Bubbl.us mindmaps

I am co-presenting with Elizabeth Barwick next month at the Upstate
Technology Conference here in Greenville, South Carolina. The title
of the presentation is Low-Prep (Technological) Activating and
Summarizing Strategies. That is a mouthful! We chose this topic
for many reasons. First of all, we believe in activating and summarizing
strategies because they focus the learning and engage students.
According to Sousa (2003), we remember best what we experience
first in a lesson, and we remember second best what experience last.

With that in mind, we wish to give educators many examples of
technological activating and summarizing strategies that are
low-prep and easy to implement. One of the tools we will present
next month is a mindmap. From all of the technology in the world,
why would we choose to show teachers how to use a mindmap? Well,
a mindmap is a diagram that connects information around a central
subject. The center is the main idea, and the branches are the
suptopics or related ideas. Mindmaps link and group concepts together
through natural associations. This helps generate more ideas and helps
the reader or creator find deeper meaning in the subject.

The tool we will show participants is bubbl.us. This website allows people to create mindmaps, share a read-only link to the map, embed a read-only copy of a map, OR collaborate on a map. I particularly like the collaboration part of the map. In order to collaborate, each participant must have a bubbl.us account, which is free.

Bubbl.us is extremely easy to use. If you are the kind of person who likes to explore, you will be able to figure out exactly how to manage the tool by clicking and dragging. For those of us who like to read directions first, try this extremely helpful getting started tutorial.

Below is a simplictic version of the mindmap we created to use with participants next month. This mindmap will grow since we will collaboratively explore the tool.