Development: integration of mindmaps with e-learning
Dokeos helps organizations that want to produce courses on their own without calling upon the services of specialized companies.
The concern for effective e-learning forces them to express their ideas visually. But it is not simple for a teaching expert, who is not an art designer, to express his ideas in images.
Mindmapping: a logico-visual tool
Mindmapping is one of the most complete and concrete solutions for this problem.Here is an example mindmap about the SCORM e-learning standard.
Mindmapping tools (Xmind, MindManager, Intueris…) allow everyone to express their ideas, not only in a visual way but by articulating them in a logical way, by optimizing the comprehension, memorizing and structuring of the ideas.
Thus, in the diagram above, the operation of standard SCORM through this four dimensions is explained: Teaching (tracking), Economic (sharing), Technique (grouping of contents) and Navigation (linearity, individualization).
Mindmapping then acts as a grammatical tool that articulates subject and predicate (see the verbs on the arrows). Coupled to an oral explanation or an audio comment, the mindmap becomes the synthetic support of an explanation.
Using mindmaps in training and e-learning
For several years the teams of Dokeos STUDIO have accompanied the companies in integrations of mindmapping and e-learning. Today, we are proud to announce that our development team succeeded in integrating two technologies. This facilitates the integration of mindmaps in your training.
There are at least four possible applications of this innovation:
- Creating a menu on the homepage in the form of a mindmap, in order to articulate the stages of the training;
- Integrating mindmaps in training contents to explain an idea, a process. Possibly, in the authoring tool, associate an audio comment with a mindmap;
- Knowledge management in Wiki: the first page is presented as graphical table of contents, for an overall picture and a professional navigation;
- Outline of the training in the Description tool. The chart provides in only one glance the objectives, the methods, estimated time, the evaluation modes,…
In a general way in Dokeos, a mindmap is at the same time a description of the contents of something and a support for navigation in this one (clickable mindmap).
Functions of Dokeos MINDMAPS
Dokeos 2.0 imports only the charts with format XMIND and its derivative: Intueris and Dokeos MIND. These are open source and freely downloadable tools which are used locally on the desk (Windows, Mac and Linux). Once imported, the mindmap is converted into an image, is saved and consulted in a image gallery.
You can then (right click on the image, then "Links on image") associate the various zones of the mindmap with the link that will point towards pages, exercises and activities of the training.
At last, the heuristic chart is integrated into the contents and the activities of the training. Everywhere where a small WYSIWYG is present (Introduction, Tests, Documents, Course, Dokeos AUTHOR, Wiki…) the charts can be imported, converted into images then treated to associate them with the other parts of the training through the link on the image.
From Powerpoint to mindmaps (MSF project)
Mindmap your e-learning project