There are many learners for whom mind mapping offers an invaluable strategy for organizing thoughts — when doing research, as preparation for any kind of project or just for retaining and reviewing information. Here is a free option for any of Apple’s hand-held devices. It’s simple and straightforward, without an abundance of features; but it offers more than enough to be effective.

Idea Sketch is a mind mapping app that has been designed for the iPhone and iPad. It works well on both, but I need the larger iPad screen in order to take advantage of the visual representation of ideas and information because I can’t see the whole picture on the smaller screen. Idea Sketch is not super rich in features, but this may be one of its strengths. It’s easy to learn and use.

A mind map begins with a central idea that becomes the name of the “Idea”. The user can turn the mind map into an outline, and move back and forth between map and outline. Additions or deletions in one place automatically show up in the other.

Idea Sketch is not a collaborative tool in the sense that multiple users can work simultaneously on the same mind map. There are, however, multiple options for sharing your work in visual, outline or combined format. You can email your work or save it to a Box.net account so that it can be opened on another iDevice. Alternatively, you can copy and paste into another app. Or, you can save into your Camera Roll. You can even share your work via Facebook.

The screenshots below illustrate what you can do with Idea Sketch.

Concepts can be added independently, without connection to anything else. If desired, connections may be drawn, literally and visually, later. Or, the user may generate connections from the start, from within a node. Any concept can be placed wherever you wish on the screen, relative to whatever else you put there. It’s easy to move a node once you’ve placed it on the screen.

Shape, size and color can be used to link and/or differentiate concepts.

Style can be changed from curved to straight lines with the push of a button.

The user interface is very straightforward, and it offers the option of attaching a note to any node.

It’s easy to switch back and forth between outline and map mode. Anything added in one place, automatically shows up in the other. You can see the “note” that was added to the ‘Cities’ node. The note is open by default in outline mode, but it has to be called up in the mind map. This image also illustrates that you can have as much or as little of the mind map open as you wish at any given time. It’s also easy to compress or expand the view in both an outline or a map.