Using Coogle to “Envision”
Coggle is an online tool for creating and sharing mindmaps and flow charts, by producing hierarchically branched structured documents. Is an interesting tool to help creative activities, such as brainstorming sessions. Engineering educators and students can find in this app a resource to visualize ideas and sharing in distance classroom sessions.
As a visual literacy tool, Coggle can be used to share ideas by visual media and to help solving problems, developing the communication and creation competences also helps understanding complex information, so it supports visual analysis.
Coggle main features are Real-time collaboration, Unlimited diagrams, unlimited image uploads, full change history, markdown support, download as PDF & Image, export as .mm and text. It is also integrated with Google Drive.
Examples of Coggle in Engineering
A set of examples of how to use coggle for education activities are shown. First, is about the use of Coggle for creating flowcharts:
Second example illustrates how to use concept maps in engineering classroom:
PBL (project based learning) approaches can be supported by using a coggle planning scheme:
Advantages and Disadvantages of Coggle
Coggle Advantages
- Simple and easy to use, small learning curve for engineering educators and students
- Applicable to all fields of engineering as any image or video can be made interactive
- Multiple uses – Coggle can be used for mind mapping, as well as for diagramming
- Awesome for quickly mapping out an idea and collaborating with co-workers.
- Easy to create colorful and professional presentations to share.
- It allows to Share Ideas among fellow students and educators to work on assignments together.
- Allows real-time collaboration.
Coggle Disadvantages:
- The limited number of colors available becomes a limitation whenever trying to map complex processes.
- There seems to be no way to auto-arrange the branches. There are no other ways to customize the look of the mindmap, e.g., via themes.
- The free version is quite limited.