ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Just the other day I needed to put together a business proposal for one of the schools that I will be consulting to. The proposal included both the purchase of software as well as on-going professional development for the special education teachers. I needed in the proposal to breakdown the cost of the software that would be used by each of the teachers as well as the cost for professional development. Each of the classroom would need to use different software and the amount of professional development varied by classroom. I had already put together an Excel spreadsheet with all of the pricing for the software and was now ready to write up the proposal when it dawned on me why don't I try to use MindManager Pro 7 to develop the proposal.

Over the last week or so I have the opportunity to try out ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC from CS Odessa. The program is very pleasing to the eye and has many features which makes it easy to use. I found the interface to be very straightforward and without so much as cracking open the manual I was creating some fairly complex mind maps. When you first start ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC you are presented with the Startup Dialog box with a choice of several options. You can start your mind map from a template or just jump in with a blank mind map. If you prefer you could also have ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC open up a new outline for you. One of the really nice features is the Brainstorming mode. Simply click on Brainstorm icon and set your timer for the session length and begin to record your ideas. Once you have finished your brainstorming session you can drag your ideas and link them any way that you want. For those individuals who may not be familiar to mind mapping the Startup Dialog is a good place to begin. More advanced users can decide not to show the Startup Dialog by going into the Preferences within the application.

Once ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC is open you start with the Main idea centrally located on the screen. Start typing your Main Idea and then press the Enter key to have new ideas shoot off radially around the main topic. Adding subtopics can be accomplished with the keyboard or by clicking on the Insert icon on the toolbar. You can also add topics and subtopics by using the Freehand tool which lets you click and drag where you would like your topics and subtopics to appear on the map. If you would like to arrange you ideas differently around the Main Topic simply click on the Arrange icon to see your options. This is a nice touch which quickly will rearrange your ideas. Numbering your ideas is also quickly accomplished by clicking on the Auto Numeration icon. There are a couple of unique features which ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC brings to the table-that being able to view your mind map and outline together on the page. This is a very nice touch and one that I found helpful when doing business proposals. Of course you also have the ability to view the outline or mind map be itself on the screen if you choose to. Formatting your mind map is extremely easy with the advent of Map Themes. Simply click on the Map Themes icon and select from an assortment of map themes. In seconds your whole map will be reformatted using the color and shape themes. It is very easy to experiment and cycle through the formats until you get it the way you like.

ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC has an array of markers that can be added to your topics and subtopics as well as professionally drawn images that you can use to adorn your mind map. The images are all categorized and have a clean and neat modern look to them. It would be great if ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC had a search feature when looking for a specific image. Images can be scaled once they are placed in a topic or subtopic but it did take a little practice to get the hang as how to do it. The formatting of topics and lines is very easy accomplished using the Inspector. I found It very easy to use the Relationships tool to draw connections between topics. Using the inspector you can easily format the relationships to change the line width, color and determine if you want arrows to appear. ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC supports Floating topics as well as Callouts. The only thing that I found missing as far as formatting of the mind map in ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC was the ability to draw boundaries around topics and subtopics. I think that this is a feature that should be considered for a future release of this application.

ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC gives you a range of ways to link attachments to your topics and subtopics. You can attach files, web links, folders, emails, and topics to your mind maps by using the inspector. Once you have made an attachment ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC will show an icon to represent your attachment. Placing your mouse over the attachment icon will display a pop up dialog showing you your linking information. This is a really nice touch. Similarly, you can attach a note to any topic or subtopic which opens up the text note editor. Text can be stylized within the note using the Font inspector dialog box.

ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC can also be effectively used for project planning and allows one to enter task information for each topic or subtopic. One can record a Start Date, Use Due Date, as well as enter the Duration of the task and the Percentage of the task that is completed. Once you add Percentage of the task completed to a task you will see an icon on your map to correspond to the information entered. It is also possible to manually click on the Percentage completed icon in the mind map to change the data. Topics can also be sorted on the percentage complete task for quick review. You can also enter any Resources that are associated with the task. It is presumed that this data could be exported or opened with ConceptDraw Project or Microsoft Project for further analysis.

Since no mind mapping application is an island it is great to know that you can export your mind maps and outlines in different fie formats. It is now possible to export your mind maps to an image format, HTML, Microsoft Project, Microsoft PowerPoint. Exporting to Microsoft PowerPoint will be delivered next month in a scheduled upgrade release. Outlines can be exported to as well as TextOutline format, RTF, and OPML. There is also an export available which can send your mind maps and outlines to your iPod. CS Odessa will be releasing an upgrade which would allow MindManager users to import their mind maps.

ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC is a full featured mind mapping application for Macintosh OS X with a clean and easy to use interface. ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC is a powerful program with lots of nice touches and features. ConceptDraw MindMap 5 MAC certainly is a very competitive mind mapping application especially on the Macintosh platform. With the exception of boundaries and some minor subtle interface issues (resizing images) this is a worthwhile program to look at on the Macintosh platform. I would hope as we move to mind mapping 2.0 that all of the major publishers find a way for our mind maps to live on the web with an easy solution to publish and tag them from our desktop applications. Once on the web it should be easy for our invited colleagues to collaborate and work with the mind maps.

I have had the opportunity to use the PersonalBrain 4 for the past couple of weeks and have found it to be extremely useful for organizing my materials and ideas. I do want to thank Shelley, Harlan, and Matt at theBrain Technologies, LP for their help and giving me the opportunity to work with their fine product. In fact, I have been using the PersonalBrain 4 more and more to organize my ideas, for my blog and for my newsletter, Inclusion Times. One of the really neat features of the PersonalBrain which may be overlooked is the ability to export your brain and publish it on the web. From the File menu you simply select Export-- and then select Site Brain HTML with XML Data. The PersonalBrain 4 opens a dialog box and prompts you to save the exported files. Once the files have been transferred to your hard drive you simply upload them to your server and they are ready to go. What is really exciting is that all of your notes, URL links and documents can be accessed from within your PersonalBrain on the web. Within minutes ,I had my PersonalBrain 4 on the web. If you want to see one of my PersonalBrain’s on the web click here. Remember that all of the information is hyperlinked so that clicking on an item allows you to jump to related information. If there is a link or note or a file attached to the item you can click on it in the bottom portions of the screen to access it. Give it a try and let me know what you think. The PersonalBrain 4 is a great tool to quickly put up a website for a presentation or even for a class complete with links, documents and attachments.

It is hard to believe how many mind mapping applications are available today as both desktop and web applications. Chuck Frey just today posted information about a new mind mapping application called Cayra which is built on the Microsoft .NET framework. Read Chuck’s post about the feature set.

I just received this Update from Brad Allen with regard to TPAssist2007 which effected some users trying to use the Add-in with MindManager 6. The problem has been corrected and if you had attempted to download it earlier this week give it another try by downloading the update.
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I just recently posted a review of XMIND last month and am pleased to announce that XMIND 2008 will be released on September 30, 2008.



According to XMIND's website here is a list of the new features:

• 2D Charts
• Fishbone Maps
• Attachments of files and URL'S
• Audio Recording
• Presentation capabilities
• Search Topics from the Web within a mind map
  
• Poweer fitering capabilities
• Export to PDF/DOC/PPT

Take a look at the redesigned XMIND website for all the information and updates.

Just last week I was asked to do a hands on assistive technology workshop as a kick off for the school year. Since I was going to be using the computer lab and their SmartBoard to do the workshop I decided that I would use the school’s computer to do my presentation and demonstrate the software. As I was putting together the presentation I thought wow, I could use one of the on-line mind mapping applications as my presentation tool to show the teachers the features of the software and give them a good overview. I knew that I would have access to the Internet and thought that this strategy would work well with my audience. So I fired up Mindomo, logged on a started to develop my feature mind map. Mindomo is very easy to use and if you don’t look up at your browser you would swear that you are using a desktop application. The fluid ribbon interface looks great and it is easy to find the features that you are looking for. Within minutes, I had developed a comprehensive visual mind map to highlight all of the features of the software that I was introducing. After finishing the mind map I decided that it would make a great handout and decided to print it. This is where the process broke down. No matter what I did the quality of the printed copy looked fuzzy and not sharp enough for my standards. I tried exporting the mind map to png, jpeg, and PDF but still the quality was poor.

At this point I made an executive decision and decided to redo the mind map using MindManager Pro 7. I quickly redid the mind map and then printed it out on my new OkiData 6100n color printer. The outputted mind map looked crisp and clean and something that I could be proud to hand out to the teachers that I would be working with. So I printed off 20 mind maps and then was faced with the dilemma, how do I use this as part of my presentation? Looking at all of the alternatives I decided that I would download the MindManager 7 Viewer and install it on the Instructor’s computer and simply view it that way. So I downloaded the MindManager 7 Viewer and my mindmap and saved it to my USB drive. When I got to the school I quickly installed the MindManager 7 Viewer and was up and running. While this solution worked it took too much time on my part to make it happen.


As I was pondering this scenario for my blog, and I said to myself there has got to be a better way to handle these kinds of scenarios. It should be that you create it once, and are able to publish it as you see fit without the need to have a viewer or a plug-in. I for one hope that the publishers of mind mapping software begin to think about what mind mapping 2.0 looks like, so that we can create our visual mind maps with our desktop applications and they are automatically synchronized and pushed out to the web at our discretion. Once on the web, we should be able to have an environment so that we can modify, access, view and print them. I know for myself that having this functionality would have saved me a great deal of time.

I would be interested in your comments and ideas.

I recently stumbled across a new blog called MindMapping 2.0 which is written by Jonathan Sapir who has great insight into what needs be done to move from MindMapping 1.0 to MindMapping 2.0. Jonathan brings a great deal of experience and is author of
Igniting the Phoenix: A New Vision for IT.
Jonathan was also for a time was the Chief Technology Evangelist at SnapXT which is a collaborative tool that takes MindManager and turns it into a collaborative, updateable Web site. Look for an upcoming review of SnapXT