Free Resources from the Net for EVERY Learner

Welcome to this Treasure Chest of Free Stuff.

FREE online resources and downloadable programs for learners and their teachers.

This post is the second in my series on online mind-mapping applications. I’m having fun trying these out. If you are at all interested, I suggest that you sign up for accounts and try them out as well so that you’ll know what works best for you or what you can recommend for your students. One size definitely does not fit all in education, so it’s great to have a range of options to choose from.

Mindmeister (online resource) This is another mind-mapping platform that facilitates online collaboration in real time. Mindmeister does not have built in voice or text chat functions, but it recommends using Skype for real time conversation while collaborating. Use of Skype is facilitated if you add your Skype ID to your Mindmeister profile.

With Mindmeister, each mind-map starts with a central idea on a card in the middle of the screen. To this, you can add as many related concepts or “nodes”. as you wish. You can then add sibling “nodes”. Once a “node” is created, you can drag it and drop it wherever you wish. Mindmeister provides convenient tools for zooming in and out, as well as for re-positioning the mind-map in order to focus on specific parts of it.

It is easy to format font, style and colour. Mindmeister also provides a set of icons that can be used on their mind-maps. Much in the manner of Inspiration, you can even create notes and add them to the nodes. Another helpful feature of Mindmeister is the ability to keep track of revisions. If you wish, you can choose to be notified whenever modifications are made to your mind-map.

Mind-maps can be printed or exported. You can also import mind-maps into Mindmeister from either Freemind or Mindjet (other mind-mapping platforms) Mindmesiter has made it easy to add tags and then publish your own mind-map if you wish.

Click on the thumbnail below to have a look at the user interface and an example of a Mindmeister mind-map.

NOTE: Mindmeister is a free service, but they do want to sell you a premium version for about $4/month. You get this premium version for the first month. After that, you can only have 6 mind-maps on the go at a time. You also lose the ability to embed your mind-maps. Unless you pay for the premium service, you can also expect to start seeing some advertising.

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