Useful tools #1

As you know, organising events can get quite complicated and involves so many different dimensions that an excellent multi-tasking brain is needed. That's why this year I'm reliant on Sharon and her gang to make everything run smoothly. But for those of us who are limited to only being able to think of about 28 items simultaneously (I counted - it's supposed to be 7, but I have multiple personalities) sometimes the odd bit of paper and packet of crayons can come in handy. Especially for scribbling out mind maps (oops, that's probably (c)Tony Buzan, perhaps I meant "concept maps" or some other name) showing various processes and their relationship with one another.

But for the die-hard geek, this "old wood" approach is looked down on. Fortunately there are many software packages out there that can help construct such diagrams, but many are quite expensive. That's where Freemind comes in. It's a basic, but effective tool for developing concept maps, written in Java. Given that it's free, we can also get students to use it too and given than so many people like the concept map approach to learning about complex topics then by all means spread the word.