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Mind Mapping Love

August 3, 2007 By Will Richardson

MindMeister - Connective LearningI’m a big mind map person…just something about the visual tree effect that makes it easier for me to organize stuff. And I have loved FreeMind for a few years now. But the limitation has been that, well, it’s not very flexible in terms of social collaboration and stuff.

Enter MindMeister which has my mind a fluttering. It’s a web-based collaborative mind mapping app that so far, after about an hour’s worth of playing, is really letting me do great stuff. You can check out the intro video on the site, but here are the key features I’ve found so far that I’m liking a lot:

  1. Easy importing of my FreeMind Maps. You can do it with MindJet MindManager too. Nice.
  2. Drag and drop and easy keyboard tools. I love Ajax. (This is Ajax, right?)
  3. Sharing/collaboration. Just invite people in to play.
  4. In the best wiki tradition, it has a history so you can track changes. (Awesome.)
  5. You can publish your Maps to the Web, even embed them into a blog post.
  6. And while they don’t have an RSS feed to track changes, they do let you configure update alerts to your…wait for it…Twitter account.

They even have this cool little extension for MAC users that puts a little app on your desktop that you can post ideas or links to your default map in a flash. Mercy.

This has been a great couple of weeks for tools…Skitch, Jing, and now this. And the thing I love about all of them is that they are solving that little publishing hump in a very easy way by making the upload piece a seamless part of the process.

Prediction: Google buys MindMeister within six months…

Technorati Tags: mindmapping, maps, tools, organization

Filed Under: Tools

Comments

  1. Tom Hoffman says

    August 3, 2007 at 10:33 am

    If you’re on a Mac, it is all about OmniGraffle.

  2. Jason says

    August 3, 2007 at 11:16 am

    You may want to check out bubbl.us, which is basically the same thing as Mastermind. At first glance Mastermind seems like it’s a bit more sophisticated and better for complicated mind-maps. That said, bubbl.us is extremely simple and visually very attractive, and for that reason many be a better option for younger students doing simple tasks. I blogged about bubbl.us a couple of weeks ago.

  3. Michael says

    August 3, 2007 at 11:24 am

    Aside from Bubbl.us, Mindomo is pretty slick as well. Eric Curts, from Ohio Treasure Chest, did a nice podcast back on June 1st in which is reviews the educational uses of CMap, Mindmeister, Mind42, Bubbl.us, Freemind, and Mindomo. Here is the link to the podcast…

    http://tinyurl.com/2atg3a

  4. Michael says

    August 3, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Oops wrong Ohio Treasure Chest podcast, here is the correct link…

    http://tinyurl.com/2odc3g

    I think Mindmeister was started by the same creators of Kazaa and Skype. Not quite sure.

  5. Vic Gee says

    August 3, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    There are many more web-based mind mapping and concept mapping applications. The ones I know of are bubble-mind.com, comapping.com, glinkr.net, kayuda.com, mapul.com, mind42.com, mindomo.com, mindmeister.com, webofweb.net

    There are thumbnails and screenshots for them all at mind-mapping.org, or you can look at all the desktop mind mapping software instead, and pick to see just ones that run on a Mac, just Linux, or whatever.

    Regards
    Vic
    http://www.mind-mapping.org
    The master list of mind mapping &
    information management software

  6. Brian S. Friedlander says

    August 3, 2007 at 6:27 pm

    Hello from another NJite! Yes- having the ability to collaborate using your mindmaps is a great feature. I have been using a number of these services and really enjoy having access to them when I have an internet connection.

    You can take a look at my blog at http://assistivetek.blogspot.com for up to date information on mind mapping software and assistive technology. Brian

  7. Adrian Bruce says

    August 7, 2007 at 6:35 am

    Hi Will & Co,

    I’m a big fan of C-Map and then getting the kids to combine the map with another program to add graphics to it in order to make a visual verbal mind map.

    I’ve added a mind map on how to mind map to my site that demonstrates what it can do. I give this mind map to my students as a model of what you ‘can’ do with the program.

    http://www.adrianbruce.com/computers/mindmap/mindmap.htm

    See what you think.

    Adrian BRuce
    http://teacher-toolbox.blogspot.com

  8. Gary Stager says

    August 7, 2007 at 7:21 am

    I’ve pondered the fascination with mind-mapping and brainstorming here.

    http://tinyurl.com/228hnz

  9. Joan Vinall-Cox says

    August 10, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    Thanks Will. MindMeister looks like fun, and is useful.

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