Mind Mapping Software - (Inspiration,Freemind,etc)

[flyinghaggis]

We're in the process of trying to decide on a piece of software to use school-wide for mind mapping. We've looked at several so far and the best two we've seen are FreeMind and Inspiration. FreeMind seems pretty good (and doesn't cost anything which is nice) but lacks some of the features of Inspiration. The problem with inspiration is the cost and the fact that they only offer per-machine licencing means it which would work out very expensive to roll out to every PC on the network. We'd heard some folk saying that LT Scotland had a deal with Inspiration to provide it more cheaply to Scottish school but we haven't managed to find and links or more information about this.

 

What's everyone else using for mind-mapping software?

[Norphy]

Our teachers use Visio, it has a Brainstorming set of symbols and it seems to work well enough for them.

[Geoff]

Freemind here. Why don't you add the missing feature(s) to it that you need?

[Netman]

Have used Mind Manager at a previous school and found it excellent...

http://www.vtsdirect.com/products.html

[ZeroHour]

Freemind here. Why don't you add the missing feature(s) to it that you need?

LOL, uber programming l33tn3ss

[Geoff]

What? Its only Java!

 

Load it into Eclipse and you're away...

[ZeroHour]

OMG, java is evil

I *used* to prog in it when in uni.

You could do it for us though

I will send you a electronic beer if you do

[Geoff]

No, I require money for that kind of work.

[flyinghaggis]

Cheers for the replies guys. We've downloaded a few demo's and MindJet MindManager and Mindgenius are looking like the favourites so far. They also offer educational site licences which is ideal.

We'll put these onto our list of suitable software and see what the powers that be decide to go with

[Face-Man]

We use Openmind2 here and it work really well. When I showed our head she was straight on it doing school development plan and staff handbook. It's most useful as it can output to multiple formats and has a great timeline feature. You can download a 30 day trial but the full product cost quite a bit If you want a simple (no pun intended) product why not try 2connect really good for special needs kids or primary

[webman]

OMG, java is evil

 

Completely agree!! Worst. Platform. Ever. 8)

[steve]

Another vote for MindGenius £2K for a secondary site licence.

[leeupo]

We use OpenMind cost 1k for site.

[Ric_]

My Mum's used MindJet for her Management MA. She says that the features for online collaboration and conversion to/from Office is really good.

 

She also uses the PocketPC version and has used the Palm version too.

[MkII]

Looking at cmap here.

[deerwood]

For school staff, I'd certainly advise using Mindjet's Mindmanager pro6. This is an easy to use product and has excellent links with MS office, pdf creation and basic html creation.

For secondary pupils I'd also recommend Mindmanager pro6.

Inspiration (now in version eight) is a great product for pupils but tends to appear cluttered on the screen and the results tend to look more childish but would be great for juniors).

For Juniors and Infants generally, I'd recommend 2Connect (though I do feel the version currently available is not fully ready) or Kidspiration.

If you have Smartboards, then you may be able to get a discount on Mind Genius which is a good program but perhaps not as good as mind-manager.

[flyinghaggis]

We're just away to demo MindManager and Inspiration to the staff and give them trial copies to take home to play with so we'll see which one they think is best.

The biggest problem so far isn't a technical or social one but licensing terms! MindManager offer a site licence for £2k but I can find anywhere that will sell inspiration on anything but a per-computer licence. Ideally we'd like to roll the software out to all of the computers in our school (over 500) which makes Inspiration the much more expensive alternative. It's either that or heavily restrict where the software is installed. We like to avoid limiting deployment of software like this as it annoys staff who always assume software is available on any PC!

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to get any kind of site / concurrent use licence for inspiration :?:

[deerwood]

I assume you have contacted Taglearning (www.taglearning.com). Their website says that a primary site licence is available.

[flyinghaggis]

I assume you have contacted Taglearning (www.taglearning.com). Their website says that a primary site licence is available.

 

Cheers for the link. We'd checked Pugh's site and a couple of our other curriculum online vendors but they only offered per-PC licences. I wonder if primary site means your main business site or if it means primary (school only) site licence. Hopefully it's the former It just seems odd that a site licence should be so relatively cheap when they're mentioned over 1000 copies at £18 each on the same page. Seriously, what school's gonna spend nearly £20k on mind mapping software 8O

[deerwood]

I wonder if primary site means your main business site or if it means primary (school only) site licence. Hopefully it's the former It just seems odd that a site licence should be so relatively cheap when they're mentioned over 1000 copies at £18 each on the same page. Seriously, what school's gonna spend nearly £20k on mind mapping software 8O

 

As Inspiration is a piece of software more geared to primary (juniors), I wouldn't be surprised if it was priced for a primary school (sorry) but only TAG will be able to tell you that. I'm sure, though, that they would not want to miss out on making some money, so you might be able to do a deal! Can you use ELCs to reduce the cost?

 

For a secondary school and also for staff use, I'd still opt for MindManager, it seems to give a more professsional look and integrates much better with Office programs (at least MS Office). Talk to Mindjet to see if you can do an educational deal with them, you can now use ELCs to purchase Mindmanager.

[flyinghaggis]

Just for info to anyone looking to buy Inspiration the the Primary site licence on TAGlearning's site (£550) refers to a Primary (Junior School) 'only' site licence! There is a seconday school licence available according to TAG for about £2500. Kinda pricey but better than buying 500 individual copies!

We'd looked at Mind Manager and it does look more professional but apart from that it doesn't seem to offer anything that Inspiration doesn't. Inspiration also appears to be more flexible in that it doesn't force you to create a mind map style diagram (ie. you can use if for data-flow diagram's,etc).

[Sylv3r]

We are now looking for some Mind Mapping software. Which one did you eventually go for flyinhaggis?

 

Inspiration seems to be the teachers favourite here after I gave them copies of the demo. Would be interested for anybodys views on pro's and con's for Inspiration before we splash out £2.5k on another non used peice of software.