Mindmaps

Here are some informations taken from the EFODL conference in Charleroi (Belgium) and presented by Jean-Luc Deladrière from Hanabi...

He based his presentation on the fact that we can very well learn while playing and mindmaps offer, to his opinion a fun way to learn. He uses mindmaps with teenagers as well as adults in school or in a professional context. He states that results are quite good for:
- taking notes
- project management
- brainstorming
- synthesis

Someone insisted on the fact that mindmaps are still rather unknown and might be taken with poor consideration by some teachers. Which is not the same in some countries where they are already widely used in schools.

JL Deladrière uses sometimes Metaplans (also called post-it meeting but this might be quite a local name given to it) where people in a group write down their ideas on a given topic on little pieces of paper. Ideas are then put together in a mindmap made available to all participants.

The top 3 mindmap tools for that expert are:

Mindmeister
MindManager, a reference in the subject matter
Mindomo, totally web-based with free use (with limitations)

I personnal use the latest for project management and really love it to have a global on projects I'm working on.