Stretching the Mind

Last week was very interesting in which I had to "stretch" my mind! At first I wasn't sure why we were asked to make a mind map...but the more I thought about it, the more the assignment made sense to me. I rationalized it as this:
In life, we are constantly asked to make decisions based on some sort of problem or action. The mind map allows us to think about a certain concept in depth, branching out all the possibilities to make that concept work. Though I decided to make my first mind map about my life, I believe that Dr. S was trying to get us familiarized with the process of these decision making skills. Once you are familiar with the logical way of thinking, such as the mind map structure, you can use it in the future to help solve other problems or make important decisions in your life. I was glad I was given this opportunity!
After looking through all of the programs that Dr. S had given to us, I decided to use Inspiration to create my first mind map. To me, this looked as though it was the most user friendly. I downloaded the free 30 day trial, and I had a blast experimenting with the program's tools. There were a lot of neat graphics that I could use and I enjoyed the fact that I could add links and notes to my map. This enabled me to further describe parts of my map in detail. I think I got a bit carried away because my map turned out to be larger than I imagined! Oh well!
The next night, I wanted to experiment with a web based mind mapping tool. I decided to go with Gliffy. Believe it or not, I thought this program was easier to navigate than Inspiration. Like Inspiration, it had a lot of great graphics and designs that I could use to personalize my map. I feel like my map on Gliffy was more organized than my map on Inspiration. Another neat feature of Gliffy is that you could publish the mind map to the Internet. I like this feature because now I can give anyone the web address and they can access it!
I definitely believe that students should be exposed to mind mapping in the classroom. As I mentioned above, it will allow them to think critically, while also sharpening their decision making skills. It also enables visual learners to have a graphic to look at. For example, when integrated into the content areas, it can be used as an outline or a study guide. I believe the possibilities are endless with mind mapping!

Below is a link to my Mind Map created with Gliffy:
http://www.gliffy.com/publish/1624132/