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Tips and Tools to help with brainstorming

AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook.

Shared at edubloggercon

"AnswerGarden is a new minimalistic feedback tool. Use it as a tool for online brainstorming or embed it on your website or blog as a poll or guestbook."

mindmapping

Great sites here for students brainstorming ideas!

Wikibrains is a social brainstorming tool that helps you think. It's fast, visual and fun.  Put in a word or topic and see what others have brainstormed or start one of your own.

Very simple graphic builder and easy to use

Concept mapping tool

Brainstorm online with bubbl.us. Easily create colorful mind maps to print or share with others. Almost no learning curve. Businesses, universities, and other schools are using bubbl.us worldwide to generate ideas, map out processes and create presentations.

Why I Like Prezi In my life, I have given a *lot* of presentations. In high school, they were presentations on group projects. In university, they were presentations on research projects. At Google, they're presentations on how to use our APIs. When I first started giving presentations, I used Powerpoint, like everyone else. But I kept thinking there must be a better way, and I experimented with other options - flash interfaces, interactive Javascript apps. Then I discovered Prezi, and it has become my presentation tool of choice. Prezi is an online tool for creating presentations - but it's not just a Powerpoint clone, like the Zoho or Google offering. When you first create a Prezi, you're greeted with a blank canvas and a small toolbox. You can write text, insert images, and draw arrows. You can draw frames (visible or hidden) around bits of content, and then you can define a path from one frame to the next frame. That path is your presentation. It's like being able to draw your thoughts on a whiteboard, and then instructing a camera where to go and what to zoom into. It's a simple idea, but I love it. Here's why: It forces me to "shape" my presentation. A slide deck is always linear in form, with no obvious structure of ideas inside of it. Each of my Prezis has a structure, and each structure is different. The structure is visual, but it supports a conceptual structure. One structure might be 3 main ideas, with rows of ideas for each one. Another might be 1 main idea, with a circular branching of subideas. Having a structure helps me to have more of a point to my presentations, and to realize the core ideas of them. It makes it easy to go from brainstorming stage to presentation stage, all in the same tool. I can write a bunch of thoughts, insert some images, and easily move them around, cluster them, re-order them, etc. I can figure out the structure of my presentation by looking at what I have laid out, and seeing how they fit together. Some people do this

I've used many mind mapping tools and find them lacking in functionality (xmind) , expensive (inspiration) or very hard to use (Free Mind). Most of these tools will not allow you to have 2 main topics and create a double bubble map (like a venn diagram). Edraw Mind Map has a very easy to use ribbon interface similar to Word 2010 and tons of built in symbols and mind mapping templates. It is free for educational use and their site has tons of video tutorials that cover all the nifty features. It's the first mind mapping program where I felt like I wasn't fighting the interface.

Online Brainstorming and Planning. Add a sticky note and post it online.

The trick to effective mind mapping is finding the right tool for the job - whether that tool is pen and paper, as Guy Lewis used to unravel his personal life, or dedicated software, as Patrick Lynch used to explain Wild Apricot's features to his colleagu

Another way to present information visually. Very neat and easy to use.

story map for your ideas; demo tool for showing what you know.

Collect ideas, brainstorm, collaborate.  Easy to use site.

I am really excited about this tool! Thank you for sharing. The templates are wonderful!

Collaborate with up to 16 different users within the one document. Great for Brainstorming or Group Work.

A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.

A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.

A great blog post on social pedagogies and how they can be incorporated in university/college classes. A good understanding of creating authentic learning experiences through social media.

Great tool for voting + discussion

Ryan Goble, who often coaches teachers in what he calls the "mindful" use of technology, has written today's guest post on user-friendly tools that enable the creation of student projects.

Collaborative mind mapping tool which blends the Cognitive Learning Theory and the Constructionist Learning Theory of education