Inspiration Videos
Inspiration: Turn your ideas into a Mind Map
Once you have broken-down your essay question, you are well placed to start reading for your essay (see the Research & Note making page for research techniques and reading tips).
Use Inspiration to brainstorm your essay question. It is quick and easy to do as this video shows. Don’t worry too much about the structure of your ideas just yet, that comes next.
Inspiration: Structuring your Mind Map
Once you have the content of your mind map, it is a good idea to create a solid structure for your essay. This video shows how to rearrange your arguments and facts within Inspiration.
Inspiration: Adding Graphics
Making your map visually interesting is quick and easy. Adding graphics to your map will help to differentiate areas of your work, both on the page and in your mind.
Inspiration: Using Information from the Web & Exporting Essay Plans into Word
In this video we look at how to add information to your mind map from online sources, how to hyperlink your map to websites and finally how to export your Mind Map into Word.
Mind Manager Videos
Mind Manager: Turn your ideas into a Mind Map
Once you have broken-down your essay question, you are well placed to start reading for your essay (see the Research & Note making page for research techniques and reading tips).
Use Mind Manager to brainstorm your essay question. It is quick and easy to do as this video shows. Don’t worry too much about the structure of your ideas just yet, that comes next.
Mind Manager: Adding Graphics
Making your map visually interesting is quick and easy to do. Adding colour and images to your map will help to distinguish areas of your work and make them stand out: both on the page and in your mind. This video looks at how to achieve this.
Mind Manager: Adding Attachments
You can attach other documents to your map. In this video we add a PDF to a concept within the map, and then look at how to search for key words in that PDF. We also look at how to make research notes within your map.
Mind Manager: Restructuring your Mind Map and exporting to Word
Once you have the content of your mind map with various arguments and facts in place, it is a good idea to look again at the structure of your essay. This video shows how to re arrange your arguments and concepts within Mind Manager. We will also look how to export your mind map into Word so you can use start writing directly from your plan.
TextHelp Read&Write Videos
TextHelp: Reading a PDF
Using TextHelp you can have your computer read PDFs back to you. This video will also show you how to copy research text into a mind map and hyperlink it to the web page it came from.
TextHelp: Saving Text as a Sound File
You can save text as an MP3 audio file. This could allow you to listen to text on an MP3 player whilst travelling, for example. You may want to try listening to the text and also follow a hard copy to make your reading multisensory (which simply means that you will be taking in the information through more than one sense). Listening and reading text in such a way can also help improve reading and spelling ability.
ClaroRead Videos
ClaroRead: Read, Copy&Paste, Hyperlink
Using ClaroRead you can have your computer read PDFs back to you. This video will also show you how to copy research text into a mind map and hyperlink it to the web page it came from.
ClaroRead: Saving Text as a Sound File
You can save text as an MP3 audio file. This could allow you to listen to text on an MP3 player whilst travelling, for example. You may want to try listening to the text and also follow a hard copy to make your reading multisensory (which simply means that you will be taking in the information through more than one sense). Listening and reading text in such a way can also help improve reading and spelling ability.
ClaroRead: Reading a PDF
This video looks at how to search for key words in PDFs, listen to text using Claro read, and then transfer the information into your mind map.
WordQ SpeakQ Videos
Dragon Naturally Speaking Videos
Dictaphone Videos
Audio Notetaker Videos
Word Videos
Word: Reading in Word
If you end up reading text while in Word, there are few things you can do to make reading more comfortable. This video will also show you how to highlight areas of text as well.
Powerpoint Videos
Windows 7 Videos
Windows 7: Changing the Background colour
There is evidence that reading is made easier for some people if we change the background colour from white to a light colour. The terms ‘Scotopic Sensitivity’ Or ‘Visual Stress’ have been used to identify a specific disorder, though it is not recognised by all medical institutions. That said, many people find that reading on a light yellow or light blue background is much easier than on a white background. This video will show you how you can try different background colours on your computer.
Windows 7: Creating Folders
By creating new folders, for example for your course modules, you can create a filing system for your computer. This video takes you through this first step to organising your filing system.
Windows 7: Saving into the correct folder
Saving documents correctly is the other side of keeping your files organised. This video shows you how to save documents correctly so you will always be able to find them again.
Others Videos
Reading: Turning a Heading into a Question
Questioning the text whilst reading is a great way to get more out of your readings. A simple trick is to turn a heading into a question. For example, this video demonstrates how to change a chapter heading into a question that you can then look to answer whilst reading the chapter.
Google Calendar: Creating a Calendar
Google Calendar is a useful online tool that allows you to plan your timetable day by day and can be used as a digital alternative to a paper diary. You can access it from any computer and it can be setup to text-message appointment reminders to your mobile. The drawback is you need to be online to add events to it, however you can synch Google calendar with Outlook and most mobile phone calendars.
Google Calendar: Setting Reminders
One of the key benefits of having your timetable entered in Google Calendar is the ability to set automatic reminders. This video shows you how to set up free email and text-message reminders within Google Calendar.
