As a teacher, I believe that the most
important insight we can gain into the minds of our students--who they are,
what they understand about a text or a lesson, etc.--often comes from written,
rather than spoken, assignments. Writing
is a huge piece of nearly every high school and college course, and being able
to communicate ideas in writing is a skill many people take into their
careers. What happens, however, when we
teach writing to reluctant writers? How
can we get them excited about the process, from brainstorming to publication?
MindMeister, while perhaps not the
best tool available for helping students with brainstorming (Prezi or Haiku
Deck, anyone?), can certainly help increase student enthusiasm. It would be much more exciting to brainstorm
an essay or other project with colorful, multi-media software than with a
simple paper and pencil! Many of our
students have access to a computer these days, and cannot imagine
life without the Internet. Why not show
our students what kind of tools are available online?
Learning to use MindMeister
intuitively was a bit difficult, however.
I was frustrated early on because I didn't understand what keys to use
or what some of the features did. Even
the wizard that automatically pops up at the beginning of your first mind map
was not the most helpful! After starting
a couple of different mind maps and abandoning them when I couldn't figure out
how to do something, I pulled up a few YouTube tutorials. These were helpful--so much so that I felt
embarrassed, because not only were the commands ridiculously easy (tab key,
enter key, escape key), the instructor kept praising the "intuitive"
nature of the program--which had not been my experience! In addition, I did not find any helpful
videos thoroughly explaining the need--or instructions for--the connection tool
which had so frustrated me.
Once my classmates presented Prezi
and Haiku Deck, I felt my enthusiasm for MindMeister (low though it had already
been) fall even farther. Prezi came with
more bells and whistles for free, and Haiku Deck was so easy to use--with such
stellar results--that MindMeister seemed like a waste of time.
I feel that technology shouldn't
just be easy for our students to use--it should be easy to teach, as well. During my
presentation, I felt that there were a handful of things I still did not
understand about the tech, and there was a question or two I couldn't
answer. Part of the responsibility for
this, of course, can be placed firmly upon my own shoulders--I could have
watched more tutorials and learned. However, some of the cons of my MindMeister
presentation were genuinely on the tech side.
The templates and images provided by MindMeister were quite thin
compared to other similar technologies online.
For example, Haiku Deck provides a large picture bank for free, and
Prezi makes it easy to include images, slideshows, and more--without asking the
user to pay for the service, as MindMeister does. If I had to choose between the three to use
as a professional, let alone teach to my future students, MindMeister sadly
wouldn't make the cut.
