🤝 Partner Feature: Q&A with Tatiana Torres [Virtual Education]

Hello and welcome to this Partner Feature Q&A!

In this series, we'll give you an insight into our partners: The experts who advocate for Meister tools and use their know-how to help their clients succeed. You'll discover how partners use our products to overcome a variety of challenges, and you'll find new inspiration from these experts themselves.

@Tatiana Torres is an influential virtual educator, content creator and newsletter author. With an impressive 33,400 followers on TikTok, her wide reach makes her an important figure in the field of e-learning, ed-tech and new trends. Today, she's going to share an insight into her path to virtual education and how she uses MindMeister to deliver powerful lessons. Ready to find out more? Read on!

Background Information

Your career has taken you down many divergent paths... How would you describe this journey to virtual higher education?

I have indeed had a multifaceted career, working in a great variety of different fields. Throughout this journey, I've learned and grown both personally and professionally. The transition to virtual higher education was definitely an interesting and rewarding challenge - it allowed me to apply my existing skills in a novel way to an innovative environment.

When you look back over your career, was there a specific moment in your life when you realized you wanted to devote your life to education?

Yes - when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, like many people, I took some time to reflect upon my career. Pre-Covid, I’d spent over 11 years creating digital training programs and working in digital marketing. I came to the realization that the aspect I consistently enjoyed the most was teaching others. With this finding, I enrolled in university to pursue a master's degree in virtual education. It was especially challenging to achieve my master’s at this time because my daughter was only 2 years old!

It's brilliant that you took action to pursue your dream of teaching others and enrolled in the course! What is it that makes you so passionate about teaching?

My love of curiosity! I believe that curiosity is the key to staying humble in our society; I love exploring, experimenting and adventuring. Being a naturally inquisitive person has opened up countless opportunities for me, and I am incredibly grateful for that. It was my curiosity that led me to learn English, a skill that has not only enriched my life but also allowed me to connect with people and cultures from around the world. Moreover, my thirst for knowledge keeps me in tune with new trends, helping me to stay ahead of the curve and constantly evolve. Ultimately, curiosity has been the driving force in my journey of self-discovery and growth.

Completing a master's degree while raising a young child must have presented some challenges. Could you share one of these and how you overcame it?

When I began my master's degree, one of the biggest issues I was facing was the demand to create and release content consistently. That's when I discovered TikTok: a platform where I could document everything I was learning in my master's program. I started recording my assignments and the resources I came across, and I shared them with others who were facing the same needs as me. Now, my TikTok account has over 33,400 followers. During this wonderful journey, I also learned to create written content. I have been writing an educational trends newsletter for three months - it is read by approximately 1,000 teachers!

Using MindMeister

Let's turn our attention to the tool you use daily. When and how did you first come across MindMeister?

I first came across MindMeister about five years ago when I purchased a course on digital marketing. The course creator used a MindMeister mind map to teach copywriting and designed a template he shared with the students. I found this method of passing on knowledge very creative. When I applied the template myself, I was left with an entire ready-to-use outline - you could say I was sold!

When you started using MindMeister for virtual education, what sort of benefits did you notice?

I chose MindMeister because, as a mom, I need to save time. Honestly, when I began my journey as a teacher, I never imagined spending hours upon hours simply designing slides. It was very difficult and whenever I needed to update something, I suffered because my resources were scattered all over the place.

For me, MindMeister means having everything in one place. If I need to use educational resources like videos, images, templates, or even slides, I can attach them all to a single mind map, share it with my students with just one link, and that's it.

One of my TikTok videos actually has over 86,000 views because I shared how to create a MindMeister presentation in just 10 minutes. I think that most people don't have the resources to spend hours and hours designing slide templates, so a mind map where you can have everything colored and organized neatly and quickly, is a very attractive option. There's no comparison; now, I do absolutely everything in MindMeister.

With all your various classes, your different platforms and your personal tasks, you must have a huge number of mind maps - How do you organize them all?

Yes, at this point, I'd rather lose my computer than my MindMeister account; I have my entire life in there 😄!

As a teacher, I work in various institutions and universities. I'm often asked to create conferences or presentations, and on top of this, I also have my personal projects. Basically, MindMeister folders are a lifesaver. I keep these folders quite broad; for example, I have a "Personal" folder where I put everything related to personal courses (like the one I'm currently taking on AI for education). I break down some bigger folders, for instance "Universities", into smaller sub-folders categorized by each university. I sometimes organize these even further according to semesters and dates. This thorough but logical structure makes it really straightforward to find the right mind map quickly.

This quick and reliable access to mind maps in MindMeister really gets me out of trouble sometimes! In Peru, we're experiencing heavy rainfall and recently, there was an internet outage just minutes before I was supposed to start a class. I had to rush to my mom's house urgently so that I could teach the class using her internet. I didn't need to take anything with me - all I needed was my MindMeister username and password. It was so simple; my entire class was in the cloud, so I was very calm knowing I had my presentation ready to go just as I had planned before the outage.

The Nitty-Gritty

In the Community, you mentioned you use ChatGPT to create mind maps. Could you share some tips with us?

Of course! Lately, we've all been exploring ChatGPT, so I'll share a prompt that I use often to create mind maps in minutes.

Simply type: "I am a certified virtual teacher in [ADD YOUR EXPERTISE HERE]. A university has asked me to create a class called: [ADD YOUR CLASS TOPIC HERE]. The class should last [ADD TIMING OF YOUR CLASS HERE]. Could you create an agenda for this virtual class?"

With this prompt, ChatGPT will create an outline of how your class should be structured. You can modify it according to your needs and the duration of your lessons. Once you're happy with it, open MindMeister in Outline Mode, and copy and paste what ChatGPT created.

Make sure to review and ensure the correct formatting for titles and subtitles in MindMeister's Outline Mode, and voila, you'll have a mind map with your lessons.

💡Check out Tatiana's article about how AI empowers teachers and students!💡

We've seen your MindMeister presentation skills in the Community. Which piece of advice would you give to somebody preparing to present with MindMeister?

The first thing to do is brainstorm.

It can be hard to get started with brainstorming when you're facing a blank canvas, so start by placing three topics around the center topic. Name these step 1, step 2, and step 3. Now you've started, the rest will be easier.

Try to imagine the steps your audience needs to go through to move from where they are to where they want to be (let's say, moving them from a problem to an outcome). Use your initial three steps as a starting point for developing this process coherently.

This way, you'll quickly start brainstorming ideas. Write non-stop and then begin organizing and polishing your ideas. Add links and resources later. Finally, add style with colors, icons, and images, in that order.

And of course, when it is time to present your mind map do it with Presentation Mode!

I know you've made a lot of engaging lesson plans for your classes - Do you have an example you can share with us?

Yes, I have several collaborative maps. For example, in this one, the students wrote what they liked and understood most about a lesson on MindMeister and mind mapping. I encouraged them to add their thoughts and embellish them with colors, images, and so forth.

What a beautiful map - You've used a lot of features there. Which MindMeister feature couldn't you live without?

As someone who loves creativity, I couldn't live without the wide variety of styles MindMeister offers. I enjoy using color palettes and making presentations visually attractive for the audience I'm addressing. For younger audiences, I try to use GIFs or memes to make it fun. For more academic audiences, I cite my sources, use emojis to enumerate steps and add images to aid understanding. With styles, I can cater to any group of people!

When teaching, I like to provide lots of examples. Styles and customization let me give examples in video and audio. Recently, I even attached a video I made with the help of voice AI explaining blockchain through a song!

Thanks for sharing what you like most about MindMeister 😃. Which features do you think your students like most when they're working together?

I think students love adding personality to their mind maps. I would say that almost all of them enjoy using emojis, images, and colors. Next, they start wanting to add multimedia resources like videos, links, and so on. These features make collaboration both easy and enjoyable because they enable students to express themselves creatively and interact with the content more effectively.

Finally, I can't speak to such an expert mind mapper and not ask about integrations! Please could you tell us about your favorite integration and how you use it?

Yes, lately, I've been really fond of the MeisterTask integration. For many students, learning to work collaboratively can be a challenge, so this integration is a great solution for them. They can distribute tasks, assign responsibilities, leave comments on their progress, and manage deadlines. This integration supports students with better organization and collaboration, making it my favorite.

Conclusion

We'd love to see more of what you do - Do you have any resources you'd like to share with the Community?

If you speak Spanish, I definitely recommend subscribing to my newsletter about educational trends. You can also follow me on social media. These resources will keep you up to date on my work and give you insights into the field of virtual higher education with valuable information.

Finally, feel free to check out my book on AI!

Thanks so much for your time, Tatiana! Please let us know how other users can reach you with questions.

Sure. 😃 I'm happy to speak to anybody here via DM or via social media.