An important aspect of any learning is memory. Without it all our learning will be futile. While some are rendered with razor sharp memory, there are others, who find their memory failing them at the most crucial moments in their life. As in everything else, memory can be improved a great deal by applying some of the memory techniques. In any new learning, you can understand new information easily by associating the new information with your acquired learning. This will help you to see the relational aspects of certain principles, mechanism, truth or whatever, and lend greater meaning and significance to the information learnt. Studies have revealed that memory is enhanced by using both sides of your brain. This is known as whole-brain thinking. The left side of our brain controls in logic, words, lists, numbers, sequences and analysis, while the right side excels in rhythm, imagination, daydreaming, color, size and spatial awareness. Working on combining the left and right attributes will strengthen memory. Many problems of memory are primarily due to lack of proper attention. You can visualize what you want to remember by picturing them as a sequence; the more bizarre, humorous and exaggerated the images, greater the recall. You can link the main ideas or items of details by stringing them into an unusual story. E.g. if you have to buy vegetables, pick up laundry and buy toys, you could link them into a story: Tomato quashes on your shirt, you have to go to the laundry for cleaning when Mickey Mouse welcomes you. Using acronyms is an effective way for remembering items in an order by making a word out of each item to be recalled. E.g. My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Nine Peas-- represent 9 planets of the sun - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. When the first letter of each item stands for a word in a phrase it is known as Acrostic. E.g. Pink = Pink is a special color; I like it more for its subtle shade, Never loud or garish; Kind of gentle and pleasing always. Chunking is another effective technique applied often in numbers. For e.g. If you have to remember 10 digit telephone numbers, you can split them into units of 5-- 98412-84523. You can also chunk items under a general concept-- Fruits, Vegetables, etc While these are some of the common techniques for enhancing your memory, an equally powerful and easy technique for reinforcing learning and memory is the Mind Mapping. The Mind Mapping technique is primarily based on how we think, remember and recall. British Psychologist, Mr. Tony Buzan, developed the technique based on the theories of memory. His studies on memory and the brain, led him to invent the Mind Map technique. The intrinsic worth of this technique is that it induces whole-brain thinking by triggering a chain of associated thoughts and ideas, and stimulating the full resources of the brain. Since you note down your thoughts on a subject or issue, you will be engaging your full and focused attention to it. In addition, the technique employs visual stimuli such as colors, pictures, symbols, dimensions, etc., adding to the vividness, and greatly strengthening memory and dissemination. The Mind Map technique is primarily aimed at enhancing your memory vastly, and giving full rein to your inner thoughts and process. It thus has the potential to trigger greater creativity, imagination and insight. It is indeed a great memory grosser!! You have to learn and use the technique and then you will know how your memory never lets you down. Source: ArticleCity
New software that is free for students to download has produced its way to the UA and will help make documents and files easily accessible. Read and Write Gold provides various tools to guide undergraduate and graduate students with their reading and writing materials. The software has text-to-speech abilities, voice recognition and can also be used as a research aid for students with disabilities or for those learning a second language. Dawn Hunziker, the information technology accessibility consultant for the Disability Resource Center, received a grant for the UA to introduce the software. "She mentioned it at a meeting and then I received an email from one of her listservs. I looked more into it and found that it's very useful for anyone who is learning," said Leslie Dupont, coordinator of the graduate writing program for the Writing Skills Improvement Program. "Read and Write Gold will definitely help with students who have accessibility issues.". Dupont mentioned she uses the software mostly with her multilingual students who are learning English as a second language. She said it's a great way for them to learn proper accent and the images provided next to the text aid in learning. She said it helps them while reading because it organizes the text in such a way that they aren't overwhelmed by it. Mary Beth Foster, educational technology coordinator for the SALT Center, said Read and Write Gold features a lot of tools students can use. For example, students have the option to choose from four different colored highlighters that color code their textbook readings and then collect the highlights and put them on a separate Microsoft Word document or PDF file. "This is super convenient for students who want to make outlines or study guides," Foster said. "The majority of students are visual learners, so Read and Write Gold has a tool for that too.".
A tool within the program, called Fact Mapper, acts like a mind-mapping tool that creates bubbles for individual ideas the user has. If a student is using this tool as a tree diagram, they can create one large bubble as the main subject and then multiple sub-bubbles for key words or ideas. Once the student is done, the software converts his or her notes into an outline to visually organize the student's thoughts. "Read and Write Gold has two main options, text to speech and speech to text," Foster said. "Text to speech is programmed so that the computer will read to you. The voices are updated so they don't sound robotic but now they sound sophisticated and more human-sounding. It also highlights the words while it's reading and allows students to adjust the speed for slow and fast readers.". Foster said tracking the speed will allow students to be more focused, and if they want to hear it on the go, they can download the reading file as an MP3 file. She said if students are working out at the gym but have to read assignments or textbook pages, the software allows them to listen to their readings on their smartphones.
"It works on a PC where the computer goes into a training mode that you are able to speak into the computer and it does as you command," Fpster said. "It recognizes your speech patterns so it can mimic your voice and talk out ideas while typing at the same time.". Students can also train the computer by reading passages while the computer listens and captures the pronunciations. Foster said she created tutorial videos on how to use the resources. She encourages students to install the software. The SALT Center will work with students one-on-one to make sure they are getting the experiences they deserve. Source: Wilcat.Arizona.edu
Read more to discover 5 HUGE advantages mind mapping software offers you or your business!
Mind maps are one of the best productivity tools you can use to help you record and categorize any thoughts you have that may prove useful to you in the future! Now how many of you have had ideas which seemed great at the time but went unrecorded and therefore were rendered useless! Mind mapping allows you to capture any relevant or interesting thoughts, ideas or concerns in a somewhat organized trend! The best part is how this software helps you literally visualize your ideas and pull them combined in a way they will prove most useful to you! Let's now take the time to further examine 5 HUGE advantages mind mapping software offers you or your business! Capture Mind mapping software allows you to immediately capture and even categorize any thoughts or ideas you may have before they're forgotten! Simply taking note of what is on your mind is NOT as effective because hand written notes tend to be haphazard, unrelated and disorganized! When you come back to review what you've recorded by hand later on, making sense of what you're viewing will than be more challenging! Visualize Nothing (of significance) happens UNTIL it can be first gotten the picture and software used for mapping out and organizing random thoughts helps you do so! Productivity tools like this that help you 'capitalize' on your own creativity or ingenuity allow you to format or layout any thoughts in a useful way that make sense! Much like a puzzle, your captured thoughts are 'pieces' that you can rearrange in any way you please to perform your purpose best! Expand Being able to view your ideas in various (visual) formats helps to further promote your own creative thinking thus allowing you to expand on your idea! It's all about focusing on the problem, opportunity or need and when you do so, new answers or applications tend to 'flood' into your mind! In short having the capability to visualize something helps you focus more on the particular matter or issue! Polish Capturing 'fleeting' ideas you can put to use later on is a dominant benefit of mind mapping software! One huge advantage here is you can go back and refine any thoughts you've recorded to make them better adapt to your current needs! By virtue of the fact that you are able to format or arrange any recorded ideas in a particular manner makes it easier to pick up on what you were previously thinking without much effort! The result is less time is wasted when trying to resuscitate your previous 'brainstorming' session thus making this type software one of the best productivity tools you can use! Saving time while maximizing your own creative thinking abilities is definitely being productive, don't you think? Put to Use The intention of the software discussed here today is to catch, sort and organize your ideas so they can be put to constructive use! Much like keeping windows and doors shut so as NOT to allow heat or cooler temperatures to escape, mind mapping does much the same with your thoughts and ideas! Even if what you record may not be of particular relevance at the time, there is likely an application for it sometime in your future!
Mind maps are one of the best productivity tools you can use to harness your thoughts and creativity in a way that you can actually put to use! For marketers who work online mind mapping software is an excellent way to capture otherwise short lived thoughts and/or ideas that can be further developed for future use! Even though the 5 benefits reviewed above are all of considerable importance to any entrepreneur, your imagination is the only limitation to how many uses you can find for such a tool! Based on ArticlesFactory.com
, developed the technique based on the theories of memory. His studies on memory and the brain, led him to invent the Mind Map technique.
