Free Resources from the Net for (Special) Education

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

Today I’m beginning a series of posts about online mind-mapping applications. Available options have grown rapidly in recent months. The potential of mind-mapping for both learners and their teachers is limitless. While mind-mapping is especially helpful for visual learners, it seems that mind-maps are of value to all of us. The best mind-mapping platforms are true Web 2.0 applications, designed to be shared easily. This means they are useful for both individual and collaborative efforts.

Thinkature (online resource) This is a shareable online mind-mapping application that is appealing both for what it can do and for its straightforward interface. Thinkature has kept things simple by not offering an extensive range of options. The tools that are available, however, make for very effective mind-mapping, with a great deal of built-in flexibility.

With Thinkature, you can pile cards on top of each other as well as cluster and connect the ones that are visible. It’s a snap to add graphics either from your hard drive or from the web. There is also a convenient tool for free-hand drawing. For the student who can be online in the classroom, Thinkature could be a terrific note-taking tool.

The picture below, from the Thinkature website, gives a pretty good idea of how it all works. The picture does not show the convenient chat functions that are built into Thinkature. You have the option of using text or voice to chat in real time while working collaboratively. Any changes made to a mind-map by any participant also appear immediately on all screens.

Mind-maps created in Thinkature can be made public, or they can be restricted to invited participants. You can also print your mind-map.

The following Thinkature video tutorial by “bclothie” appeared on Teachertube after I posted this. I’m embedding it here for your convenience.

Download Video: Posted by bclothie at TeacherTube.com.

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