Making Connections with Mind Maps

Using Mindmeister I created a mind map of the curriculum my students are engaged in during the geometry unit. I chose to do this unit because it involves a lot of definitions and concepts that can be verbalized. I struggled with deciding what concept to mind map because I think it is more difficult to do such an activity with Math topics. The idea behind my mind map is that the students would create one like this at the end of a unit, as a review of the concept learned. By putting their ideas into a mind map, it forces the students to see how the concepts are interrelated. It helps them to solidify the concepts by verbalizing explanations of them. Mind maps such as these could be used for the purpose of assessment in place of traditional paper-pencil assessments.
The most important lesson that I learned from this activity is that students need to have to opportunity to display the knowledge that they have learned in multiple ways. It was difficult for me to get started, but once I got going, it was easy to add ideas.
I liked that MindMeister had a large canvas that allowed you to expand your ideas as far as you wanted. I also liked that you can collaborate with many people at one time on this site. It acts as a wikimap. This allows for students to all work on one class map. I disliked its ability to include Math concepts. Students have a hard time figuring out how to display math symbols on the computer. I would have been nice if they had a data base of math symbols for students to use while mind mapping.
I see myself using this tool mostly as a way to review for tests. Next time, I would have students create mind maps as study guides for tests. I would consider having them work together in groups of two. Students always view things in different ways, making group work perfect for this activity.