>>MODERATOR: We are
rolling. Welcome to today's seminar on visual thinking: put brainstorming on steroids with mind mapping with
Michael Keely. Michael has advanced
degrees in architecture, fine art, individual therapy. He teaches at Loyola Marymount
University for a number of years. Repeating his pedagogy after spending numerous of broad-based burning there
is, he began
 to reshape his course based on what might be better accomplished online. Most students recorded a higher level of engagement in a more personal
connection to the course content. Michael documents what he's learned in his blog on innovative
 
>>:
 Thank you. First I will do a brief recap and case study of what I did in my course
and how I evolved toward using technology. Next, I want to talk about some of the
principles of mind mapping [
inaudible]..
.
Hopefully, the images will carry
this. [ Inaudible
..
A course I teach called visual thinking. The content is learning what I
call technical creativity. The students learned
techniques for being more creative.
I don't limit creativity to art making. The other component of the class
is that we look for contemporary Art as an inspiration for innovative
thinking. We don't look at traditional art because most of my
students are familiar with painting, drawing, and sculpture.
[ON THE BOARD]
 I was happy teaching this class for 11 years and then I went to this conference (a year ago and it got me thinking
about what online technologies I could use to take my class
further. I am enjoying it and it seems the students are enjoying it and getting something out of
it. I thought a lot of potential for change.
The first thing I did was immerse myself in all the possibilities. I researched it
online and checked references for presentations from different conferences. I found about
 
I was doing all this on my own. I'm an adjunct professor. I thought it would take about 40
hours to sort through the options and consider how to integrate them and make worse content. Of course, it took 200
hours or more. But it was worth it.
The thing that really took more time was rethinking everything I had been
doing. Exercises, presentations, etc. My two columns were, what would be
essential and better done face-to-face versus
online. The first thing to go were
lectures. My students are just as happy
to listen to a podcast or read a PDF as they are to listen to a lecture.
I focused on voice thread.
I think it is the idea for teaching art online. What you do is create a voice thread, place an image on the
slide, and then the person that recorded
it can ask a question or request a comment. Then the students can access all the pictures around that image and
 
What I found was that the quite students who wouldn't speak up in
class were often far more
 
>>MODERATOR:
 Someone wants to know if you can upload a video in voice thread
 
>>:
 This
 Yes, you
can. Thinking about all of these things became overwhelming, so I needed to try to organize them. The nice thing about a mind map
is the ideas radiate out from it and it is
 
I need to innovate in a way that made
sense. [
Inaudible] the last thing is that I realize this technique
at taught my students to help with their creativity would be the perfect way to organize and
get an overview of all these options. When I began to conceive of new exercises I could do with these new
 
So,
again. Creativity, mind maps, and the process of brainstorming. I think creativity is a mode of thinking that is playful, childlike, joyful, and
generative. I think one of the things that interferes with people's creativity is that often
people have trouble accessing their child
south. Kids are often not afraid of getting things wrong. In terms of art making, very few adults make art, but if you lead a box of crayons or paper with a
kid, you don't have to make them draw. We need to be creative and
generative without Siebel painfully analyzing. That seems to be the biggest mistake people
make when
creativity.
Brainstorming is about making the biggest possible list of options and then switching back into a vertical mode and analyze which once are the best.
Brainstorming is simply a flow
state where one can uncritically drop down
ideas. People waste a lot of time by having an idea and then considering whether it's practical, embarrassing, or dumb. You are losing time just getting the list. It is about the richness of ideas, not how right they are.
[ON THE
BOARD] I put images of images up that make me think. And the left are branches of a tree. In the middle is a neuron structure, and on the right is a lightning bolt. Typically, I will stare at these images and something will
coalesce.
A mind map is a
 diagram used to organize words, ideas, and images, in a holistic, hierarchical form, in order to gain fresh
 
One of my students said they like less better because they are more organized. I said that actually, since a mind
 
The key thing is to establish a quarter to accelerate ideation. We can make a
list, or use a grid. Often I hand them a great and say here's the topic. But an idea in each of these squares as quickly as
possible. Frank Loyd Wright once said it's not so much that I am smarter, it's that I always begin
immediately and have a huge trashcan.
Before I used
 mind maps for brainstorming, I used a demand
 
A mind map can be just words, a mind map can be just images, which is harder. One of the advantages of the mind
map is that it is associative thinking. A picture with a word tends to connect with more ideas than staying completely in the realm of
words. The person that thinks he invented mime mapping says try to get it down to one word.
The branches that radiate out from the central concept should be deduced down to a single word. This can be
difficult. Sometimes it's impossible for some topics. On the left is a very messy and
drawn mind map that are used for a mobile learning seminar. On the right is the application I use called mind
node. I think it is often better to use the
 
On the upper right is a simple mind map that I started on my
phone.
 
Mind maps can be used for many things. You can take notes, organize a
presentation, they can be good for decision-making, but we will focus on how they are used in
 
Here is my first question. Have you ever made a mind map? Please answer yes or
 
Okay. We have mixed
response. Here's an example of a mind map that one of my students
through. It is a classic one. Let's just begin here. If you have a piece of
paper, you could just draw a mind map. The classic way to begin is to draw an oval with a key term, and then add things outward from
that. If you have a piece of paper handy, draw an oval in the center and write the word happiness. From
that, you would ideally use colored pens and make branches go outwards. Make them curbing and colorful
and that is helpful. Then, list of things that make you happy. Keep
these categories broad. Travel, exercise, family. You can add more detail further
out.
Two main things I think
of. First, gaining an overview of a complex subject. By leaning Blake and IMAP and cross
connecting, it seems I get more effective brainstorming using the mind map than just asking them to make a list. I will often give them a mind map that is preformatted with a term and then with branches and being out from
 
I am going to put the topic and changes in
education. You can use the straight line or the freehand tool. You can choose
colors. I'm going to draw a straight line
and then just add, what are the changes in education? One of them is budgets [ON THE
BOARD].
 
>>MODERATOR:
[LAUGHTER]
>>: it is not the easiest format for
drawing a
 
for the field of technology, on the pink
different colored lines I would put blessings and
 
>>MODERATOR: The unprepared
students in the short attention span. That is an interesting one because they have been doing some urological studies showing the
more ADD we become from multitasking, the less able we are able to focus on one task at a time and do that task well. That is beginning to be a real
issue. At least in my mind!
>>: I also think it changes if you engage the students in
activities and find the things they are interested
.
We had
>>MODERATOR: Mary
and asks if anyone has read Carr's The
Shadows. 
It talks a bit about the short attention span. That sounds interesting. I understand that
PBS has a show on mine you can download called Digital
nation. It addresses almost everything we have on this board. It is very interesting.
>>: I often find it people are overprescribed and are kind
of apologetic, think I have ADD. These things and
come in batches and some are true,
but the other I think it works for
people that are more action oriented to help work through what the diagnosis might
Often with mind
maps, it is harder to establish the Hari arche, but when I find I use mind note on my iPhone, it is very clean and
simple and I need it to be simple on a small screen. But I
find that I do better brainstorming just
using a hand-drawn
map. So, brainstorming efficiently. Again, if you were going to rate some as creativity and a brainstorming
exercise, you would just count. In my class is called crossing a
chasm. You draw a chasm on the whiteboard and say you're on one side
and across is the thing you want most in the world. Without thinking too much about this world, come
up with as many ideas as possible as rapidly as possible about how you would cross the
Here's a little sketch I
drew, forcing expansive thinking. One way I force my students to expand their thinking is to say, here's the situation, here is a problem. I don't care to make a list, a great, or a mind map, but try to have 50 ideas in six minutes. If you get hung up on analyzing the ideas were feeling
embarrassed by them, you are slowing down the brainstorming process. I keep seeing this connection between the ideas of growth in nature and trees would be branch
late structure of a mind map. In this mind
map I gave this map to my students to fill in the different
nodes. Here's a mind map I drew, a rather elaborate one, about how
ideas below. One way is to have an
idea and then just say what is the general from that particular idea and then extrapolate. To get more branches off the general
idea. The other way is to go from particular to general or general
to particular. If you are asking how to get 100
ideas in 10 minutes, both of those are good. If you are working with
someone, it is good to act as one another's coach and ask, what if?
What if?
A crucial thing that no
is
that you need to
ideate. He must remind people not
to analyze during the brainstorming session.
 
When brainstorming in a group, diversity helps. It has to be a safe
 
Again,
stop the analysis like the brainstorming is going on.
Here's something I did with my students. These four
There are tons of mind map
apps. Here are a few of them. For the iPhone there are more than 25 apps. Since I
found mind note on the Mac, there is a free version, a version and an ICANN version. It is simple. That middle one,
thinkBuzan
is colorful but overly compensated. Free mind is a little
bit busy for me. I went the cleanest interface possible.
So, these are the apps I use [ON THE
BOARD]. The book that I probably learned the most from initially is the mind map
 
So, this is mind
node.
one thing that is really nice about mind mapping in this
applicationis that you can add hyperlinks to the different
nodes on the map. If people click on the nodes it will open a webpage or a
video this was my form for changes in education. The mind map we collaborated on on a
whiteboard, and then you see if I open a new map, this is how simple minded note
is. Again, the crucial thing is to keep it
simple. What I love about this is that you don't need instructions. Just pull a
node up for the
 
[BOAR
D MAC].
It is amazing how many things are available. There is a lot of personal preference to it. This slide shows of the
advantages and disadvantages of different methods. [ON THE
 
When in doubt, I would use the hand drawn. Depending on where you are, you can usually find a piece of paper. Tony
Buzan
really feels it's crucial to get into this childlike state. He thinks using a lot of color absolutely turns on the brain and inspires creative thinking. I agree with that. You can also use images
from a magazine and cut them out and tear them out and collage them onto the mind
 
There is the lower of silicone Valley that says all the big
 
With my students learn how to mind map and we do some things in class, the first
assignment out of class is to mind map there
up glasses but I would do lecture. One of my favorite mind maps is the planet green vacation. Just dreaming without the limits of time and
money. You get the dream clear first, then figure out how to do it.
Again, this is the mind map. I made a PDF of this. Upon the right I made a few examples from my students. I have a link to Tony
Buzan's
tutorial. The two books I have used are
Tony Buzan's mind
mapping. And the first book I ever read about mind
mapping. You can see there are hyperlinks to the various applications I talked about. It is a matter of personal
style to find out what works best for you. That is
it. I am open if anyone has any questions or
 
>>MODERATOR: We have time for questions or
comments. When I was looking for links, I found this link
[CHAT
WINDOW].
>>:
 And have them do the classic which is where you draw and Noble. I use the word happiness, because everyone can relate to
it. Even though I only have 14 students in each section of my class, I still subdivide
it. It is really important to have students work in small or conversational groups. They work in teams of three or four after having done individual mind maps on the subject of happiness. Then I asked the team to think about what they have most in common and think about a
topic that is important to them and their culture. They need to find something where they think they will have a lot of
overlap. It seems that when they choose the
topic, they find something fun to work on and it falls much more rapidly. The assignment out of
class is
, I give them a list of all the things one could do with a mind map. I asked them to make to mind
maps for two very different
uses. The principle, some people say, is that you will remember a lecture better if you mind map or if you are taking notes
from a book. Because the mind map tends to be more visual and hierarchical, they will better never be content and in conventional note
taking. We do a lot of brainstorming on different topics. What I'm trying to teach them to
do is not just have a
problem, think of their first solution and then go at that. That is the natural tendency, to go with the first fairly good solution. Instead, I went in to ask what their options are and then choose one from the
list.
 
Friday we are going to experiment with the different types of mind maps. My students have only used the handwritten ones. We are going to use my note on the iPAQ and get some feedback from them on how they like using the iPAQ versus drawing by hand. Any other
 
The question is, is it easy to display a map from
mind Node to a
website? Yes. I used dropbox, which is a free service. You download a drop box and it syncs your files on multiple devices. My favorite thing about
dropbox if the public folder within the dropbox. You save the PDF in a public
folder and you click on that file and it gives you a
link and make it very easy to share any PDF, particularly these
hyperlinks of mind maps. It makes it very easy to put things in on a blog entry.
>>MODERATOR:
 Just a reminder, anything you can display on a computer screen you can get with a
screenshot.
>>: For some people I will send them a day pack. The PDF has the advantage of maintaining the
hyperlink. Allows it to send a screenshot. I will hand draw a mind map and then shoot it with my phone and at low to that to a blog
 
>>MODERATOR: Before I forgot or people leave to go eat, I just want to remind everybody to let us know what you think by filling out a short
 
Someone mentioned that, so here it is. Mind maps look very
>>:
 That's right, I think my maps have been around a long time. Everyone should check out the Tony
Buzan tutorial, but I don't think he invented
it.
>>MODERATOR: Any questions?
 
thank you very much for coming, Michael. It's really nice to see how brain
>>: Thanks,Marty. This was my first experience with CCC
