The Joy of Online Mindmaps & breaking the Parrot tradition

Photo of Indian Door by Shena Macdonald

Once again, producing content online seemed like a door that should be opened and so we began experimenting with prezi to create digital mindmaps.  We had already been experimenting with getting the learners to produce mindmaps of their theory syllabus instead of writing practise essays. Many of our learners are kinesthetic and visual learners, so the process of creating the mindmap and presenting their theory in a visual manner helped them learn better and the mark improvement was radical. Another reason for the learners improvement was the fact that producing their own content improved their understanding of the content. They were no longer able to parrot learn facts from the teachers handouts and were forced to process information. One of my matric learners almost failed theory in her June exams because she was copying and pasting her mindmap information off the internet. We had an intervention meeting and she began creating infographics that transformed the information into her own words. The result was incredible- her theory mark went up by 50% in the Trials exam.

So engaged learners produces improved understanding!

Part of why I enjoy online forums is the fact that learners are able to collaborate with you on a project. By creating online prezi's the learners were able to share links and editing rights with us.  Our girls spend hours on presentation and they loved the professional aesthetics of using prezi. Thus their theory projects improved their presentation skills (these skills are vital for preparing them for the world of work), creating learning content improved their understanding and they were able to share their knowledge with other people. They also loved doing homework and studying for exams! (this is a huge plus for a teacher).

I was also able to help them with their homework from home if we (the learner and I) were online simultaneously. We (the visual arts department) have since started using Google docs to collaborate with learners so I shall write more about that soon.

Below are is the post that introduced the Grade 9s to Prezi.
Link to Grade 9 Post on using Prezi

Here is an example of what one of the Grade 9s produced: 

Janae Lorenzo's prezi on illusions of Space

Here is an example of a Prezi I created for my university project:
Link to Prezi about my MTECH proposal