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Mind Maps March 11, 2009

Posted by afoote in : Knowledge Management , trackback

One of the tools we use in Knowledge and Project Management are Mind maps. Mind maps are graphical tools used to link concepts. We use Mind maps as an alternative to the traditional outline format that students have been using since elementary school. The Mind map gives the user a picture of how concepts are related and it does not have to be hierarchical.  With web pages and other computer oriented concepts using the tree and branch structure can be a little confining. 

In the class we are using the open source software from sourceforge – freemind to create the mind maps, but there are a number of other free mind mapping tools that can be used. Xmind from Collaborative Minds and VUE (Visual Understanding Environment) from Tufts University are other Mind mapping tools that we discuss in the course. For a general discussion of Mind mapping the website of mind-mapping.org is an excellent resource.

Tony Buzan, the guru of the mind map, has a website that is also a valuable resource for creating and using mind maps. On his website is a link to his mind mapping tool, iMindMap. iMindMap is not a free tool, but there are a number of videos, tutorials and guides. This site includes a video of using mind mapping with project management.

Some of the assignments in which mind maps are used include identifying and organizing tasks for a project in project management, organizing terms on a wiki and organizing concepts for the final term paper and presentations.

Mind maps are very similar to concept maps as discussed by the educational philosopher, Joseph Novak.  The Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) has done a large amount of research on concept maps. The website is set up as a concept map for the user to access materials and resources. This group also has a free concept mapping tool that can be used to create maps.  Vic Gee on his webpage has explained the differences between a mind map and a concept map, but there are a lot of similarities. With some of the “mind mapping” tools the resulting diagram may be considered a “concept map”.

Comments»

1. opentube - March 15, 2009

we have also featured a list of free mindmap tools here

http://open-tube.com/top-12-best-free-mind-mapping-tools-2/

we hope that it is useful.