Task+2-Visual+Learning+Tools

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Visual Learning
====Many researchers are convinced that the learners we are working with today retain more information when it is presented visually. [|Here is a very interesting chart about tools that can be used to present information visually]. When you view it, taking the mouse over the element brings up more information.====

Some of you may already have used some of these tools.
====MindMaps also fit into this category. Some of you may have used Inspiration, Kidspiration, or another visual tool to represent relationships between ideas. At the school I used to teach at, we taught kids how to take notes either by hand or with similar tools to help them remember better. Exploring the mindmap tools is strictly optional. If you would rather explore those and not the others,====

====that's fine too. One of the places you can find resources is the Diigo bookmark toolbar. Basically you go to the Diigo on the left end of the toolbar, Click on My Bookmarks. I searched for the word Wordle and you see the results here.====

====To see the Wordle bookmarks that others have found, I can then go to Popular at the right and get a list of the ones others have saved. Social bookmarking in action. If you are on your second or third time taking the class, I suggest you explore some of the tools other than Wordle.==== ====The most widely used of these types of tools is [|Wordle]. It takes words, colors them, and changes their size based on frequency. It has evolved into a useful educational tool. Our first grade students used it to practice writing spelling words. Analysts used it to dissect the Presidential inauguration speeches, the Gettysburg address etc. It is a very versatile tool. You can either type or paste text into it. In this section, I am also including links to a shared Google document (you'll learn about those later) that has been growing--when I first saw it it had "[|13 Ways to Use Wordle in Education]+ and today it is up to 35. Wonder how many there will be when you access it. Here's a[|nother place to learn about Wordle.] The [|Clever Sheep Blog] has more uses and so does language teacher [|Nik Peachy] along with [|Jen Wagner]. Jen has another interesting [|tool for Wordle]. Here's [|another interesting site]. A [|14 minute tutorial for Wordle] is found here.====

====Since Wordle came out, there have been many other tools of its type developed. You can read about them at this site that is posted using Live Binders. While this post is not about Live Binders itself, you will probably want to explore it if you want to keep all the materials together for a project online. Check out the [|21 tools this person posted as Word Cloud] (the technical term for this kind of treatments) alternatives. Tagxedo is listed there as well as below this part of this post. Here's a summary of some of the 21 listed there so you can see what different kinds of word clouds can generate.==== media type="custom" key="9766274" width="130" height="130" align="center"

====Here's a variation of Wordle called [|VocabGrabber.] It takes a passage and finds a vocabulary word that it thinks applies to the text you paste. Another one is called [|Word Sift]. and there is always Image Chef's [|Word Mosaic]. ==== ====As things have developed, a more sophisticated Image Maker is [|Tagxedo.]  Here is a very [|interesting tutorial for this] tool. ==== ====This is a tool that allows you to paste a url or paste in text and pick a shape and style and it makes another sort of word cloud. I have not had a lot of time to play with it but if you took the class last year, this might be a good new tool for you to explore. Or if you are a high school person, you might want to list it as one of the tools your students might use to analyze text. Here is my Tagxedo for this page. ====

====Mind mapping is another way of helping students learn to visualize concepts. According to Wikipedia a mind map is a [|diagram] used to represent [|words], [|ideas], tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to [|generate], [|visualize], [|structure], and [|classify] ideas, and as an aid in [|study], [|organization], [|problem solving], [|decision making], and writing. (c/o Wikipedia.org) A very new MindMapping tool that is collaborative is called [|SpiderScribe.] What is unusual about this one is that there are extensive tutorials done by teachers about how to use it. You will find the [|tutorials at this site].====

Here's a You Tube Video. Often visual learners find Mind Maps more helpful than traditional note taking.
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1 point for creating a Wordle or MindMap. See if you can save it as a Diigo bookmark and share it with the group.
====1 point for blogging about it some of the ways you think it might be useful to you and your students. If you are daring, you can try to embed it in your blog. media type="custom" key="3948515"Click on the icon that looks like a screen to view the show in full screen mode. Have fun.====