Mindmapping for the left-brained scientist

A task assigned early in the unit is to develop skills in concept/mind mapping, blogs and wikis. I use wikis in the workplace for project development work, team activities, and student learning and teaching, so, "check". I'm recording my learning journal to the world's favourite blog site, "check". Concept/mind mapping? Sigh. I view the pretty sample pictures in the courseware, and quickly understand the power offered by the tools, and can also understand why right-brained 'creatives' would enjoy and even use such things.

But I'm a left-brained scientist. I might doodle absent-mindedly on the edge of a page and I do actually have a secret desire to be a satire cartoonist, but really - come on. Representing thinking processes and learning concepts with hand drawn pictures. It's a struggle, but I manage to restrain my enthusiasm. After all, I'm a scientist - my thinking is clear, logical and linear. One of my mindmaps would just be a straight line showing an obvious progression from alpha to omega, with pertinent points clearly labeled on the continuum.

However, I accept that my left-brainedness imposes its own restrictions and so I journey bravely into new territory. I decide to apply some of this great white magic to a course reading, Transforming our models of learning and development (Kraiger, 2008), to be able to say I'd at least given it "the old college try" before abandoning it forever.

I reluctantly sneak some Reflex from the printer tray - a taboo practice in our home office - and find some real, physical, tangible honest-to-goodness pencils (with sharpener) and eraser (that's Ctrl-Z, right?) and set about mapping instructional models in first, second and third generations. Noting a timeline hidden in the text, a straight timeline emerges from my central theme, with relevant decades and key players appropriately scaled in. ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) unfolds from the First generation limb, I sketch in Goldstein's contributions with Instructional Systems Design (ISD) in the '70's, linking this back with a dashed line to ADDIE to show the relationship, and across to the timeline...

Adding the word INSTRUCTOR in large, blocked font to illustrate the primary theoretical approach, I give the instructor limbs showing the central role and importance, with "Gain Attention", "Inform Objectives", "Present Material" and others capitalised out boldly on limbs as functions of the instructor, with the learner added, almost as an afterthought, on spindly sub-branches to each function. Smaller again, I add the learner's attributes and roles - "passive!" and "absorb!".

I like that.

It looks pretty good.

I find myself wishing for someone to show it to, "Look how cleverly I've diagramised this information!" I'd say, "Look, isn't this clearer than this boring text article?" I know from experience that the attentions of my long-suffering wife should be reserved for proofing my papers before submission, expecting her to be excited at each of my efforts may be straining the friendship - and the cat simply doesn't care.

I'm out of room on my page now - both sides.

I consider reaching for more paper. Hang on! What goes on? I am a freedom fighter in the war against the use of butcher's paper in academia - enough of this cunning subversion, I almost found myself mindmapping on physical paper and enjoying the learning experience. After a gentle chiding and a deep breath, I remind myself there are online tools for this. A fellow journeyer from a previous course is an ardent Prezi user. I always enjoyed her Prezi productions but quietly harboured a sneaking suspicion that needing to conceptualise ideas in such a way showed less than a scientific mind.

Right about now Prezi seems to be a great idea.

I'm off to see if I can concept map Kraiger's ideas from my scribbling to the Internets.

I'll report on my experiences later!


References

Kraiger, K. (2008). Transforming our models of learning and development: Web-based instruction as enabler of third-generation instruction. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1 (2008), 454–467.