Collaborative Visual Outlining (Comapping)

Mind mapping or concept mapping tools have been around for awhile and many have suggested that they can improve learning by up to 15% (over conventional note taking). Comapping is a tool that I have recently discovered and it was love at first site. This is a really easy tool for creating outlines. Rearrange nodes (items) in your outline is a simple as drag and drop. You can expand or collapse the children of a node. Part of the tool's cool factor is the ability to attach files (images, .doc, videos) to any node. You can also format nodes with traditional formatting tools (bold, italic, color) and turn a node into a link.

click to view screenshot

For a great resource for using tools like Comapping, check out the book


Visual Tools for Transforming Information Into Knowledge by David Hyerle

Update ... I came across a post "50 Useful Mind-Mapping Tools for College Students" which shows that there are lots of choices in the Mind-Mapping/Visual Outlining space.

Yack With Your Students

YackPack is "voice email" or an asynchronous conference call where all conversations are recorded for reviewing later. A demo is far better for getting to know YackPack.

YackPack has great potential for education. In fact, one of the founders has a day job as a research at Stanford who also teaches (occasionally) in the School of Education. You learn more about using YackPack in education.

This is my second look at YackPack. I was really excited back in 2007 when I learned of YackPack, but never incorporated it into my life. I think this is going change as I can already see multiple ways of using this technology. I will give you an update in six months from now.

PS - if you want to read more about YackPack check out this overview.