MindMeister Update #5

When technology is introduced in educational settings students not only learn the class subjects, but technology as well.  Through e-learning in the classroom setting the roles of teachers and students are changing and there is always an ever-present worry that students will be cheating.  In a traditional classroom setting void of technology the teacher is the one who is in charge of controlling the discussion.  When CMC comes into play now everyone is at an equal level with the students now actually controlling the discussion based upon what they have to say.  This paradigm shift in the classroom leaves teachers as more of a facilitator than a driving force.  This shift is not one in which has negative effects, because the students are taking control of the discussion they need to know enough about the material to make a coherent argument.  Since this is happening students are actually learning the material better on their own instead of relying on their teachers to supply them with knowledge.

The internet offers so many benefits to learning such as MindMeister and Wikipedia.  However, there is a very large downside.  Many students who do not wish to put forth the effort to write their own papers often look to the internet to try and steal a paper and turn it in as their own.  This side of E-learning is very unfortunate seeing as how no actual learning is taking place in this criminal act of copying and pasting the work of another.  Although with technology anything is possible.  More and more teachers and universities are subscribing to online services which take the papers of students and cross-reference their work against that on the internet to see if there is a match.  With the contant battle of teachers trying to outsmart students in the field of plagiarism no learning is taking place.

MindMeister offers a prime solution to the paradigm shift amongst teachers and students.  This allows the teachers to assign homework involving class participation on a certain subject requiring students to make meaningful contributions to a mind-map on a particular topic.  This mind-map is online and readily available to all students to collaborate and see the contributions of their fellow classmates in real time.  The students are the driving force of the work simply following the order of their teacher.  MindMeister offers a unique feature where the different contributions of students are color-coded to represent which student added what.  This helps with plagiarism, because it would be very difficult to deny that a student added a comment when it is says so online on MindMeister.