It’s pretty well known that I’m a huge fan of mind mapping and am a very visual learner. It’s also well know that school wasn’t easy for me growing up. Yes, I did well, but there were times I thought Chemistry and pre-calculus were going to be the death of me. Even through undergrad and grad school many things (again Chemistry) didn’t come easily to me. Oh how I wish I knew then what I know now about myself and my brain.

I wonder if I had been helped to hone the learning skills I had, instead of trying to shoe horn myself into the expectations of how to study. I think most teachers agree that everyone learns a little differently, but when trying to teach a class you have to aim for the middle to try to help the most kids you can. In my classes I know that when I go over something that most of the students are going to get it, but I also know that I’m going to need to review with some folks. I don’t look at it as they don’t get it or that I didn’t teach it well, I think of it as just needing to adjust to that person’s learning style.

It’s one of those times when I’m happy that I’m not a “traditional” learner, since often I had to learn what I’m teaching completely differently—even differently than I teach the same thing.

All of this was inspired by this post on those people who are fast learners:

The Way We Were Taught to Learn is Broken
Children are imaginative, creative and, in many ways, the epitome of this rapid learning strategy. Maybe it’s the current school system, or maybe it’s just a consequence of growing up, but most people eventually suppress this instinct.
The sad truth is that the formal style of learning, makes learning less enjoyable. Chemistry, mathematics, computer science or classic literature should spawn new ideas, connections in the mind, exciting possibilities. Not only the right answers for a standardized test.
The irony is that maybe if that childlike, informal way of learning came back, even just in part, perhaps more people would succeed on those very tests. Or at least enjoyed the process of learning.
link: How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying | Zen Habits

I know it’s nearly impossible for teachers to adapt to all types of learners, but I think we need to be more flexible and find ways to help people who learn differently. Maybe trying to encourage different ways of connecting ideas or remembering concepts, bringing visual tools into play…the field is open.

Myself, once I figured out that the “regular” ways of doing things didn’t work for, things fell into place. Too bad I figured it all out after I finished school.

Remember those days in high school when you were learning how to write term papers? My very well-meaning teachers tried to get us to use notecards and create outlines, anything to help us write better organized papers with the correct citation in the bibliography.

And I hated and chafed at every, single moment of it. While having notecards is actually a good organizational tool, my nascent writer’s brain couldn’t latch on to them as anything more than a royal pain. Even then, and probably more so than now, my chaotic, in-the-data-cloud brain couldn’t deal with something so–orderly. I know I wasn’t the only one who had the same issues, Will Kelly wrote about this very frustration…

Through high school and college, I used to rail against having to use outlines because I saw them as stifling my creativity. It wasn’t until years later, as more of my own consulting work grew past just straight up technical writing of user documentation, that I rediscovered outlines as a productivity tool, enabling me to quickly make plans, organize ideas and structure information. Now I consider them an important part of my project planning arsenal.

[From Rediscovering Outlines As a Productivity Tool ]

I can’t really blame my teachers though, the technology that let me absorb and grok outlines didn’t exist yet. When I tried to write out an outline on paper, each thing I wrote became fixed and something that was fixed in the infosphere became something to work around. Thankfully I only had to write one term paper using the time-honoured long-hand/typewriter combo. My family’s Apple IIe arrived shortly after my D- on my first high school term paper. In spite of the fact that I turned in “typewritten” first drafts (probably much to my teachers’ pleasure given my infamous handwriting), I still had to contend with the notecard and paper outline strictures, which didn’t help matters.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally got it. It wasn’t until I was introduced to mind mapping did I learn that writing could be a lot easier, which is how I’ve been able to finish one book, start another, and map out a third. I don’t mind map as many documents now, but I do work off outlines for most things longer than a page or two.

Will uses Omni Outliner while I tend to use the built-in outlining and organizational tools that Scrivener provides, but both have the same end goal: put your thoughts in order.

Yes, this is confusing and seemingly diametrically opposed, but the difference is that when I work with a mind map or within Scrivener I can move the elements around. There is no inertia to moving something (hmm a mental frictionless plane…) around. I’ve moved whole sections to new chapters, changed the order of chapters, split, combined… Fine you get the idea.

This is the key and essential difference between what I learned 25 years ago is the flexibility that electronic tools offer that paper just doesn’t. It makes me wonder if my kids’ teachers are using tools like mind mapping or Scrivener or Omni Outliner to help kids grasp organization. If you are creating an outline on paper there is an inherent assumption that you have everything structured in your head already, or that you can think like that.

I can’t.

I don’t even try anymore. I start working on a document and know that I will go back an move, realign, and adjust the outline before it’s done. Even once its “done” I still can move things around. So what is chapter 5 now was chapter 3 before. My advice to you is that if you struggle with the blank page syndrome, feeling like you don’t know where to begin, look at tools where it doesn’t matter where you start because what you enter first doesn’t have to remain first.

And by the way … I actually use Scrivener’s notecard-corkboard interface a lot.

You all know that I’m a huge proponent of mind mapping. Once I got the hang of it I couldn’t imagine trying to organize my thoughts any other way.

Books, presentations, projects, websites pretty much anything where I need to take the massive gaggle of thoughts that is my brain into a cohesive whole, I mind map.

You also know that my primary tool for mind mapping has been MindJet’s MindManager. One of the key features for me has been the ability to export mind maps to a Word outline or PowerPoint presentation. Being able to go from a mind map to something that more people “get” was absolutely critical to using mind maps for work (not to mention writing books).

When I switched to a Mac last November, I switched over to MindManager Mac. I frankly wasn’t impressed. The Mac client was seriously lacking in key features, namely Word-Powerpoint export.

Last night checking my feeds and saw the review of  MindView Pro 3.0 for the Mac on a couple blogs I follow–MindView 3.0 Comes of Age – TheAppleBlog – WebWorkerDaily » Archive MindView 3: Wrap Your Head Around Anything Via Mind Maps «.

Reading these posts, especially Matthew’s Mac one, I saw something that made my eyes light up:

Yeah you see it, export to Word. Yeah baby. this is what I’ve been needing. I downloaded and installed it right away. I haven’t given it much of a test drive, but yeah it’s looking good.

Drawbacks? Like Matthew notes: price and lack of ability to import from other programs.

So is there a negative? I would have to say the price. MindView 3 retails at $279, which is not cheap. Other competitors in the space are also not inexpensive, with prices ranging from $129-199. Regardless, you do pay a premium for MindView 3. Thankfully, the folks at Matchware have educational and volume pricing. So, if you are a student or you need more than five licenses, you can get a reasonable deal.

As an aside, I find that one major annoyance with the software vendors in the mind map space is that they do not import/export their competitors file formats. Thus, you better be prepared to export it to text and/or OPML (an outline format). Of course, if you are happy with your existing mind mapping tool, then this might not be an issue.

Okay the price tag is a little intense too.

Let’s see how it goes…

Chuck Frey asked yesterday—How do you define a great mind map? – Mind Mapping Software Blog—while commenters were talking about lots of difference great things about mind maps, my number one thing has always been if someone else looks at it and “just gets it”.

They can follow my train of thought. They understand the point. Even better is when a mind map inspires people to see the idea or problem in a new light. Now that rocks.

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