Week 8 Brainstorming

  

 Mindmapping - Brain storming

As the students in the Collaborate pointed out, the objectives of brainstorming can be:

• To find out what students already know about a topic
• To give all students a chance to contribute their ideas on a new topic
• Allows shy students to contribute - often anonymously, depending on the digital tool used. 
• Help to spark interest in something
• Share ideas and support each other
• and others ...

We looked at several software choices that provide the option to organise the brainstorming in a branching formation. We also looked at Trello, with a non-branching structure, which is a great option for teachers as with the free offering it can be used by many students at once collaboratively. 

GroupMap

This is used often in Curtin to aid brainstorming activities. I like it for the fact that it can produce branching options and can have a large number of contributors at the same time. The big drawback for teachers is that it only has a 14 days free trial. Most of the other software has free options with various limitations - good to get students to create their own accounts but not for collaborative brainstorms.

MindMup

This has a good free option for students as you can make as many maps as you wish and store them on your computer.  However, only students who have a paid (about $4 a month) account can collaborate with each other. 

Coggle.it

Coggle has an intuitive workflow. Easy for students to pick up. It allows unlimited public mindmaps but only 3 private ones. Can embed the mindmaps anywhere. For $5 a month you can pay for an account that allows everyone to collaborate by link to any mindmap on your account .

MindMeister

Probably the best looking default mindmap.  You only get 3 mindmaps with the free version, but that also includes real time collaboration, which is a real bonus. 

bubbl.us

This has an attractive presentation by default. Easy to recognise the multilevels as they are colour coded. Only 3 free mindmaps. Pay USD $ 6 a month for unlimited mindmaps and real time collaboration. Easily embedded:

You can see this on the web here:  https://bubbl.us/NTczNzkyMS8xMTE0ODY4MC83YmJiZDhhYTkwZGY0NTA4ZGY4ZDU5OTkxNDllMzNjMw==-X

WiseMapping

Open source - free to create and collaborate without restriction. Seems less intuitive than others, but worth the effort for all the benefits. Lots of charting options. 

Trello

This is more for organising lists than the brainstorming spider web style of layout. But as a collaboration tool it can be used for brainstorming and the fact that it is free is pretty good. On a free plan you can have unlimited members and members can collaborate on the boards. It is more polished than WiseMapping.

Which one is best for your needs?

Alan