Picture-Image–Mind Mapping Brainstorming Applications

In order to investigate EFL teachers’ individually-guided professional development activities in Turkey and identify any needs for new professional development programs, Dr. Cagri Ozkose-Biyik from Yasar University and Dr. Oner Uslu from Ege University have developed a questionnaire. Then, they collected data from 820 EFL teachers across Turkey as well conducting 28 individual interviews. The mobile applications shared with you here are the applications that the EFL teachers mentioned in these questionnaires and interviews.
For your convenience, Behice Ceyda Cengiz and Nur Gedik Bal, PhD students at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara reviewed the mobile applications that 848 teachers in the abovementioned study shared. Enjoy!

Pinterest A teacher can discover, search and save great content from across the web using Pinterest. He can make use of these practical ideas and content in language classes especially to take the students’ attention in the warm up or pre-reading sessions. Specifically, the pictures obtained from Pinterest can be used in these sessions since the pictures are from real world. It will be more authentic and catchy for language learners.
Idea sketch/Ideament Ideament is an application that allows a teacher to draw a diagram, concept map, or flow chart with ease. A language teacher can make use of this app in writing courses specifically while teaching how to write an outline. It can also be used in the brainstorming stage of writing. Moreover, a teacher can also use this app in the illustration of new concepts for students. Use of this app might create more visually oriented lessons and increase the learners’ attention and engagement.
MindNode MindNode is a mind mapping application. It is designed for İPad and iPhone. It is not a free application. It has many functions. A teacher can create a mind map during a brainstorming and add many categories and sub categories to these. He can also add notes to those categories or labels. Photos, pictures and stickers showing the concepts can also be added. Sharing is also possible and easy to do. It can be exported as a PDF and shared.
SimpleMind SimpleMind is a mind mapping application and it is compatible with OS X 10.6.6 or later. It is not a free application. One should pay $29.99 for it. This application can be useful for language learning and teaching as learners can organize their thoughts, recall things and create new ideas. It can be synchronized with Dropbox, so that one can avoid data loss. It is also possible to add pictures, icons, notes on the mind map.
MindMeister MindMeister is a mind mapping application and is designed for both iPhone and iPad. It is free to download and use. It might be very good when a teacher wants to share his or her ideas with another colleague while brainstorming by himself. A teacher can easily create his mind map, sketch out a few ideas, and then invite his colleague to join him. Once in MindMeister’s brainstorming mode, both teachers, mind mappers, have a real time view of what the other is thinking, and can see the changes to the mind map in real time. The colors, themes, pictures can also be added to the mind maps.
Inspiration Maps VPP Inspiration Maps is a mind mapping application and it is designed for both iPhone and iPad. Inspiration Maps enables one to create up to five documents to evaluate the functionality of the app for free before using in-app purchase to upgrade to unlimited function. Inspiration Maps VPP gives all the features available in the Inspiration Maps upgrade. Therefore, Inspiration Maps VPP is not for free. One should pay $9.99 for it. This application might be useful for language teachers as they can create many temples and diagrams and add audios, videos, images, hyperlinks to these. It might be utilized in academic writing courses as they can be used in the preparation of CV, or an outline for any writing task.
Kidspiration Map Kidspiration Map is a mind mapping application. Kidspiration Map is not for free. One should pay $9.99 for it. It might be useful for young language learners as they can create visual maps which might be helpful to build reading, writing and thinking skills. Learners can be knowledgeable about how to organize and classify information with the help of Kidspiration Map. Teachers can also use this app for their students. For instance, they can record verbal instructions for different diagrams.