Blog on the topic of assistive technology, eLearning, mind mapping, project management, visual learning, collaborative tools, and educational technology
Hi I'm Max a 38 yearold nurse working in a pediatric intensive care unit on a highly specialized teaching hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark. Besides my work I am doing a Masters degree in Critical Care Nursing.
I was introduced to mind mapping while working in the e-learning industry in the United Kingdom some years ago. I have been using MindManager on and off ever since. But using mind maps has really become extremely useful to me now that I am focusing on highly complex issues in nursing. In my nursing practice, being able to mind map helps me to see the big picture and how events are connected. The dysfunction of one organ often affects other organs and starts a cascade of complications and things to consider. And this is the reason why mind maps and MindManager have become so useful for me. It can be difficult getting a quick overview of a particular situation or disease if you stick to text documents. With MindManager I can easily create a mind map and I can quickly go back and review it when needed. Also, it is very easy to alter the mind map as new treatments are introduced. Computer-based mind mapping has proved to be a huge benefit as my library is growing. It is relatively easy to relate two or more subjects (maps or topics) or even combine them. (I have never really been much of a pen & paper mind-mapper).
On a more practical level, I generally export my mind maps as PDF files and upload them to Dropbox so I can visit them while at work (where we don't have any sort of mind mapping software installed). I have also installed Mindjet for iPhone on my iPod which I carry in my pocket at all times while at work.
As a nurse working in a fairly complex an intense environment, I have found that mind mapping has introduced a way to ensure a quicker way to get an overview of a subject or situation. This is for the benefit of the patient but also for me as I feel a lot more confident because I can be fairly sure that I won't forget something important, 4 AM in the morning.
I would also like to see some of the principles behind mind mapping used in medical documentation. It can sometimes be a bit of a daunting experience trying to find the right information in the medical notes as the files just add up. I think it would prove to be a huge advantage knowing exactly what branch to look into (for example a branch covering cardiac issues or a branch covering surgical interventions).
I feel that both my knowledge of advanced nursing as well as using MindManager have really accelerated my learning and retention of information.
Thanks Max for sharing how you use MindManager in the work you do in helping your patients and let us know how you make out with yourfree license for MindManager 9 which I know you will thoroughly enjoy! Thank you Mindjet for sending me licenses for this give away!
This is stupid but struck me funny. I did a search for rapid eLearning and the following is a screen shot showing the results with arrows added for one that I really don’t understand.
There have to be all sorts of great jokes about what this implies about Rapid eLearning, Articulate, etc. By the way, I had logged out at the time. It’s NOT because of personalized search.
Learning to use web conferencing technology is pretty easy, but there is a lot more to training via web conference than just putting on a headset, dialing up an audio-conferencing bridge, and logging onto the application. When developing PowerPoint slides to use in web conference training follow these guidelines: Simplify content.
While the technology is getting better and better ( here's a good list of options ), putting on a good web conference still requires some preparation and practice. Encourage people to participate during the conference and identify the ways in which you want your meeting participants to engage with you. Below are some helpful tips.
was asked an interesting question last week about the best ways to divide the community manager role into separate manager, moderator, and administrator roles. In most cases, and in my case, the community manager also performs the moderation functions. Moderation would be a small part of several people’s jobs.
Whenever companies want to publish user generated content (UGC) they need to look into moderation, which usually consists of the following three types: Pre-moderation: Some sites operate on the principle that every piece of UGC should be moderated before it’s displayed on the website.
was asked an interesting question last week about the best ways to divide the community manager role into separate manager, moderator, and administrator roles. In most cases, and in my case, the community manager also performs the moderation functions. Moderation would be a small part of several people’s jobs.
It’s a process of several months which started in May and includes two live conferences (in a cinema, close to Ede), papers written by specialists on development issues and an online discussion via the website [link]. The names of these people came from the participants list of the conferences. It’s a guess why.
What are facilitation and moderation February 15, 2008 – 1:55 pm A quick addendum about facilitation and moderation on online spaces before a longer post about strategy. Are they facilitating, moderating, re-purposing, or nothing at all? Moderation: Is the coalface end end of the model.
Gilbane Group Blog Gilbane Group analysts, consultants and contributors on Content and Web technologies & trends Open to the community and moderated Home Archives XML Blog Search Blog Globalization Blog News Conferences gilbane.com Sign In Search More on "engage and collaborate" vs. research last week, Niall Cook comments: You ask: ".what
back channel facilitation in online groups where you make a decision to address issues privately and not “in front&# of the whole group. Conference Back Channel. Raising the bar at online events. Clay Shirkey on back channels at conferences. Jon Garfunkle on the backchannel at conferences (from a blog post comment).
Alan Levine wrote a deliciously provocative post on last month that I’ve been meaning to comment upon, Five Ways to Run a Deadly Online Seminar. It has been a while since I wrote about synchronous online facilitation is a focused way. inside the online meeting room). World Cafe’s online ? Spot on, CogDog!
WH Says: “…Open up the pool of presenters beyond the same 10-20 names I see at every e-learning conference… More voices would be a good thing and shows strength (and depth) in our industry.&#. Maybe Brent Schlenker, Heidi Fisk, someone at ASTD or other conferences can tell us the # of RFPs vs. into the conference.
Wendy Wickham asked a good question in the comments on TCC08: Second Life: Teaching Tips from the Virtual Frontier: Christy - are you using 2 computers (one for blogging, one for the conference), or just one? How are you finding the experience of liveblogging an online conference? am using two computers. It does feel a little intense.
Attending conferences is always a mixed bag. conference , my favorite part was talking to others about each others’ issues, concerns, questions. conference Barcamp e2.0 conference keynote session . . Photo on Flickr by Lars Plougmann. We LOVE the other attendees and the idea we get from each other. More of you.
The topic was “Online Facilitation: 14 years on. My topic was about my past experience with online facilitation and where I thought it was headed. The conference started with an amazing “Light Night Learning Live&# biting and sharp comedy set up by Jared Stein and Marc Hugentobler. First: Reflection. Perfect timing.
For anyone who believes that a moderator spends his or her time deleting rude words from forums and hitting 'reject' on naughty video submissions (although we do this also), I wanted to give a quick glimpse into the nitty-gritty involved in eModeration's most complex project for a mobile phone provider client. Warning: this gets technical.
Moderation, at its core is about ensuring that published content on a particular site, typically submitted by the site’s users themselves, meets the terms of the site’s Terms of Service (ToS). The problem with approaching the moderation task as an analog, queue-clearing activity is that it simply doesn’t scale.
Why moderate? 8220;Why moderate?&# Moderators] help and assist new members by welcoming them into the community.&#. Moderation is essential to a clean, healthy, vibrant community. good moderator has a light touch, barely noticeable, and a well-moderated community is spam-free, troll-resilient and buzzing.
We're really pleased to anounce that we've published a new whitepaper; the second in our series on Teens and Tweens, called 'How to Moderate Teens and Tweens'. Moderation has a role in helping to guide them as well as keeping them safe.”. Tags: teens child safety moderation In this latest publication.
First, is an old discussion summary from the Online Facilitation list from 2003, compiled by Chris Lang which still has value to me. I’ve written about it here on the blog quite often over the years!) It is more generalized reciprocity. Download file. Finally, some fine blog posts on lurking by friends and colleagues. link]
The other day I was discussing social reporting and other online activities for a £300-ticket, two-day event with the organiser, and he said: “Next year we are going to have to make it free&#. And in future they’ll have to blend online and offline activities. Limited interactionconference. Problems if not!
Just read a great post by Clive Shepherd - Cutting the Pie - where he discusses what the appropriate balance is at conferences. As you know creating Better Conferences is something that very much interests me. Check out that post, the poll results and the discussion for lots of ideas on how to make conferences better.
Mark Oehlert attended TechKnowledge ‘09 and his thoughts were very similarly to mine: Conferences need to be updated. 8220;Social media should be the default and should kick in as soon as I register and continue past the conference.&#. I will be MUCH less likely to come to your conference. Ohhhhhh yes. Yes, Mark, it is.
Also, if you are interested in future conferences, please go sign up on the Learn Trends Ning Group. We've just seen an interesting experience with Jay Cross having pulled together a 24 hour, worldwide discussion on the future of learning at Learn Trends. You can find some of the recordings here. On Tuesday morning, we had 125 listening in.
When I signed up for Spaces for Interaction: An Online Conversation about Improving the Traditional Conference , I didn’t appreciate how timely the topic would become. Conferences have traditionally provided foundation knowledge for instructional designers, trainers, CLOs, and others in the field. Is it a Conference?
Twitter has become a pretty great tool to help with socializing at conferences. There is also an interesting effect that people who are not attending still hear quite a bit about the conference and have some level of tangential participation. We also encouraged everyone to put in the hashtag. What do I need to cover by what point.
believe we can build better conferences. And, I need you to help by doing one or more of the following: provide a response to the poll below (won't show in an RSS feed - sorry) provide suggestions for what you'd like to see in future conferences (add comment). because most conferences have these same problems. distributed.
Lisa Neal asked a great question in a comment on Learn Trends 2008 - Free Online Conference : What do you see as the main differences between in person and online conferences? Now, don't get me wrong, I still very much like to do in-person conferences. It's hard to get all the way to an in-person conference.
I saw a post by David Warlick - Reaching Out With Your Conference where he suggests that conference organizers should: Consider a social network for your conference. Although I remain skeptical about social networks, social networking is essential, and a few conferences have made brilliant use of them. It's rare.
What’s the intention of having the conference? Jeff Hurt, over at Midcourse Corrections, has a great post about opening and keynote speakers, and it made me think about conferences in general… …and about my own situation. So what’s the purpose of the conference? Is it an educational event? Meeting?
Terrence Linden discussing the new Second Life browser at VWBPE conference. If you missed the Virtual Worlds' Best Practices in Education Conference , you missed not only a great conference with really good content and presentations, you missed a glimpse into the future of conferences. Check out her entire presentation.
You may have seen them before and will likely remember their scatter plot: There are other applications aimed at helping you to network at conferences: CMC Central - Tradeshow Appointments , Eveni Meeting Matching ExpoMATCH , eXtreme Networking , Introplus , Leverage Software , NetworkingMatch , and PowerMingle.com. Or maybe it's me.
As way of introduction to this topic, let me start with a typical scenario that you will recognize if you've ever attended a professional conference. The conference organizer has put signs in the middle of each table with a topic. What are other activities at the conference where I can talk to people? So what LMS are you using?
As I'm thinking about going to the eLearningGuild Annual Gathering in Boston next month and ASTD in Atlanta in June, I went back to look at some notes I had created before around getting ready for conferences. link] I also ran across this good post: Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker with some good suggestions
Someone asked me for an example of a conference using a Wiki both for organizers during planning, evaluating proposed sessions, etc. can say that this made pulling things together for the conference significantly easier. and for attendees with session pages, participant lists, that kind of stuff. It was more aimed at the attendee side.
Uh oh, I just saw a post by Donald Clark slamming the use of small group breakouts during conference sessions. Update: 12/19/2007. There has been great discussion in the comments. wanted to provide a bit more context for this. The session will be workforce learning professionals (an ASTD audience). Original post. Uh oh. Now I'm worried.
Heading into ASTD TechKnowledge , there's a particularly timely podcast that I just did for Tom Crawford of VizThink on the topic of: How to be an Insanely Great Conference Attendee If you follow the link you can get to the podcast. There will be more information coming around the use of Twitter at the conference.
Conferences are still being held in the Learning and Development industry as in past years, and generally they have the same level of quality presentations, hallway discussions, vendor demos, and much more. An example of the latter would be the “online forums” that the eLearning Guild does each month.
Here are four examples of how online communities have changed my world: I was organizing a conference in London UK for a client. The first time we met in person was at the conference. Should online communities have a better reputation? Should Should you join and participate in one more online community?
I really missed the Edumedia Conference in Salzburg this year. have pleasant memories of last year's conference and the beautiful city of Salzburg. Here's the conclusion in full: Microblogging at conferences seems to be an additional way of discussing presented topics and exchanging additional information. Ebner, M., Beham, G.
Conferences have been on my mind quite a bit lately. So you can see why I was pleasantly surprised today when I ran across an excellent blog post on how to get the most out of a conference. Here’s a summary of his suggestions: Choose your conference wisely. Conference Survival Guide for the Web Worker.
Time for a prediction: layered communications - a mixing of text, speech and video - will become a key issue for onlinecommunities in 2010 and beyond. . Two things this week got me thinking about the place for layered communications in onlinecommunities and social networks.
MindManager Version 9 Demonstrates Business Productivity Benefits of Mindjet’s Next Generation Software
Tight Integration of Visual Information Mapping with Microsoft Office, Web Services and Core Business Systems Helps Business Professionals Work More Efficiently
San Francisco – August 10, 2010 – Mindjet®, the leading provider of software and web- based applications for visually organizing and managing information and ideas, today announced the general availability of version 9 of its visual information mapping software, MindManager. MindManager gives information workers the resources they need to see the big picture and all the relevant details needed for analysis and planning, within a single, easily edited view. MindManager, already used by over 1.5 million business professionals worldwide, is taking a quantum leap forward with this new release of its flagship product. This latest version greatly enhances the usability of Mindjet’s award-winning application, allowing it to integrate more seamlessly with users other MS Office applications, web services and collaboration platforms.
Business professionals are inundated by an overwhelming amount of content, communication and information that stifles productivity and creativity. With new features including an enhanced integration with the Microsoft ® Office suite, one-click Outlook integration and ability to connect with Microsoft SharePoint®, MindManager provides a single environment that professionals can use to unify and organize diverse information.Mindjet continues to accelerate planning, development and creativity to complete projects more successfully, accomplish more and improve communication.
"For people who have never used mind mapping software before, MindManager Version 9 promises to be the easiest version of this program to use, ever. For corporate IT departments that can't quite understand why they should deploy a visual mapping tool like MindManager, the SharePoint integration is the coup de grace," said Chuck Frey, author of the Mind Mapping Software Blog.
With this new release, MindManager becomes the one-stop destination for working on any kind of project. Within MindManager, users have access to tight integration with Microsoft Outlook and Office to keep the constant stream of information for a project organized in one easy-to-access location, a visualization and dashboard tool for any SharePoint environment with MindManager Explorer for SharePoint and collaboration tools, real-time map co-editing and web based document storage with Mindjet Catalyst.
Key Features in MindManager Version 9 for Windows:
·Microsoft Outlook® Integration – Features more powerful integration with Microsoft Outlook tasks, emails, notes, calendar items and contacts to easily bring relevant information from Outlook directly into your MindManager maps for greater access and visibility into your projects and work. Synchronized branches of Outlook tasks can be added to maps and visualized in MindManager’s integrated Gantt chart.
·Microsoft PowerPoint® Integration – Users can now easily use MindManager to research and map out presentations and then export their ideas from MindManager directly into PowerPoint slides to accomplish more, faster.
·Interactive Slide Shows – Unlike ‘broadcast’ presentations, MindManager introduces a new way to present and collaborate on concepts, strategies and plans. Users can launch interactive slide shows directly within MindManager to review selected portions of their map, solicit feedback and update their map content directly in each slide.
·Gantt Chart and Resource Views – Individuals can view task and project plan timelines in MindManager’s integrated and synchronized Gantt chart. Updates can be made to maps by adjusting the Gantt chart or by making changes directly into a map. The resource views highlight when individuals are over or underutilized in both your map and the Gantt chart.
·MindManager Explorer for SharePoint (sold separately)– Visualizes SharePoint content in MindManager’s easy-to-use dynamic maps. With bi-directional SharePoint integration, users can more easily discover, aggregate and update their SharePoint content from one or more SharePoint sites.
“Mindjet’s users have always understood the benefits of visually organizing information, data, content and documents and how this drives innovation and increases productivity,” said Scott Raskin, CEO of Mindjet. “The latest release of MindManager Version 9 reinforces the idea that organizing information in a visual manner will dramatically improve an organization’s productivity, creativity and business output. MindManager is now evolving from a product that makes project management easier and more organized, to the must-have tool that businesses and individuals use to capture, organize and present all of the information needed do get the job done right.”
MindManager Version 9 for Windows is available in three languages: English, German and French, and can be purchased through www.Mindjet.com for $349 for new users or for a limited time, $149 for an upgrade.
Mindjet provides productivity software that helps business professionals visually organize and act upon ideas, information and resources to drive productivity, team effectiveness and business innovation. Mindjet products include industry-leading software and online services centered on information mapping, as well as applications that incorporate Mindjet’s innovative visualization technology to improve the usability of leading business applications, including Microsoft SharePoint and Salesforce.com. More than 1.5 million people around the world use Mindjet software to clarify thinking, efficiently analyze information, increase team productivity, and make better-informed decisions.
Used by business professionals in 44 of BusinessWeek’s 50 “World’s Most Innovative Companies,” Mindjet solutions dramatically boost productivity and team effectiveness. Surveys across several industries show that Mindjet can increase productivity by up to 25 percent by making meetings, common communications and project management tasks more efficient and effective. Mindjet products are available for free trial or purchase at www.mindjet.com/products/overview, through salesforce.com AppExchange, and through an extensive partner network at www.mindjet.com/community/partners/overview. Mindjet is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
I was recently asked me about my recommendations for conducting effective online conferences (virtual conference). They had attended the LearnTrends free online conference. This conference has been run for a few years now and is tentatively scheduled for November 15-17 this year.
Assign people into roles. For us we have someone who is an overall producer (actually there are three of us, but we split it well), session moderator, recording engineer, speaker prep person.
Technical Issues. Prepare for technical issues and decide what you will do about them. We’ve used Elluminate as our webinar system. It has issues with firewalls. So, we ask everyone to test until they find a location where they can connect. This means that some people need to attend from home.
Communicate all of the details in great detail. No matter how much you feel its obvious what to do, there will be confusion. This is especially true with information like testing the virtual meeting software, getting into sessions, protocols during sessions, time zones, etc.
Closely related to the above, make sure you have a well known way/place to submit questions and some assigned to answer these.
Make it obvious where to access to resources from speakers. For us, we create a discussion topic associate with the session and attach files or content into that.
Session timing and design is difficult online. Most presenters are not used to designing for online, so it’s important to help them plan their sessions to be effective. You definitely need interaction and time for Q&A. Some of the best sessions have very effective means of capturing the wisdom of the attendees. Even the length of sessions is challenging. Long sessions can try to get too much content in and often lose steam before Q&A. Short sessions often means really superficial. This is where a good prep person along with a good moderator can really help.
Open discussions have worked, but they are risky. I often find they meander too much for me. Of course, I generally am more comfortable with directed Learning Goals. Certainly, if you are going to try it have a great moderator and interesting audience.
Getting participation outside of the sessions is challenging. People don’t read things, or enter discussions ahead of the sessions. No matter how hard we’ve tried, it’s VERY difficult to get an audience to do anything ahead of when the sessions start. And it’s even difficult to get them to engage through discussion forums outside of the sessions. It’s best to design things where the discussion forums are an added bonus and have some set questions to spark discussion. But don’t count on that much participation.
Make sure you have breaks between blocks of sessions. The conference staff needs it, but so do the attendees, even if you think they will pick and choose sessions.
For us, defining the times for sessions is difficult. There’s no way to choose time slots where it’s not an ungodly hour in some part of the world. Not sure we’ve ever figured out an answer.
Text Chat works great during sessions as a Back Channel. Encourage it and make sure the moderator and/or presenter weave it into the session – see Presentation Backchannel Multitasking. Also, make sure that the presenter is not distracted by chat. I always encourage speakers to ignore it and I’ll (as the moderator) let them know when there’s something I’d like them to discuss. And I’m not a big fan of using multiple back channel tools that effectively split the discussion. Just keep it in the webinar tool.
Inject fun into the event. Nancy White jumped in to lead a round of Pecha Kucha using slides she had never seen before. The spontaneity and spirit of fun raised energy levels. Need fun stuff sprinkled throughout. Moderators can help this greatly.
Speakers on a common topic should get to know one another and swap ideas on their approach in advance of the session.
Pictures of speakers make the event more real. Have pictures on session descriptions and on the first slide of each speaker.
Thanks to Scott Skibell, we recorded the sessions directly off the web, i.e., outside of Elluminate and he produced great recordings. This helps a lot.
We’ve tried a few different ice breakers. Interaction to learn the webinar tool is always a good idea. Sometimes a kind of introduction to break the ice with audio can be good. Especially if you want audio input. Many people freely text chat, but don’t like to speak online.
Be careful with screen sharing and video. They require so much bandwidth that they often make the presentation not work for lots of attendees. Much better to use screen shots.
Some people take online commitments lightly. Several presenters never showed up. Some volunteer moderators disappeared when we tried to pin down times for them to cover.
Online conferences have the advantage of being able to have introductory and truly advanced topics that will appeal to a narrow audience.
On Monday, I had a chance to work with a group of Occupational Therapists at Pediatric Potentials of West Essex, LLC in Livingston , NJ. I have worked with Laurice Kalb, OT, and Owner and Director of Pediatric Potentials for over 10 years and consulted to her in developing Computer Campus, a division of her occupational practice that is dedicated to helping students with learning differences to maximize their potential using the computer. At Computer Campus, students can learn to type and use a wide array of different technologies that can help support their learning in the classroom. It has been awhile since I had visited her center and worked with her wonderful group of occupational therapists to show them the latest and greatest technologies.
I was able to start the day talking about trends that I see when looking at the intersection of special education and educational technology and we spoke about the impact of Universal Design for Learning, Web 2.0, and Cloud Computing to get the day going on the right track. Introducing them to the world of Google Docs was a real eye opener for them and you could see the wheels were turning as to how they could incorporate these tools in their practice. The rest of the day was dedicated to showing them so new and exciting technologies that I have been exploring and talking about its application in the classroom.
The group was very interested in taking a look at how they could use the LivescribeSmartpens in their practice to teach students how to take notes. I did a demo of the Echo Smartpen and described the various ways it could be used not only for taking notes but as a tool to support students who may need some audio supports for learning and for taking tests. In the first scenario I printed a map with the counties of New Jersey directly onto the dot paper and then simply added some dots. Once the dots were added I hit the Record button and then recorded some facts about the counties. This really brings the page to life and can be a wonderful support for students who learn best by providing them with this type of material. In the second scenario, I showed them how they could cut up the dot paper and place a small audio dot on the page next to a test question and record the question so that a student with a reading disability could access the test independently. When you think how huge that is both for schools and for the student you can begin to see the value that tools like the Echo Smartpen can bring to the classroom. With a little creativity and imagination the Livescribe Echo Smartpen can provide a student with a wide range of supports in their learning and that's even before you think about pencasts!
Exploring ways that teachers and therapists in the practice could use the Echo Smartpen to create pencasts was just another seed that I know will germinate with them. I had a chance to demo how to share a pencast by uploading it online and how to acquire the link or embed code to place it on their website. The therapists in the room with intrigued with the idea of pancasts and how they could use it to help demonstrate ideas and concepts. I closed by showing them how to use the MyScript Handwriting Recognition plug-in to turn their handwritten work to editable text in Microsoft Word. To say the least it was very exciting to experience all the energy and interest in what I was demonstrating.
In part two of the blog post I will talk about the rest of the day and how we explored the Apple iPad and got reacquainted with the NEO 2 from Renaissance Learning. Wow we did cover a lot of ground. To be continued........
MindManager on and off ever since. But using mind maps has really become extremely useful to me now that I am focusing on highly complex issues in nursing. In my nursing practice, being able to mind map helps me to see the big picture and how events are connected. The dysfunction of one organ often affects other organs and starts a cascade of complications and things to consider. And this is the reason why mind maps and MindManager have become so useful for me. It can be difficult getting a quick overview of a particular situation or disease if you stick to text documents. With MindManager I can easily create a mind map and I can quickly go back and review it when needed. Also, it is very easy to alter the mind map as new treatments are introduced. Computer-based mind mapping has proved to be a huge benefit as my library is growing. It is relatively easy to relate two or more subjects (maps or topics) or even combine them. (I have never really been much of a pen & paper mind-mapper).
