Using WikiSummarizer with PersonalBrain

When I think about the PersonalBrain I always think of it as an ideal tool for helping me to see relationships among the data points that I have added to the brain. The PersonalBrain is an ideal tool for storing all kinds of related information that you want to have at your fingertips. In this respect I decided to see what would happen if I imported the contents of WikiSummerizer, a new web based contextual summarization engine from Context Discovery, Inc.

If you have never tried out WikiSummarizer, it is a great tool to help you build background knowledge quickly on just about any topic that can be found in Wikipedia. Once the summaries have been extracted by WikiSummarizer you have two options to store the results. You can export the summaries as a RTF file and open it with any word processor or better yet you can save the summaries as a Mindjet MindManager file format (mmap) format and then import it into PersonalBrain. PersonalBrain gives you a rich environment that allows you to see the relationships between the keywords and summaries.

To get a sense of what you can do with PersonalBrain and WikiSummarizer take a look at the WebBrian that I developed by clicking on the image below. Now you can see just how fast you can go from a blank PersonalBrain to one that complete with chock full of information. This is an ideal tool for students and researchers that need a strategy to save and explore new information. With WikiSummarizer and PersonalBrain take your personal information management to a new level. For more information about WikiSummairzer click here.

Moving from Mind Mapping to Knowledge Mapping

Much can be said about the benefits of using mind mapping software for the personal, academic, and business needs that many of us have. I know for myself that I greatly benefit from using mind mapping software on a daily basis to plan workshops, overview my content for courses, and for managing projects that I am working on. Using mind mapping software makes me more effective at the work I do and allows me to share information in a rich graphical way that resonates with my colleagues. For me, having access to the tools and techniques of mind mapping provides me a rich palette of tools to draw from when I am doing the work that I do. While using mind mapping software in traditional ways has been quite effective for me- my eyes were opened to a whole new way at looking at mind mapping when I learned about a product called Context Organizer about two years ago.

Context Organizer is a summarization tool that can extract summaries from PDF's, Word, and from URL's. With a click of the mouse I can have Context Organizer a MindManager add-in, build me a rich in information map. When I first tried Context Organizer I couldn't believe how fast I could produce my map filled with contextualized information, I was interested in researching. And so that was the "aha" moment for me going from "mind mapping" in a traditional sense to "knowledge mapping" with a click of the mouse. Going from a blank mind mapping canvas to a completed "knowledge map" was quite exciting to see. Imagine the power I felt having all this information in my map that I could organize and structure the way I wanted. This is the true power of knowledge mapping. The synergy between Context Organizer working within MindManager is exquisite giving the user the opportunity to reorganize information as they see fit. As a Professor of Education I am constantly doing research to keep abreast of new trends in special education and assistive technology and have come to rely on Context Organizer to comb the web looking for new information. Developing my own knowledge maps helps me to see the big picture and look at the current trends in the field and gives me a point of access to determine if I need to read the original articles.

Since the release of Context Organizer for MindManager, Context Organizer has evolved and now works in the cloud with an online mind mapping application called Comapping. Comapping works within the browser and the user with a annual subscription can access their maps and collaborate in real time with any browser and a connection to the web. This is a true paradigm shift and one that all of us are weighing as we begin to dip our toes into the cloud. For me having access to my maps whenever I am connected to the web is quite powerful and I have come to utilize Comapping more and more in the work that I do. But more importantly, I have been able to use Comapping with Context Organizer which has been seamlessly integrated into the application. Now I can attach Word and PDF files to my Comapping maps and have them summarized within seconds. An even more powerful feature is being able to attach a URL link to a branch on my map and have the entire contents of the website summarized. For researchers this is an incredible tool and one that you should take a look at. Now I can develop my personal "knowledge maps' that I can store online in a mapping tool that allows me to organize the information the way I want.

Looking ahead Context Organizer is moving to a soon to be announced portal that will enable users to type in a URL which will then return key words and a summary. This new tool called Web Summarizer will give you the capability to type a URL and have the information instantly summarized complete with key words. You will also be able to search your knowledge database to find links to the information you are interested in. With Web Summarizer you will be able to build you own knowledge databases and when you are done you will be able to export the summaries to your mind mapping application-creating the perfect repository for your information set.

So at least for myself, I am using a new term called "Knowledge Mapping" to share with you a new way to think about mind mapping and handling vast amounts of information that can be personalized to meet your needs. If you are interested in learning more how you can handle the information overload with these tools send me an email and I would be glad to share with you how your business or school could benefit from using "knowledge mapping." So happy "Knowlwdge Mapping."

Web Summarizer Takes to the Cloud

Over the past year I have watched Context Organizer morph into a truly powerful summarization tool that is ready for the big leagues. Starting out as a standalone application, Context Discovery proved to be a powerful tool for the desktop-able to summarize URL's, PDF, Word, and PowerPoint files. When Context Discovery saw the value of being able to quickly built information maps within a mind mapping application Context Discovery developed a MindManager Add-in which has received rave reviews from it users.

Just this past year Context Organizer was integrated into Comapping which showed the versatility of Context Organizer working in the cloud and being totally platform independent. With all these steps in place Context Organizer has moved to a new dimension being able to deliver summarization in the cloud by placing these tools in the hands of businesses and corporation that need to process large amount of data. Imagine being able to analyze and summarize large amount of URL's, RSS feeds, and News feeds on your own internal server. Web Summarizer has been optimized to be able to serve your corporate data needs and we are ready to work with you. Please see the video below to get an idea of what is possible with Web Summarizer. If information is power think about how you can take advantage of Web Summarizer to get ahead of your competition!

NJECC Presentation: Reading & Writing Supports

This Tuesday, March 16th I will be presenting at the New Jersey Educational Computing Cooperative Annual Conference which is held at Montclair State University on the topic of: What's New in the Area of Reading & Writing Supports. My session is from 2:30-3:20 pm and if you are planning on attending it would be great to see you. A lot has happened this year in the field of assistive technology and in the field of technology in general which has resulted in some new and updated technologies that I'm sure you will want to find out about.

I have been busy this year publishing some new materials which can be used to support assistive technology in the schools. I recently released a new video called: Assistive Technology: Powerful Solutions for Success which is a wonderful tool for teacher in-service programs. Likewise, in this age of information overload I created a four page laminated reference guide called: Assistive Technology: What Every Educator Needs to Know, which is chock full of resources and information about the use of assistive technology in the classroom. I will have both resources available at my workshop for you to take a look at. The session will be fast paced as we delve into some of the new tools and trends to support students in the area of reading and writing in the classroom. I hope to see you there- but just in case you can't make it here is my presentation deck that I will be using.



PS: You can now purchase my video and laminated reference guides right from my blog by clicking on the individual pages on the right side of the navigation panel.

Using Context Organizer within Comapping

I have been using Context Organizer for the past year or so and was very excited to see that it is now integrated with Comapping, a web based collaborative mind mapping tool. Context Organizer can quickly pull out keywords and summarize information from URL's, Word documents, and PDF's. I have created a short video tutorial showing you how Context Organizer works within Comapping. If you like what you see go to Comapping and set a free trial account to get started.

Getting a Visual Overview with Wordle

Every once in awhile I like to use Wordle to get an overview of what I have been writing about on my blog. Wordle creates a great visual poster and lets me instantly see what topics I have covered in the past couple of months. So here it is!

Context Organizer is now Integrated with Comapping

Ok I will admit it- when I was in high school I would occasionally use CliffNotes to get some of my reading assignments done. I'm sure each and everyone of you has occasionally cut some corners in order to get your work done and be able to carry your load. But why did I choose to use the CliffNotes? CliffNotes, while certainly not as good as reading the whole book, was great for summarizing the material and giving me a good handle on the text even though I didn't read every single word. In the same vein, Context Organizer is a similar tool- it lets me summarize URL's, Word and PDF files and gives me the gist of the information that I am interested in.

Context Organizer is fast and efficient and allows me to determine the context of the information and provides me with keyword phrases. I have been working closely with Henry for the past couple of months as I watched our team integrate Context Organizer with Comapping. This venture was especially exciting in that Henry and his team were able to run the Context Organizer engine from the cloud. By setting up Context Organizer in the cloud we could now send information directly to Comapping and watch as it generated a map from the information. In this instance, Context Organizer can instantly create a map from URL's, Word, and PDF files attached to a branch. I guess the real "aha" moment is the creation of a knowledge map with a couple of clicks of the mouse. So you can go from a blank screen to an knowledge map within seconds. You will find it very easy to use Contexct Organizer with Comapping and if you like you can sign up for a trial of Comapping and give Context Organizer a try-you will be glad you did. The example below was created using Comapping and Context Organizer.

So when you need to get to the heart of the matter and you don't have time to read every word take a look at the combination of Comapping and Context Organizer a real dynamic duo!

ED's New Tech Chief Previews National Tech Plan

On December 1, Karen Cator, Director of Educational Technology for the Education Department gave a preview of the first draft of the administration's National Education Technology Plan.

Here are the highlights brought to you by Context Organizer. The original article can be found at the eSchool Website.

• Technology is essential to the nation's education reform, said Karen Cator, lifelong educator and ED's new director of education technology.
• As America's brand-new director of education technology, career educator Karen Cator underscores the determination of President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan to develop "a transformative agenda" for the nation's schools and colleges.
• She said the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will unveil the first draft of the administration's National Education Technology Plan next month.
• It will focus on ensuring effective teachers are present "in every zip code," on seamlessly bridging the gap between the wide array of technology students use outside of school and the more limited technology available to them in the classroom.
• In broad terms, Cator said in an interview with eSchool News, the administration's ed-tech plan will seek to bring to fruition the president's vow to make the United States first in the world in the number of college graduates by 2020 and to give every willing student at least one year of postsecondary education.

* keywords are in blue

Context Organizer- One Strategy for Students with Reading Disabilities

For the past 1 1/2 I have been working closely with Henry Lewkowicz at Context Discovery to help get the word out about his innovative software application, Context Organizer. Context Organizer is Windows based application that can very quickly summarize information from various sources. In today's information age all of us are bombarded with information that is coming at us from all angles at the speed of light. But in order to keep up we must have access to this information and be pretty good at skimming and reading quickly all of the text. If we are on the web or reading a Word or PDF files we must be able to read quickly and absorb the information if we are to keep up in our fields. This is where Context Organizer comes in-imagine that you had this reading agent that could go through the document or the web site and summarize the information and pull out all of the relevant information and contextualize it for you. Well you no longer have to wait- you see Context Organizer is here and is your humble reading servant. For example you can go to a web site and click on the Context Organizer icon on your browser and voila- the web site contents are summarized for you to read. If you find that you need to delve more into the web site simply click on the link to take you there. Likewise, you can instantly send the summaries from Context Organizer to Microsoft Word for further review or editing. You see, Context Organizer is an invaluable and transformational tool and could be a god send for students and adults with reading disabilities who have to process a great deal of text. By combining Context Organizer with a text to speech tool, students could process that much more text, and get to the heart of the matter that much more quickly. Context organizer can also be used to search and summarize the contents of your Google searches eliminating the need to go to each and every site that Google suggests. If you like what you see in the search, read the summarization, if not discard it and move to the next summary. It is really that easy. If you would like to try out Context Organizer you can download a 30 day Trial from Context Discovery. You can also check out this video that I put together on using Context Organizer on the web.

Searching Google with Context Organizer

One of the tools that I have been relying more and more on is Context Organizer. With the increase of information that we all need to process it is great to have a tool like Context Organizer to help me make sense of the information and summarize it for me. I have explained in past blog posts how Context Organizer can be used with MindManager 8 to build a map from URL's, PDF files and Word Documents. But one of the most powerful features is being able to do Google Searches and within seconds have the sites that are found summarized with key words and relevancy at my disposal. Context Organizer allows me to do my Google searches and processes them with a click of the button. If you want to see what I'm talking about then take a look at the video below to give you an idea of the power of this tool.

While not specifically developed for individuals with reading difficulties just think of how this can be used to help students deal with the mountains of text that they encounter each and every day. Using Context Organizer, information can be quickly summarized for students and then using a text to speech software the information could be read. There is also the ability to send the summaries to Microsoft Word which could make this a great research tool for students with reading and writing disabilities. Think of this as cognitive assist for students with reading disabilities and a great tool for doing research. You can download a trial of Context Organizer at their website.

Context Organizer for MindManager Webinar

Yesterday I had a chance to participate and present information about Context Organizer, in a virtual MindManager User Group Meeting at a Fortune 100 company. After presenting and being a participant in various webinars, I am still amazed at what can be accomplished without the need to be in a face to face meeting. The hour long meeting went very smoothly and when it was my turn to present I shared my computer desktop with the group and showed them how Context Organizer, a MindManager add-in can be used to summarize Word documents, web addresses, and PDF files right within a MindManager map.

I have posted about Context Organizer before and I have a couple of video demonstrations to show you the power of this tool. The MindManager User Group had selected to see a demonstration of Context Organizer in action because one of the member's of the group had been using it to plow through large documents with great success. You can think of Context Organizer as a "search engine for documents," in that it finds the most relevant keyphrases and information and succinctly summarizes it for you. If your work requires you to read through large documents or to do analyze web sites, PDF's or Word documents you really owe it to yourself to look at Context Organizer. Having the ability to access Context Organizer within MindManager is a real asset in how the information is graphically organized. For those of you who don't own a copy of MindManager 8 you will be happy to learn that Context Organizer is also a standalone product that can help you summarize documents and send the information directly to Microsoft Word.

As a postscript to this webinar, I should share with you that I used my recently purchased Acer Aspire Netbook to present from. You see when I went to use my Dell XPS laptop the virtual meeting platform did not support Internet Explorer 8, so my only option was to use my netbook. I am happy to report that my netbook worked just fine even with all of the heavy lifting. To complement my presentation, I also used Canson's Papershow product which is an ideal tool to use when you are doing a webinar. With Papershow I could share my ideas and write them down so that other could see them as if I was writing on a whiteboard. Everything I wrote down was shared and at the end of the webinar I could save it as a PDF file to email. Here is an example of what I wrote and shared with the group using Papershow. Papershow is a real natural-when doing virtual presentations or distance learning and is as easy to use as pen and paper.

Please feel free to leave me a question about mindmapping

Skype 4.0 Released Today

I have been a long time user of Skype and was glad to learn that Skype 4.0 was released to day. With nearly 15 million users Skype has become an indispensable communication tool for both educators and professionals to connect with one another for free. I was just on Skype yesterday with John England from Mindsystems,who hails from Australia and had a great conversation about Mindsystems Amode, a new information management software application that is under development. The Skype connection was crystal clear and we spoke for about forty minutes for free- which is incredible. With Skype you are able to reach out and touch folks across the globe and interact and meet people that would not be otherwise possible. Whether you are doing a video conference call or Instant Messaging as I'm doing now with Henry Lewkowicz from Context Discovery you will find Skype to be and incredible tool.

I did learn today that Skype has released version 4 of their software with an emphasis on video conferencing, improvements in voice quality, and interface enhancements. Here are some more information that was gleamed from the Skype blog:

• Improved video calling – With the changes we’ve made, video calling in Skype 4.0 for Windows is the next best thing to being there. A new built-in bandwidth manager ensures that you have the very best video calling experience possible, even on a low bandwidth connection. If you have a fast enough connection (recommended 400 Kb/s or higher) and a high quality webcam, Skype delivers up to 30-frames-per-second High Quality Video at full screen.
• Calls and instant messages are easier to manage – video and voice calls, as well as instant messaging, are all easy to reach in a single window. The new Conversations tab makes it easy to hold multiple conversations at once, and to switch quickly between video and voice calls, instant messages and SMS. This is particularly beneficial for the power users among you.
• Call quality is substantially improved thanks to a number of under-the-hood changes. Calls sound richer and clearer than ever thanks to support for Super Wideband Audio with compatible hardware. The bandwidth manager should ensure that you have crystal clear calls even when bandwidth is low.

Enjoy and download the new version and try it out!

Quick Screensharing Session with Glance

This morning I had the opportunity to touch base with Chance Brown from the Mindmap Blog to show him some of the advanced features in Context Organizer. This was a rather impromptu screensharing meeting and so last night I sent him a link for him to click on so that this morning we could be off and running. For the past several months I have been using Glance to do screensharing and for some of the webinars that I do. With this as a backdrop, I called Chance at the designated time and with one click he was viewing my screen. As I went through demonstrating some of the advanced features in Context Organizer, Chance remarked just how easy it was to connect and concentrate on what I was presenting. Chance to say the least, was really impressed with the feature set in Context Organizer as I demonstrated how it could be used to summarize a web site as well as doing searches within Google on various topics that were also summarized. Similalry, he was really taken by the Glance session and commented just how easy it was to use for what we were doing. As we move into 2009 one of the themes that we will be seeing over and over again is simplicity. In this respect Glance adheres to this philospophy and has always stressed simplicity over complexity. It was great to be able to connect with one another over the phone and via the Glance session, since we had only knew of each other's work through each other's blog. The power to connect in many different ways using the web is a phenomenon that I find to be quite amazing and to this day I enjoy all of the new friendships that I have made on the journey.

Context Organizer for MindManager-Screencast

I recently did a post about Context Organizer for MindManager and thought that you would be interested in seeing how it actually works within MindManager with this screencast. Please note just how easy it is to use within MindManager and how it is able to extract and summarize the key words to give you the context. In the screencast you will see how it works to give you the context within a PDF and Microsoft Word file as well as within a blog. Enjoy. Look for another post about how Context Organizer can be used for Microsoft Office and the Web to summarize information.

If you or your company are interested in learning how you can integrate Context Organizer into your workflow, please feel free to email me. This is an ideal tool for executives, research analysts, or for anyone who has to plow through reams of reports or do research on the web. Context Organizer can also be integrated into existnig software applications- so please contact me if you need additional information.

Context Organizer for MindManager

I have been meaning to write about Context Organizer from Context Discovery for some time now and was recently reminded just how important this tool will become as we become increasingly inundated with information that we will be required to juggle in the work that we do. In my last post about, Wordle I received an interesting comment that made me think about Context Organizer and its value in the work that we do as information workers. Wordle is an online application that can pull out the keywords that are in the text and create a way to help us visualize the key content that is body of the text. One of my readers has been using Wordle to do just that- by copying and pasting text into Wordle it can quickly give you the context of the material entered. It was this comment that sparked me to delve more into the Context Organizer which can be used to summarize web pages and documents of different types to help you pinpoint relevant information.

I was first attracted to Context Organizer because of the fact that it is an add-in to MindManager 7 & 8. Using Context Organizer you are able to quickly get the context of attached documents as well as web sites right within MindManager 8, that are visually displayed as topics and subtopics. In the screen shot to the left you can see that I have a PDF document attached to the topic, Inclusion Times Issue.
With Context Organizer running it automatically created the rest of the topics and subtopics to the left of the topic Inclusion Times Issue, by looking at the content of the PDF file that was attached. You can see that it pulled out the 3 top keywords as well as the Summary which gives me a great idea of what I would find if I were to open the PDF file and readthe entire document. Context Organizer will also will give you more extensive summaries of the PDF that are included within the the MindManager 8 map as you can see from the screenshot to the right. Context Organizer is very easy to use and when you Right click on a topic the Context Organizer menu options are displayed along with any Options that you would like to set. Context Organizer can also be used for determining keywords from websites that are connected to your visual maps from within MindManager 7 & 8. If you are a MindManager 7 or 8 user and are looking for a tool to help you wade through piles and piles of documents and or websites than you should definitely take a look at Context Organizer for MindManager. Context Organizer works with MindManager 7 as well as 8 and is a very handy tool to help you find the context of the documents as well as websites right within MindManager. There is a free trial available at the Context Discovery website. So give it a try and post your comments here.