Lucid Chart

Not that long ago, when someone wanted to create a mind map or flow chart they used Inspiration.  Inspiration is a program that has been on every computer in every school that I have ever worked.  Today, there are lots of different ways for students (and teachers) to get their ideas down into a structured format...like Lucidchart.

Lucidchart is different from other mind mapping sites that I've used before because the interface is based on dragging and dropping elements into the workspace.  It is as simple as selecting what you want from the menus and then dragging and dropping them on to the canvas.  Everything is then easily resized or edited.  Check out the video below to see Lucidchart in action.  H/T to Richard Byrne for the video.



Now What?

For many students, the best way to understand something is to see it visually represented.  Lucidchart is a great way for those students to work either at home or in school to accomplish that visual element.  For teachers this is a great tool to clarify difficult/convoluted topics in class.

Popplet

Popplet is an interesting site which is a cross between Inspiration and Wallwisher.  After creating an account it was very easy to start to publish thoughts to the blank canvas.  Creating on Popplet allows you to enter text, images, YouTube videos and drawings.  You can then link those Popplets together to form an integrated idea or concept map.  Inviting collaborators to Popplet will allow them to edit and create their own Popplets on your canvas although not in real time.  This could be a great tool for classroom discussion if all of your students have accounts.  Sharing a Popplet is simple using Facebook, Twitter or the traditional link or embed method.  If you would like to edit your Popplets on the go there is currently only an iPad app available for download.

Now What?

This could be a nice change of pace for your students as lesson presentation medium.  I can see this being very useful for introducing a new unit and some of the stops along the way.  Students could also create their own Popplets for homework or in the planning of a project.

Slate Box

Many of you have used Inspiration at some point to create mind maps or cluster maps on the computers at school.  Last year, I had my students using Mindomo to create their mind maps for a digital story project and that seemed to work well but I thought that it was a little too comprehensive for what we needed.  Today I found out about Slate Box from one of my favorite blogs "Free Technology for Teachers".  Slate Box is a fast and easy way to get your thoughts down on "paper" and then share them with others through the embed feature.  I really liked the fact that Slate Box was developed using HTML5 because it was very fast and also worked on the iPad.  For those of you who are new to the idea of web-based collaborative mind mapping, this is a very simple site and eliminates all of the extra "stuff" that makes it hard to navigate and use.

Now What?

I really liked how easy it was to get started using  Slate Box and think that it is a great alternative to programs you may already be using in class.  The fact that accounts are free and it can be accessed universally outside of school makes it a great tool to use for both teachers and students.  Examples of classroom uses might include outlining research, planning a long term project, developing a digital story, comparing concepts and more.