This week I found a great FREE online mind mapping tool called MindMup (http://www.mindmup.com)

Some of you might be asking, “What is mind mapping?” In the simplest of definitions, it is a way to take notes using visual elements. Mind mapping offers an overview of a topic and complex information and often gives someone the ability to create new ideas and build connections. Through the use of colors, images and words, mind mapping encourages you to begin with a core idea and expand to more in-depth sub-topics.

Mind Mapping Example

Mind Mapping Example

MindMup has an intuitive user interface and connects to your Google Drive account so you are able to share your work. There are also some great additional features you can use like realtime collaboration on a map so updates change concurrently and shown almost instantly to everyone in the group. Additionally, you can manage hierarchies of tasks by propagating statuses to parent nodes. For example, when all sub-taks are completed, the parent task is automatically marked as completed. Another nice feature when building large maps is the abilities to convert the funky curve connectors into straight lines — I really like this feature! Finally, two nice extensions include the ability to store your maps on both Github and Dropbox!

So if you are looking for a great online FREE mind mapping tool to use in your classroom, business, or online collaborative projects then consider looking at MindMup — you don’t have anything to loose!