media in the classroom:

Pros and Cons of Social Media in the Classroom

Social Media in the K-12 Classroom

 Twitter in My Classroom

 Social Media Belongs in the Classroom

WHAT YOU NEED TO REMEMBER??

Like all social media you can choose your privacy settings… You can protect your tweets so that only your followers can see what you have written, this may be one way of protecting classroom privacy. If you are tweeting as a classroom then all tweets should be approved by the teacher before adding to Twitter. Or use a safer option like Twiducate this site has greater security options available and is specifically for schools and classrooms.

 

David Truss – blog and podcasts

This blog is another excellent find via Twitter. I’ve spent a fair bit of time browsing and learning from this blog. David Truss blogs regularly delivery his thoughts and insights on various topics. My current favourite of this recent blogs is titled Learning about Learning in this blog he highlights the word of John Hattie and his focus on Visible Learning. This blog from David includes a couple of videos which are very useful.

The graphic below is what every teacher should be aiming for in the classroom… making that magic happen through ensuring how we are teaching is engaging our students in learning.

Truss

Taken from http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Learning-About-Learning-David-Truss-BY-NC-SA-1024×475.jpg

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