Literacy Web Tool Modeling

I started experimenting with a website called mindmup.com which allows you to easily make mind maps.  What I like about mind maps is the fact that it organizes all your thoughts and allows you to be as simple or complex as you would like.  You can have a simple looking web, with only a few topics on it, or get as detailed as possible with tons of information.  Using this website, I made a quick mind map of the different math topics that can be used as references for math teachers and students.  I think that I would encourage students to make this mind map in their trig class so that they can see all the math that they have accomplished in the past few years as a student.  I would also consider using this for an individual class (i.e. Geometry or Algebra) as a way to get students thinking about reviewing topics.  Remembering the topics they covered is the first step to get them to actually review those topics :)

I think that this online tool is extremely convenient and easy for students (and teachers) to use.  It is quite intuitive, and you can save it onto the mindmup website or as a google doc.  It is easy to change the colors of the boxes and add new boxes, as well as arrange them as you'd like.  There is also an option to insert pictures straight into the mind map, although I did not experiment with that feature.  You can also collapse a node if you want to temporarily hide a section (for example, the subnodes of Trig if the students haven't learned it yet).  One concern with this tool is how cluttered the map looks if there is too much information.  I would encourage the students not to write paragraphs for each node.  There is also a limit to the movement of each node.  You are unable to make a new section vertical, so the child node has to be on the outer (left or right) side.  I am unsure as to whether the curved lines connecting the nodes are a pro or a con.  I think that straight lines can look kind of harsh, but these lines seem a little juvenile to me.