Mind maps

[Tuomas]

Hi.

I'm supposed to go teach the mind map technique to undergraduates this week. I did a little google serach and found out it's a registered trademark :Dv go figure!

I hear it's quite a common technique, at least among girls while writing essays or doing tests. I've never used it and I personally think it's pedagogically plain shit (here's the irony of me teaching it to kids). I don't know, to me it always seemed like a bunch of unrelated words floating around in a mess. Kinda like spreading all the pieces of a puzzle on the floor.

But what I'd like to know is, do people really find this so effective? Do you use it? I know it's pretty good for corporate planning nights when no-one has an idea, but everyone can shout a motive on a stickerboard

see for yourself:

[abstauber]

I think Mindmapping is great for brainstorming. Where a protocol just fixes the content of a meeting, a mindmap also brings grouping.

Besides you can show things on a high level of abstraction and then dive into sub topics.

So yes, most of the time I like mind mapping. It's not a technique that always fits, but for inventing and discussing new things and ideas, I say it's neat

[Buckethead]

I wanted to use mind mapping for a game I'm making but it proved easier to just write words on paper. If you are working on a big project where several (groups of) people are involved I think mind mapping would prove itself very usefull though.

[Tuomas]

Man, I arrived at the classroom and no-one was there. Apparently all the students together decided to skip the lesson This is the easiest 70â,¬ I've ever made!

[Buckethead]

ah man kids these days 

[BatWitch]

I used freemind to organize my story because it's am elaborate choose your own adventure game with 11 characters and a main character.
I tried organizing things in a list in chronological order and whatnot, but ... but that wasn't the right format to organize my plot.

Even freemind is limited and isn't perfect for my needs, but it's as close as I am able to get to what I need.
The only alternative I can think of to freemind is using those 5"x7" index cards, clothes hooks, and a lot of yarn.

My mindmap (you read it from the middle circle and move out in any direction following connecting nodes. Nodes at the left and right of the image are ends of the story(yellow node)/stories that aren't completed yet(green)):
http://i.imgur.com/al40P.jpg (warning: it's big)

[Matti]

Batwitch.. that's one heck of a mindmap.  :o

That must've been a lot of work, but I can see that it might be useful. Just randomly writing these things down wouldn't work too well I guess.

[Khris]

A mind map can greatly help coding complex stuff like e.g. round based combat, FSMs or other AI.