I love the topic of mindmapping and memory. I have like five books on this stuff.

You know, students can easily do this using word. I haven't used it myself, but some fellow teachers show students how to make the box and the arrow and then use it for invention.

Me, I'm still stuck on cluster maps with pen and sheet of paper :)

I'd much rather use paper. I have these big artpads sitting in my carrel that I use on occasion to work through writing problems and brainstorm.

Think storyboards like in the film/animation industries.

This works best for planning websites.

Several professors at U of Tennessee Knoxville use it. I agree that paper is great too, but it is pretty neat to use Inspiration with a computer projector in the rapid fire mode; that way, a teacher can have a concept or a character from a novel or something in the center, and the students can brainstorm as a class. Of course, a *student* could lead the discussion as well. :-) Then it can be saved on the hard drive and put on a class Web site or something.

But paper was good enough for da Vinci! (duh--it had to be.) The book I was talking about recommends using big pieces of butcher paper for your mind maps.

I've also found PowerPoint or other presenation tools useful concept mapping and revision tools. The slide viewer lets you see all of your slides and move them around quite easily.

For revision I have students put the main idea of each paragraph or section on a slide, then go back and put in what evidence they're using to support their assertions. If they don't have more than two things--facts, reasonings, etc.--to support a point it shows they need to do more research, reading, or thinking.

By letting students easily move 'paragraphs' around it helps them see how ideas build on each other or even re-vision their drafts by showing them quite easily what happens if they reverse or otherwise alter the order of their narrative or arguement.

The big weakness with programs like PowerPoint is that they do enforce a very linear model of writing.

Just was checking out Tinderbox over at Eastgate, and not only is the software a powerful weblog program, but also has a concept mapping component.

The other problem with powerpoint is that it is so d*mn bloated it slows my machine down, even this new 1.4 ghz dell thingy we just got at work. I'm going to look for freeware outlining mapping tools today and post an entry.