Thing #15 Going with the Flow

I have been looking for a tool to do this for quite a while. I have been using Microsoft Word and have been disappointed with the limitations of it in creating a flow chart. It takes too much time and too much work to create decent template.

I did not like Giffy, although they offered multiple templates the templates where rigid and difficult to change around. The one thing that I did like from this site was the inclusion of a Venn Diagram. This will make my diigo list solely for that purpose. I would NOT use it for creating anything other than a Venn Diagram and even then I continue to look for an easier tool

Bubbl.us was better than giffy in that you could create different looking maps or organizational charts but it had a limitation in that it was unidirectional. You could not link one of the later points to a earlier point. I saw this to be extremely linear and somewhat defeating for a mind map. It was nice to move the boxes around and change the shape but for anything other than a top down item like an organizational chart I would look elsewhere.

I am still waiting on my invitation from flowchart and I have high hopes for it.

Mindmeister is my favorite so far. The biggest draw for me is the ability to connect ideas from different sides of the concept map and therefore show relationships between seemingly very different ideas. Mindmeister does not allow some changing of the shape ( I wish it did) and is therefore limited in what it can do space wise. It also lacks some of the colors and bells and whistles that some of the other functions has but I still found it to be the most suited for my class.

All in all I am somewhat disappointed in that none of the webapps had all of the features that I am looking for. I hope that flowchart works out. I know that some of these are still in beta or testing new versions. If just a few modifications are made this could be a very powerful tool for linking learning throughout the year to one or two core concepts