As the American K-12 system continues to look for ways to increase its student’s critical thinking skills, technology is playing an increasingly pivotal role. Children who come to classrooms today have an inherent aptitude for technology, and educators should encourage that skill set with resources that integrate the ability to brainstorm, collect, and organize thoughts, and create presentations. This is turn, helps them to solve problems and develop new concepts and ideas.
What is the best way to accomplish this? By using mind mapping. If you are not familiar with mind mapping, it is the process of using visual diagrams and charts to explain the relationships between concepts, ideas, or information.
Where do teachers find mind mapping resources to incorporate into their instruction? The easiest place would be via the internet. To save you some time, we decided to compile a list of mind mapping apps, tools, and resources that provide teachers with the ability to organize, summarize, and visualize information. Without further ado, here is our list.
Mindomo – Mindomo is a collaborative mind mapping, concept mapping, outlining, and Gantt Charts software. The software’s key features include:
- real-time collaboration and mind map assignments with access code sign up
- LTI integrations, G Suite and Office 365 integrations
- import and export to various formats
- sound recording directly from the mind map
- full-text searching and filtering
- templates with a predefined structure and guidelines.
- desktop app, the offline software with the option to sync to the cloud
Mindomo has two plans: Work/Personal, which starts from $6/month and Education, from $3/month.
Ideament – Ideament was developed to make the planning and presentation of ideas smooth and easy. With ideament, you can draw flow charts, mind maps, digraphs, or save text and pictures in a convenient space. Later, you can convert this information to a text outline and reverse the process. This app is great for workplace and classroom use.
SpiderScribe – An online mind-mapping and brainstorming tool, SpiderScribe allows students to organize their ideas in any subject. They can connect notes, files, calendar events, images, and more in free-form maps. Everything created in SpiderScribe is easily shareable online, and all maps are stored in the Cloud so students can access their work from anywhere. This app can also be used for collaboration and group work, as multiple users can access a single map simultaneously.
Coggle – Is an online mind map that can be used only with chrome. It comes in 3 versions. These are “free,” “awesome,” and “organization.” Give it a spin and see how you like it. It has a lot of functionality and allows you to create your mind map in different colors. This is an excellent choice for schools that have limited financial resources and can not afford a paid product.
iThoughts – The iThoughts app comes with a simple design and a user-friendly interface. This is a mind mapping app that helps you to organize ideas and visualize concepts. Its user-friendliness makes it easy for students and adults to use, unlike some mind mapping tools that I have used in the past. It is available on Apple products and Windows.
MindMapple – This app works well for visual thinkers as it also enables you to utilize clip art and other visual tools. Another neat feature is that you can cloud share your creations it via Google Drive. As you might have already figured out from the name, it also works for Macs, which is excellent news for Apple enthusiasts.
Bubbl.us – A useful resource for making visually attractive concept maps. You don’t have to download any software to use this product. Also, the maps that you create can be saved as an image, and it allows the user to share their maps and collaborate with other people. Some of the features are a bit dated, but all an all, it’s a useful resource.
Popplet – A useful mind mapping tool that allows students to create and share concept maps. It provides a variety of features, including recording notes in various formats with text, drawings, and images; linking notes with each other, exporting your final product as PDF or JPEG; it supports several languages, etc.
Creately – Provides lots of pre-designed templates, supports collaborative work, integrates with third-party tools such as Chrome Store and Google Apps. It also comes with lots of resources that help students to learn how to create, organize, and present their concept maps.
Lucidchart – You can use this app to create concept maps, charts, and various types of diagrams. It also supports a lot of collaborative features and can be used with multiple devices. It doesn’t have a wealth of features, but if you are looking for a robust mind mapping tool, it’s a good choice.
Concluding Thoughts
As you can see, there are a lot of outstanding mind mapping apps, tools, and resources on the market. Don’t get blinded by bells and whistles; choose the one that meets your unique needs, and get to work.
