Mind mapping educational method
Mind mapping is a highly effective way of getting information in and out of your brain. Mind mapping is a creative and logical means of note-taking and note-making that literally “maps out” your ideas.
All Mind Maps have some things in common. They have a natural organizational structure that radiates from the center and use lines, symbols, words, color and images according to simple, brain-friendly concepts. Mind mapping converts a long list of monotonous information into a colorful, memorable and highly organized diagram that works in line with your brain’s natural way of doing things.
One simple way to understand a Mind Map is by comparing it to a map of a city. The city center represents the main idea; the main roads leading from the center represent the key thoughts in your thinking process; the secondary roads or branches represent your secondary thoughts, and so on. Special images or shapes can represent landmarks of interest or particularly relevant ideas.
The great thing about mind mapping is that you can put your ideas down in any order, as soon as they pop into your head. You are not constrained by thinking in order. Simply, throw out any and all ideas, then worry about reorganizing them later.
Educators and students have been drawing concept maps and mind maps on paper for many years. Visual software applications, in particular mind mapping tools, have automated this process, making it more efficient to brainstorm concepts as ideas or branches. This allows for the creation of much larger mind maps, and the ability to easily re-organized branches by dragging and dropping them around the map.
Association Ecosystem Europe already used mind mapping in one of the educational tools we developed http://greentourism.eu/.
More information can be found on the following pages: