Thing #14 Go with the Flow

The very first image is an image that I created using Flowchart.com. I chose this site because I was interested in how a flowchart could be used to guide students in the process of learning new material or reminding them to review the rules before turning in assignments. I tried to create a basic flowchart that a student might use before turning in a written assignment. This is obviously not a very good one, but I was more interested in the process of creating the chart at this time than creating a perfect product. I found this site cumbersome to use. Although the site had many different templates, none of them were suitable for my purpose, so I created my own. From there I just used the toolbar and selected the shapes, arrows, colors, and borders that I was interested in. I can see how using a flowchart would be beneficial in the classroom. Flowcharts could be used for any number of things. The process of creating an essay, adding fractions, dividing fraction, multiplication with one, two, or three digit numbers. You get the idea.
The second image above is a mind map of my dream vacation that I created using mindmeister. (Too bad I can't take it right now...sigh...) I actually had a lot of fun creating this. I chose this tool simply because it looked like fun and had a lot of options. It's possible to link documents, URLs, icons, and images to the mindmeister, and I liked that. I struggled with adding this to my blog, but finally figured it out. I exported it as an image and then had to save it in downloads. I clicked on the add an image icon in my blog and then just went through the process of downloading it from my computer-or should I say uploading it to my blog? I have never uploaded anything from the downloads file, folder, place-whatever it's supposed to be called-of my computer so that was a new process.
I see a place for using this in the classroom by having students brainstorm ideas for writing a story or working on a project together. Students often have difficulty writing and organizing ideas, so this would be a useful tool to help them.
The main difference that I see between the mind maps and flowcharts is that flowcharts are more process oriented than mind maps. Mind maps would be more useful for brainstorming ideas.