A Great Mind-Mapping Tool

Are you having your students map out complex ideas? Need a way to help them visualize their thinking? Create their own concepts webs? Check out Text2MindMap for a fantastic, simple, and elegant solution.

Check out text2mindmap.com

Here's an example I made for a lesson on vertebrates. You'll notice that the left-side pane is a simple outline--the level of indent determines the "tree" structure in the map you eventually create. Once you've entered your text, click the "Draw Mind Map" button, and boom. Instant Mind-Map.

I love this tool for several reasons:

• Simple to use, but beautiful.
• Easy to update. If you add more items to your outline and click the "Draw Mind Map" button, it quickly and easily updates your map to reflect these changes.
• Easy to customize colors, fonts, and lines (click the "options" tab below the left-side pane.)
• Ability to SAVE your mind-maps to go back to them later.
• Ability to DOWNLOAD your mind-maps as either a .jpg or .pdf (and it's simple to do so!)
• Easy to share mind-maps--either to edit, or to view, as I did above.
• The map is "bouncy" and responds to your dragging elements around. Caveat: one of the options selected by default is that boxes are "locked" once they are moved once. You can change this setting and then the map will continue to move as move it.

I can't wait to hear your ideas for how you might use this with your students!