Reading, Reading and More Reading

I have been casually looking since the beginning of the semester for a good place to store my course reading material.  I wanted to find something that would allow me to highlight my PDF files and make notations while I read.  I have never been able to transition away from printing hard copies of assigned materials and I was determined to make this conversion as an OTEC student.

In the final weeks of the semester, as things are really beginning to heat up, I was lucky enough to stumble upon Mendeley.   At the moment I signed up for an account, the clouds parted and the heavens began to sing.  This is exactly what I've been looking for!

I love how the program offers a desktop and an online version.  This was great for traveling when I had infrequent access to a wireless connection.  I loaded all my files to the desktop version, but once I found a connection, I could sync my changes to my online account.  This is a handy feature for the user like me who accesses content from multiple devices in any given day.

The past couple weeks of being a Mendeley user has been a great experience.  The features are intuitive and easy to use.  The organization of material is very user friendly and I have been able to navigate the program with little time spent watching tutorials or reading "how to" guides.

This program has surpassed similar ones that I have tried and will help me tremendously with getting through this program. 



What is Mendeley? from Mendeley on Vimeo.

Mind Mapping

Mind Meister is a site that allows you to organize your ideas into a virutal mind map.  Perks of the program include the ability to collaborate with others synchronously, export maps as a variety of files, and customization features.

While the program benefits sound good, I've experienced some trouble while creating maps.  The collaboration feature experiences delays.  It is not as seamless as working in other synchronous tools such as Google Docs.  I've also had trouble sharing files with group members who were asked to sign up for a paid subscription to view the file I was sharing. 

Individually, I have not experienced as many problems.  There was a slight learning curve, but overall it was a user friendly experience.  It provides a different way of organizing your ideas than a traditional outline.  This format particularly suits visual learners.