I am designing a workshop, what mind mapping software can I use?
[search terms for more: Google Scholar is best here search for ‘effects of mind mapping, cognitive benefits, meta analysis. If you search in standard search engines you can use advanced search operators to narrow the search. Here using ‘mind mapping benefits site:.edu’will give you more reliable educational sites than just ‘mind mapping benefits’.
Mind maps are image centered radial diagrams that visualize ideas arranged around a central theme, which is represented by an image or a keyword or both. It uses the metaphor of a tree where ideas radiate from this central topic, arranged around trunk as annotated branches represented on thick lines. These branches fork further as needed. Central lines are thick, and as lines and words are drawn further from the center, they become thinner. Mind maps are keyword focused and promote synthesis. Key words should be replaced with an image or a symbol if possible as part of the creating process. A map is not linear, but is driven by mind associations; their aim is not to create logical network of concepts, but rather a network which represents ideas intuitively. This is how they differ from concept mapping. If you want to learn about the pedagogical value of pen and paper mind maps, you can read up research here and here. Spoiler alert: they are associated with increased knowledge retention, but motivation to use is an issue as they are seen to require specialist learning to gain the cognitive advantage. A short time attending to your own thinking when trying to synthesise an idea, shows you that your brain uses words, pictures, numbers, symbols, images and colour to create networks of ideas; and that these networks are rarely linear or logical. The most important step in the mind mapping process is to let your mind wander as freely as possible around your subject, allowing key words or phrases that trigger ideas to emerge.
As you can see from the description of the process above, a key use for this type cognitive mapping is to support problem solving in ill-structured domains. They are best suited for the kind of ‘wicked problems’ that have many potential answers or appear to have none. This means that any software you choose to use to help your thinking process has to be invisible, low cognitive load and be designed to make it as easy a drawing on paper so that your attention is on your topic not on how to use the software.
So when we look at mind mapping software the people at Zapier, who have reviewed this type of software extensively, tell us to make sure that:
It’s actually a mind mapping platform — “A lot of drawing, diagramming, and charting apps are marketed as mind mapping apps — but they aren’t. While it’s true you can make a mind map in them, you could theoretically also use PowerPoint, Photoshop, or MS Whiteboard Templates. These kinds of apps generally lack features that make mind mapping easy.”
It gets out of the way — “Mind mapping with a pen and paper is ridiculously easy. No app is ever going to be quite as simple, but they should come as close as possible. After a short learning period to get up to speed, you shouldn’t have to stop and think to create a node, or dig through menus to connect two ideas.”
It offers an unlimited canvas — “One of the main downsides to using paper is, well, the paper. A digital app should have a practically unlimited canvas size so you can make a mind map as big as you want.”
It allows you to save and export — “One of the big reasons to go digital is that you can come back to a mind map later and change it up, save it, and export it in different formats.”
The criteria above should help you assess the many platforms available. Most have a free plan or a trial period to enable you to assess. The Zapier review is a great place start to reflect on which platform might suit you best.
If you are just too busy for that, then we have a winner.
“ www.mindmup.com is a no-frills but very flexible mind mapping tool. Creating a mind map requires only three keys on your keyboard: Hit “Tab” to add a node, “Return” to add a new central node and “Space” to edit any node. You can use the mouse to move around any element of the map. Zooming and more intricate formatting happen on a clearly laid out little dashboard. The shortcuts for text editing are mostly identical to the ones students will be familiar with from Microsoft Word. Pasting images or text copied from elsewhere into the mind map worked flawlessly for me. Other interesting features are a storyboard creation tool and a service called “Atlas” that allows users to embed mind maps into web sites or social network feeds. Mindmup does fall short, though, when it comes to making pretty maps: the standard font cannot be changed; and while users can pick the colour of nodes, the design options are nowhere near what other apps provide” Patrick Schultz (a user looking for free to use, no local install, and no user registration.)
This site does exactly what it says on the tin. The only downside is that saving the map is public if you do not have an account, but as it is anonymous there is little risk of having privacy issues unless your content is confidential in some way. I created above little map in no time, got my URL and published to twitter via Atlas really easily.
Above wins for simplicity, but Xmindworks wins for offering templates and more features to make sophisticated mind maps. It allows the creation of a map without registration also, and you can download your map to your local drive — but as an .xmind file which means you cannot read the map without the software. You will need to register and choose a plan to access all features, but you can at least try the interface for free. Here is a video on how the online version works. And you can download a free trial version to use on your local machine.
Something like designing a workshop is an ill-structured domain which lends itself well to mind mapping techniques. The use of software will enable sharing, updating and using a mind map as the basis for workshop design. Once the final map is done, it can be used as the spine for the content via attachment of materials and/or websites needed for the workshop.
One thing to bear in mind is that mind mapping offers cognitive gains to the maker — memory and organising processes to support new structure. They are often not much more than pretty, but meaningless, diagrams to readers. Bear this in mind, and plan to explain mind maps if you are going to use them within the workshop design. Software like Prezzi lends itself well to this. Mind Mapping is more useful as a process to support thinking itself, than as an output to share standalone.
“I guess what I bristle at is the assumption that they are always useful– for everyone. I see them in people’s blog posts, especially mind maps of talks, and I glaze. It is ideal activity for the mindmap maker– but looking at the map on its own, I have no context. It is not my map, nor can I make it mine.” Alan Levine
…and always consider that just may be… the simplest solution is the best
Good luck with your design.
