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Screencast Intro. to FreeMind

Posted: November 27th, 2009, 1:11am EST by pab

This is an under 10-minute intro. to FreeMind that I found on the ICT Guy's blog (2009.06.24). It also is a good intro. to Aussie English, for those of you planning to study down under next spring, or simply interested in getting an earful of another variety.

Introduction to FreeMind from Darrel Branson on Vimeo.
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Outline Derived from Sample Mind-Map (previous post)

Posted: November 26th, 2009, 8:25pm EST by pab

The screenshot below depicts an outline derived from the mind-map in the previous post (Sample Mind-Map for Language Learning Story Essays, 2009.11.26). Though the black text headings in the blue sections are a bit hard to read, they represent the Introduction (preview of main points) and Conclusion (summary of main points) for an essay.

[55 words]

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Please attribute to "The Writing Studio Blog" (without quotation marks).
Sample Mind-Map for Language Learning Story Essays

Posted: November 26th, 2009, 7:02pm EST by pab

Using Freemind software available in Mac labs on campus @ KGU, I prepared a sample mind-map to guide you through preparation of your next essays, Personal Language Learning Stories: Past, Present, and Future (2-03a, fall semester, 2009-10). Though making your own maps is not a requirement for the current assignment, please feel free to do so, and to post your maps in essay prep. posts on you blogs, where your classmates and peers can admire and comment on them as you develop your outlines and complete your essays proper.

You are also welcome to post your outlines (draft and revised), whether or not you derive them from mind-maps, in order to document various steps [in the writing process], in additional posts that you label "essay prep." (without the quotation marks), along with any free-writing that you do on topics related to the current assignment. If preliminary and revised versions of your maps, outlines, free-writing passages, and complete essay drafts differ significantly from each other, and you explain the differences and cross-link between separate posts, those separate posts may serve as evidence of your progress through the current assignment. If, on the other hand, you make only minor revisions in one or more of your essay prep. posts, please remember to update word counts at the foot of those posts.

I saved a couple different views of the sample mind-map as graphics for display in this blog post. The second and third views below show expansions of different sections of the map itself. Please note that the topics and sub-topics displayed in the expanded view of the Body section are only suggestions, rather than a complete catalog of all possible key points and supporting information. What goes in you own maps and/or outlines should reflect your personal language learning experiences and plans.

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Note: If you click on the graphics, they should display in new browser tabs or windows.

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PS: I forgot to mention the original source of inspiration for this essay assignment, Tim Murphey's (1998) students' Language Learning Histories, and their predecessors.

Reference

Murphey, Tim. (1998). Language Hungry Students' Language Learning Histories II. Nagoya, Japan: South Mountain Press.

[+ 40 words]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Please attribute to "The Writing Studio Blog" (without quotation marks).
Link List Addition: British Council Grammar Movies

Posted: November 17th, 2009, 11:34pm EST by pab
This preview post announces a link that I'll be adding to the list in the sidebar (Course Links). The link leads to a short catalog of movies on a British Council website. The movies focus on various grammar points: Tenses, Verbs, Functions, Structures, and Other items.
- LearnEnglishProfessionals: Grammar Movies
I discovered that British Council site with the help of blogging aficionada, Carla Arena, who Twittered yesterday about a post by Ana Maria Menezes, a colleague in Brazil. Ana Maria had created a post about those and other Grammar Videos a couple days earlier on her Life Feast blog (2009.11.14).

Both Carla and Ana Maria called the British Council movies "fantastic." I can hardly wait to check them out. If any of the grammar points detailed in the Grammar Movies catalog are puzzling you, or giving you grief in your writing. I suggest that you check them out, too.
[148 words]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Please attribute to "The Writing Studio Blog" (without quotation marks).
Link List Addition: Citation Maker

Posted: November 15th, 2009, 3:01am EST by pab

The Course Links list in the sidebar sports a new link, the link to the Recipes4Success Citation Maker that I shared in a post early this semester (Recipes4Succes: Citation Maker, October 7, 2009). I put the link there because eventually that post and this one will slip off the top page of this blog.

I suggest that you use that Citation Maker to create APA-style references to include at the foot of your website reviews. Please choose the citation type,"Website", from the drop-down menu first. Then, after you open a record by clicking on the NEW button, and adding all of the information you can, please remember to click on the "APA" option, before you actually create your citation.

The example below lists a corporate author (Tech4Learning), followed by the copyright date from the foot of the page (2009).

Reference
Tech4Learning. (2009). Citation Maker. Recipes4Sucess. Retrieved November 15, 2009, from [myt4l.com]

[165 words]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Please attribute to "The Writing Studio Blog" (without quotation marks).