CESI Conference January 2002 St.Patrick's College

Michael McMullin,Dromore NS

Abstract
While school planning is an element of educational systems around the world, the Education Act, 1998 and the revised curriculum have brought it centre stage in Irish primary schools. Developing, revising, and maintaining a school plan is now a major concern for all those involved in school management. Many of these are feeling under great pressure to find new approaches to planning at a point when there are many other equally new demands on their time. A variety of approaches have much to offer to individual school situations but at least one school has found that Mind Mapping serves a dual purpose at opposite ends of the process.

What is Mind Mapping?
Mind-mapping is a strategy for learning and organisation which has been developed and popularised by Tony Buzan amongst others. In its original form, a mind map consists of a central word or concept with 5 to 10 main ideas that relate to that word drawn as branches around the central word. Each of those ideas may then sprout 5 to 10 subordinate ideas as nodes for yet further branches or even whole new maps of their own in an exponential progression. To the purist, indeed, this will be seen as the only way to generate a mind map whether it is literally on the back of an envelope or the size of a wall. Many feel that the individual creativity is held in the colours used, the handwriting, the cross-fertilizations, the doodles etc and that this can only be achieved with physical pen and paper.

Others take the contrasting view that the mind map, like the spreadsheet before it, was always a good idea but needed the arrival of affordable computing power to show what it can really do. This belief is underlined by the rapid expansion in their use in electronic form both on and off the WWW. Even a year or two ago a search on the web for “mind map” would probably have thrown up a handful of sites referring to Tony Buzan, an even smaller number of software packages designed to help generate mind maps and very little else. Try it today and you will find:

· Sites dedicated to advice on how best to use them.

· A wide selection of software packages to choose from depending on the area of interest and the degree of sophistication required.

· At least one Java applet to provide an extremely user-friendly way of navigating web-sites.

· Mind maps to illustrate some of the most complex ideas in fields as diverse as applied physics, philosophy and art history.

So what is wrong with the old way of doing school planning? (Standard disclaimer applies to the following that it simply reflects the author’s observation of some cases and no offence is intended to anyone who has been doing a masterful job of this for years.) Traditionally in Irish primary schools the school plan or Plean Scoile has been held in a dusty folder in an office. It would often be dusted down only for the general inspection which happened every five years or so. At such times many resolutions would be made for the future but under pressure from other matters these resolutions often came to nothing.

It is my contention that a school plan should be first and last for the good of the school and its educational community rather than for any external body. My hope is that the collective approach I am proposing can lead to:

· an increased sense of ownership by all partners,

· a clearer reflection of the reality of the school in its current form and in its aspirations,

· a greater willingness to undertake revisions on a regular basis, and, ultimately

· a plan which is an organic, developing thing which serves real purpose to the school community.

So how can mind mapping work these miracles?
Firstly, it can be used at a very early stage as an imaging tool allowing a staff (or a subsection in the case of larger schools) to discuss the basic contents and structure of a plan, which they would find useful. Ideally, at this point, they will use a large presentation device such as a data projector. However, for small groups, a television set or even an ordinary computer monitor will suffice.

In the case of our school, this step required the devotion of one (half hour) lunch by the principal and myself to decide the basic content of the new school plan. We began by sticking Plean Scoile in the middle of the screen and then editing what were the constituent sections of that proposed body. In doing so we kept an eye to what we already had whether on computer or in the (dusty) folder and what we could see was needed for the future. Some of these needs had never existed in the past while others had had no obvious means of satisfaction but, for now, all we needed were headings on boxes - content could wait for another day. Even at the end of that first half hour we were both aware that this had been different from any previous experience of planning we had had. Neither of us had formerly taken any pleasure in this kind of process, seeing it as a form of drudgery we would go some distance to avoid. In this case, however, the simple mind map we had produced gave a feeling of achievement, that we knew (in broad terms) what was needed and that it could be delivered.

The next step was a week later when the rest of the permanent staff joined us. In the meantime, I had tidied up the map and had begun the process of linking some existing policy documents into it. It may be felt that this is using technology for its own sake. “Why not use the traditional flip chart?”, some will ask. The answer is that this approach makes it much easier to make changes “on the fly”. For example the staff may first put their bullying policy in as a discipline issue but later decide that it is more appropriate to health and safety. On the flip chart such changes will require some messy scribbling and, eventually, a complete redesign. In the software solution, it is a simple “Drag And Drop” process. There is also a major issue with the product at a much later stage of the process but that will come around in due course.

At this early stage it was agreed to examine the whole area of policies and processes. The full staff were able to look at a list of the existing policies and, where necessary add new heading for policies which were deemed necessary. The documents were shared out amongst them on the understanding that at the next meeting each would have a recommendation e.g. leave it alone, amend it, coalesce it with another policy or simply scrap it as no longer relevant.

As time and in-service days moved on, the emphasis shifted to curricular planning. A new map branched out of the plan with sub-branches into broad subject areas and, in the case of languages, SESE etc. further subdivisions. The first to be considered was Visual Arts and much democratic discussion went on about the most appropriate layout. Various sketches on sheets of A4 were considered with the final imprimatur going on a table format with the various strands going down the left and the four seasons across the top. All staff members agreed to work on producing a total of four such plans, i.e. Infants, 1st/2nd, 3rd/4th and 5th/6th. Those who were comfortable with the technology could fill it in on-screen while others could put it on paper and have the school secretary put it into Excel.

So we now had a plan which was brought up from a shortcut on the desktop and from there one could click on Curriculum -> Arts -> Visual and then Excel would open with a workbook displaying a table as described above with tabs along the bottom for each of the class groups. Did this mean that the same structure had to be invoked for all the areas of the curriculum? Certainly not! The intention from the start had been that this new approach should be liberating; the last thing we wanted was that teachers would be made to shoe-horn their plans into structures where they did not fit simply because it would satisfy some aesthetic sense about the overall appearance of the plan. While various new parts have been added we are still grappling with finding the right approach for others. English appears particularly intractable but we are making progress.

As this progress is made the other use of these mind maps grows more apparent; the framework thus developed can be used as a navigation system for the plan. By linking branches of the mind map to other documents it is very easy to access policies, accounts, lesson pans or any other constituent parts. At time of writing, the school is in the final stages of having a local area network installed connecting computers in each of the classrooms. In these circumstances any teacher can easily access the plan in their own room and even edit a section for which they have responsibility. It has become apparent that some sections will never be intended for totally public view as they may relate to privacy issues for certain sectors of the community but these can easily be password protected within the network.

As an initial review/dissemination exercise some parts of the plan were adapted and made available on the web with an online feedback form. A substantial number of teachers were good enough to give their views and a clear majority expressed overwhelming approval for the overall philosophy underlying it. In ways this was to be expected - an online form is likely to be filled in by those at the technophile end of the spectrum. A substantial number, however, did express doubts about the likelihood of the approach gaining broad acceptance as they saw it as too technology-intensive. They are probably right about certain aspects of the present implementation e.g. the system for monitoring the review dates on the files requires a on-trivial understanding of MS Office. On the other hand, we must surely recognise that the day of the handwritten school plan is well gone. Typed sheets were a minimal expectation in the old folder and it seems reasonable to presume that these will now give way to word processing. Once they go on a computer, a convenient access system becomes at least desirable and one which doubles as a visualisation/organisation tool in the early stages seems attractive even for the techno-sceptic.

What future?
There can be no doubt that there will be plenty more to do on our school plan for years to come. The curricular content will develop as training moves to implementation; policies will become redundant or be seen as mistakes while new ones will be called for; there may be the decision to incorporate whole new areas into the plan for convenience of access. Minutes of Board of Management Meetings; other important correspondence; Department of Education circulars which will, no doubt, become available by email in the near future; perhaps even student reports, with a repeat of the earlier caveats about security and privacy.

Non-sensitive parts of the plan can be circulated to education partners who have the necessary technology on CD. Those who have not will be able to see it in the office or a classroom. Large parts of it may even become integrated with the school web-site and perhaps, that is the point to leave it: the truly useful school plan, like any self-respecting web-site is constantly “under construction”.

Appendix A: Relevant software:

As noted earlier, there is now a wide range of software packages which assist with the generation of mind maps. The most popular in the education field are Inspiration and Kidspiration (http://www.inspiration.com/home.cfm). For the purposes of this project we used a package called e-mind maps (now renamed MindManager Smart) available from www.mindjet.com or on the cover disks of many magazines. A more sophisticated, business-oriented package is available from the same company but it should be recognised that, to date, this simple little package has satisfied our needs. Other brands may be found by following some of the links in Appendix B.

Appendix B: Relevant web links:

An outline version of the plan may be viewed on the Internet at

http://www.iol.ie/~dromore/plan/

http://braindance.com/bdimmap1.htm An Introduction to Mind Mapping

http://www.banxia.com/dexplore/whatsinaname.html What’s in a name? Cognitive Mapping, Mind Mapping, Concept Mapping - an exploration of the various terms by producers of one software package.

http://www.vitalstop.com/planning.htm Speed Learning: An overview of linear and Mind Map methods for note taking and planning

http://www.dyslexiahelp.co.uk/DYSLEXIA%20TEACHING%20RESOURCES%20AND%20LINKS.HTM The use of mind mapping with sufferers from dyslexia.

http://www.mind-map.com/mindmap/GALLERY.HTM Some sample mind maps

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/Creative/Mindmap/mindmapfaq.html A mind map FAQ - exactly what it says on the tin.

http://www.innopro.de/mindmap_maxwell_quantum_fieldtheory.htm Just what you’ve always wanted - a mind map of Maxwell equations electrodynamics and quantum field theory.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/Creative/Mindmap/buzan2.htm Notes from Tony Buzan’s book “Use Both Sides of your Brain”.