This weekend I tried out the mind mapping technique on a paper as a means to visually display the key extracted points. It’s a creative form of note taking with the purpose of logically laying out ideas. I’m a very visual learner and I did find the process beneficial as the relationships between the points quickly becomes evident once laid out in a mind map format. In order to help me with the process I used a mind mapping open-source software XMind. There is, of course, no need to use a software package for this technique as pen and paper would suffice for drawing a mind map, but this is a good way to get digitally organised (e.g. for easy storage or attaching the maps to the associated PDFs to make referencing a later date a lot easier).

The paper I chose to map out was titled ‘Current status, opportunities and challenges of augmented reality in education‘ (Wu et al., 2013) and I used the free version of XMind 7.5 to do it. There is a paid version with more advanced features, such as exporting options and the ability to add images etc, but the free version seemed to do what I needed just fine. It was my first time using XMind and it was a breeze to learn. On opening the programme, the user is given the option to choose from 16 blank formats or 20 pre-formatted templates.

It has a very simple interface which means that I was creating the mind map in a matter of minutes. Objects can be added to the workspace via the top menu, context menu or keyboard shortcut. Objects can then be individually styled via the properties window on the bottom right. I did notice that when items are added to the workspace they seem to snap to a predetermined position which frustrated me a little as I like to have full control over the exact positioning of map elements. On reflection, this is a minor gripe on my behalf but it did keep the mind map very neat and meant that I wasn’t wasting time customising the layout and just got on with the task in hand. The result of which can be viewed below (click for a larger version).

The find out more about the Mind Mapping techniques, its benefits and the theory behind it visit www.mindmapping.com. To download and test XMind visit www.xmind.net/download

Reference:
Wu, H.-K., Lee, S.W.-Y., Chang, H.-Y., Liang, J.-C., 2013. Current status, opportunities and challenges of augmented reality in education. Comput. Educ. 62, 41–49.