It’s finally time to go back to school, 2020 bringing us many changes in our schedule. However, the first school day remains on the same date and a new school year is about to start.
Some of you will return to school, following all the safety guidelines including social distancing. On the other hand, many of you will continue to adapt to the remote learning procedure. Either way, this school year won’t be a regular one. Therefore the Mindomo Team wants to contribute with additional support for conducting courses (educational process) in the best way possible.
In both cases, returning to school or remote learning, collaboration is an essential feature. Thanks to the real-time collaboration between the users, the social distancing, and the at distance meetings won’t be a problem. Teachers and students can keep up with the curriculum and get the most out of this year using this mind mapping software.
How?
Learn some organization hacks you can apply, starting from the first school day to kick off this year!
Tips and recommendations to kick off this year
Recommendations for teachers
Structure your courses using mind maps
“For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned”, they said. When teachers return to school, they have to structure all the courses for the new generation of students. It’s an important and time-consuming task. However, organizing is mandatory. Mindomo comes with two great options that will ease your work and earn you more time.
Firstly, you can use an outline. It gives you a clear overview of the structure and can help you focus on the most important topics. You can create it from scratch and easily reorganize your list. Another advantage is that you can add tasks and set dates. This way, you can assign each course or discussion theme to one class. Moreover, you can attach documents or resources.
Secondly, there is the mind mapping alternative. You can create one from scratch as well by following 3 simple steps:
- Brainstorm your course ideas;
- Organize them into groups (topics);
- Review and decide on the final version of your curriculum plan.
In the end, you can turn the mind map into an outline, with only one click.
However, if you want to ease your work, even more, Mindomo has templates specially designed for that. You can plan your curriculum by completing the following template. It contains a set of elements that will guide you to achieve the goal of transposing the education goals into concrete activities:
Lesson planning using mind maps
Remote learning may get you out of ideas. Therefore, each lesson should be planned ahead more carefully. This template will help you set up a perfect lesson plan, no matter which learning environment you have.
Think about the information, objectives, activities, assessments, homework, and discussion topics. You’ll get plenty of ideas on how to turn your class into an exciting experience for you and your students as well.
Digital agenda
The last organizational element you should take into account is a digital agenda. It can be a regular mind map where you add all the exam dates, deadlines, and online or physical meetings with students. Adding all of this to your map as tasks with set dates will generate email notifications to keep you updated with your schedule. You can choose to create one for the whole school year or one for each week.
To simplify your work during this year, besides the organization hacks, Mindomo suggests the following features:
- Use a learning management system integration. You can easily integrate Mindomo with Canvas, itslearning, Brightspace, Schoology, Moodle, Blackboard, and Google Classroom. To integrate Mindomo to one of these LMS check out the Integrations section from our Help page or benefit from our support services.
- Use the assignment feature and create team projects for your students. Thanks to the real-time collaboration, you will keep your students connected with each other.
- Evaluate each student’s contribution to team projects or assignments using the playback history feature.
- Use the specially designed templates for students as materials.
Recommendations for students
Book summaries for holiday reads
Create a summary of your holiday reading list. Create a mind map with the main points or your favorite ideas from the book while you’re reading it. This way, by the time you finish the book, you’ll have all the essential information summarized.
You can easily edit or add ideas. Whenever you want to come back to the book you don’t need to lose precious time reading it again, you can just take a look at your summary in a minute.
Besides that, you’ll amaze your classmates and your teacher with a stunning mind map presentation of your book summary.
Moreover, you’ll stand out from the crowd with this innovative approach and you’ll definitely be noticed by your teacher from the beginning of the year.
Check out these book summaries examples to get inspired:
Anything you want by Derek Sivers
Note-taking from online video courses
For many of you, remote learning will be the new normal for a while. Therefore, online classes will be a big part of your daily activities. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Actually, you can take advantage of it.
Even if you are at home and the teacher is not in the same place, you can easily take notes from each online lesson. Use mind mapping instead of traditional note-taking on paper. Why?
For many of you remote learning will be the new normal for a while. Therefore, online classes will be a big part of your daily activities. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Actually, you can take advantage of it.
Even if you are home and the teacher is not in the same place, you can easily take notes from each online lesson. Use mind mapping instead of traditional note-taking on paper. Why?
- You do it faster and more efficient;
- You are able to access your notes anywhere, anytime;
- Everything is more organized and you can understand it easily;
- You have an overview of the topic you discussed;
- You can easily edit it: add or remove it without damaging the notes;
- You can share with your classmates and exchange notes easily;
- Add links or multimedia files and keep all your information in the same place;
- You can improve your memory and creativity;
- And many more benefits.
TIP: Create a folder on your Mindomo dashboard for each course and keep everything organized. At the end of the year, you’ll have a complete virtual library. Moreover, you can’t lose any notes. You’ll have all your information saved there.
Read more here on how to use a mind map for note-taking.
In addition to the organization tips, you can benefit from Mindomo during this year in many other ways, for example:
- Use mind mapping for research: it’s a great tool to keep all the information organized and easily accessible;
- Create a mind map or an outline with a list of all the necessary books, ebooks, or materials;
- Use a digital agenda to schedule all the exams, project deadlines, or assignments. Add these as tasks and you can receive email notifications to remind you of each task;
- Create an “exam study agenda”. Organize and plan the moment when you should start studying for each exam to make sure you have enough time to be fully prepared.
Start this year using these tips and recommendations to get the most out of the experience, whether you’ll spend it at home or back in the classroom.
Keep it smart, simple, and creative!
The Mindomo Team
