Week 3 Posting

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According to the video, you can a visual brainstorming sheet. You can put the main idea in the middle, and then add ideas to the outer area. They all should connect to the main idea. And, you can do more with your brainstorming than just words. You can add an image to one of your bubbles to better illustrate the idea you are trying to convey. This can also make it more interesting and can make things much clearer. You can show how certain items stem from others. They all don't have to connect primarily with the main idea. You can connect a further thought to one of the surrounding bubbles to further your thoughts and ideas.





Once you place a bubble in one place, it does not have to permanently stay there. You can easily rearrange bubbles if you want to change the look of it.





Another great feature of this program is that you can create notes that can include details, definitions, and more. And, it won't clutter up your screen because you can minimize it when you are not needing to read it. You can also link your bubbles to outlines that illustrate your idea in an alternate manner. This outline is easily changed with just a click and a drag (if you put something in the wrong spot). You can move things to the right or left, etc. with just a click of a button. You can minimize the sections under each heading to see the overall idea of the outline, without the details. You can also change the colors of different headings and other sections in your outline to create a visual association). There are many different reasons to use different colors. The main reason is for organizational purposes; you don't want to get confused when looking at an outline. It's supposed to help.





When you go back to your diagram, you can change the way the bubbles are arranged to a system that suits you best. You can change colors of the bubbles as well.





Another great feature is that you can select some bubbles and add a link to them. That way, you can immediately reach a source with more details. You can also add videos to your bubbles as well, which creates a whole new dimension for your page.





In a quick step, you can transfer all or parts of your outline to a word processor and other programs. You can also link other brainstorming sheets together easily. That way, if the topics are related, you can immediately see information on the other sheet and vice versa.





This program would definately help in the classroom, especially with students who are more apt to learning and creating with visual objects. Instead of just words, the pictures and bubbles can make for a more interesting brainstorming session. It makes everything so organized so that students don't get overwhelmed with information. They can customize their thoughts/facts to their tastes and get an overall understanding of a subject that may have been a bit tricky before. Now, it would be visualized and organized right in front of them for current and later use.





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You can use technology in the classroom to help students create outlines, make a presentation with writing, visual concept maps, and posting writing online. Concept maps can be used to create a visual set of ideas. You identify important concepts and then connect them together to create links. While students can obviously create these maps on paper, they aren't nearly as helpful and easy to do as they are on the computer. Changes can be made so easily and pictures from other sources can be pasted directly on the map. This makes the map both clear and consice, and very informative.



A powerpoint can be made to make a presentation. This makes writing a lot more fun. Students can use special effects to create a more interesting presentation while also learning the material. This activity helps students learn how to divide up ideas, sequence them, and present them. Powerpoints also provide an outline when you're filling out your information. You can go into further details of certain ideas by creating bullets and sub-bullets. You can also put in links from the internet to support your ideas and provide additional information. Notes can be created that go with the slides so that the slides aren't too cluttered. The speaker can talk about the information on the slide in detail by referring to the notes. Or students can go back through the slides and read the notes to understand the ideas better.

I think the best technology you can use in the classroom is subjective depending on the activity. But, I think that Inspiration is a great place to start in order to get students going and promotes them to actually brainstorm. I know from going through school that many kids just wing it the day before and put little thought into an assignment. Maybe if they see how easy and fun Inspiration can be, it will motivate them to use it and their papers/projects will be so much better.