Un-Boggle Your Mind With Coggle

Several months ago Richard Byrne of Free Technology for Teachers featured a mind-mapping tool, Coggle in a post on his blog.  Coggle is a free web 2.0 application released in January of this year.  There is no registration.  You sign up using a Google account.

Features noted on the home page include:

• real-time collaboration
• unlimited amount of images using a simple drag and drop method
• go into history mode to re-do previously made edits
• when collaborating you can see who did what  and
• for visual thinkers branch colors can be changed easily.

If you have a Google account select the big green button and you are good to go.  At the next screen click the green CREATE button.

In the upper-right hand corner of your work space are four icons representing from left to right, collaborators, download, view history and chat.  In the center of the screen, to begin choose the gray New Coggle space by mousing over it.  An arrow (+ sign) on either side will appear.  The arrows allow for the addition of branches in your mind map.  Click and type in the title of your Coggle. 

As you work helpful hints appear on the screen; keys to use to delete, undo, redo, etc.  The entire working area screen can be moved by dragging so you can focus on a particular section.  You can zoom in and out by using control + and control -.  You can also select the question mark icon in the lower left-hand corner for more assistance.

A branch can be dragged to a desired position.  A single click on a branch causes a color wheel to appear allowing for a change in shades.  For each branch that is added a plus sign appears allowing for "a child to be added to the parent" branch.  When you choose a branch name again, you are allowed to edit your text.

At any point you can choose the share (collaborators) icon to provide a link via Facebook or Twitter.   This allows anyone to see the work on your Coggle.  (Here is the link for my Coggle, Book A Day Challenge Summer 2013)  You can also add in readers and writers with their email addresses.

By choosing the download icon you can save your Coggle in PDF or PNG format.  Any hyperlinks added to your Coggle will be functioning in the PDF format.  Adding hyperlinks is easy.  In the text box type the name of the link surrounded in brackets followed by the URL surrounded in parenthesis.

When you select the view history icon a list of times appear.  Click on any to create a copy of your Coggle.  This allows you edit your work from that particular point.






To exit your Coggle simply close the browser link.  Your work in continuous saved.  If you are logged in Google as soon as you go to the Coggle home page your account information (list of your Coggles) will appear.

For more help Coggle has a blog (linked here).  The blog further explains specific features of the application.  There are many how-to narratives offering more sophistication to the look of your Coggle.  

When you desire to quickly collaborate, brainstorm, or make a list, this application is exactly what you need.  I can't begin to stress enough the ease of use.  I recommend putting Coggle in your virtual toolbox.  You, your students and your colleagues are going to really enjoy using this mind-mapping web 2.0 application.

Here is the image of my Coggle.

Here is the embedded PDF file.  I was able to embed the PDF file by uploading it into Scribd.  In Scribd when you click on Preview one of the available options is HTML code.

Book a Day Challenge Summer 2013 by Xenasmom

Bubbles That Work For You

Under Content Collaboration, Standards for the 21st -Century Learner, 1.3.4 Contribute to the exchange of ideas within a learning community, 3.1.2 Participate and collaborate as members of a social and intellectual network of learners and 3.1.4 Use technology and other information tools to organize and display knowledge and understanding in ways that others can view, use and assess, the American Association of School Librarians selected bubbl.us in their 2009 Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning. 

bubbl.us is a free application designed to enhance mind-mapping and brainstorming.  I was unable to find any age restrictions in the Terms of Service or Privacy Policy but the standard is to have students without parental permission to be 13 years of age or older.  A user can begin without registering but when a sheet is completed and you wish to save, registration is required.

To register only a username and password is necessary.  Your first and last name as well as an email address are optional.  In that respect personal information is not necessary to use this service.  To begin click the Start Brainstorming button located in the center of the home page.

Click on the Start Here button in the center of the next screen.  At that time two small squares appear on the right and bottom of the bubble.  When you click on the right square another bubble is generated.  When you click on the bottom square a "child" bubble is created for that bubble.  Click on the Start Here text to add your own text.

When you mouse over a bubble a series of icons appear above it.  These icons allow you to (from left to right):  change the color of the bubble background or change the color of the text within the bubble, the second icon, by repeated clicking, will enlarge the text and the size of the bubble, the third icon by clicking and dragging will draw a line to another bubble and the final icon deletes the bubble.

A cool feature is that bubbles can be clicked and dragged on the screen for placement and the screen itself can be clicked and dragged for viewing and working purposes.  Bubbles can be collapsed (hidden). 

Once a sheet is started across the top of the page are icons which offer the options of undo, copy, paste, print, export (JPG or PNG or HTML outline using colors and/or keeping URLs), or save.

To save a sheet log in with your username and password.  A series of choices appear in a box to the right of the working area.  You can name your sheet and make folders to store similar sheets.  When you select the down arrow/Sharing button your sheets can be shared with other bubbl.us account holders; permission can be given to edit, read only or no access.  If you choose the down arrow to the right of the word Sharing you can share a read-only link to the sheet or an HTML embed code is given. 

An extensive Help section explains very well other features of this simple to navigate, but very useful application.  One feature that is easy to accomplish is the labeling of lines connecting bubbles.  Just click on the lines and add your text.

Here is an example of a sheet with a variety of bubbles that I was able to generate very quickly.  I can see using this application almost any time a class wishes to discuss a variety of topics.  We are reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate as a class read with our fourth graders.  I will be using and expanding this sheet.

Wizard...Pinball, that is.

Pinball  is an interactive site that invites its users to try four different devices for bouncing around ideas.  Brainstorming takes on a whole new fun-filled dimension. 

By selecting Dot Dash a series of ideas contained within connected circles float on the screen providing a visual which can be saved, printed or flipped to another Pinball tool.  If the user(s) think of an idea that is not initially connected to the others it can be added by choosing Lucky Dip.  The dots can be repositioned, images can be added and colors can be changed.

Snap Shot allows the user to import an image.  This image can be reflected, rotated, scaled, bent, erased or cut.  A pen tool and color wheel are provided to draw on the image.  When finished the result can be saved, printed or moved to a Pinball tool of the user's choice.

If the user needs to make a decision from a pool of ideas choose Drop Zone.  Ideas or images of their own can be placed in the cloud as well as those from the Pinball random selection tool, Lucky Dip.  As the ideas rotate by quickly click on those which catch your eye at first glance.  Examine your choices to save, print, refine or move to another application at the site.

With many ideas or choices to make Wild Reels permits the user to group those ideas by categories which then can be randomly shuffled.  When an acceptable combination appears it can be printed, saved as jpeg or as in the previous options moved to another tool.

How does your AnswerGarden grow?

Considering that two of my lifetime passions are gardening and books using words as flowers in

AnswerGarden is the perfect mix.  AnswerGarden is an online tool that is free with no login required.  Very simply it is a visual interactive space where answers are placed in response to a question or statement.  A growing word cloud is generated by all the users.  This word cloud can be imported into Wordle if you wish to print a hard copy.

Check out my first AnswerGarden. 

The best book I have read in the last five years is...... at AnswerGarden.ch.