CEDO 525 - Week 3 Tools Review

I am reviewing 3 online tools for my MEIT Course. The three tools help one create and visually organize information. The tools reviewed are:

1)Bubbl
2)MindMeister
3)Webspiration

I chose to put together a map for a new employment opportunity. What are the things one should do when an opportunity presents itself? Using Bubbl, MindMeister and Webspiration I used the same information to see what I could produce.

Bubbl

Bubbl is free and easy to use. It took a minute or two to get the hang of clicking on the bubbles, adding text and spawning connected bubbles. Text formatting was not present, but one can use the icons to change the bubble colors. It would have been nice if the child and sibling bubbles defaulted to the color of the parent bubble. Each bubble can be dragged and dropped around the screen but one has to pay attention to the connecting line.



Bubbl lets you collaborate with other Bubbl users allowing edit access. One can also export the Bubbl map to XML and HTML code, send a link or embed the code on a Web-site. I chose to embed the code here on my blog. Note the controls available in the widget for zooming-in and navigating around the map. I would recommend Bubbl for anyone wanting to get an easy and quick start developing a map and extending it to fellow collaborators.





MindMeister

MindMeister is initially free with all features but after one month you revert to just the free subscription functionality. MindMeister is definitely more robust than Bubbl in that one can format text, add pre-supplied graphics and draw connections between items. I had a lot of fun with this tool as I am more visual than most and I tend to relate tasks/concepts to images. (This should be no surprise to anyone who has seen my prior blogs or presentations!). Visually, MindMeister does lets you create maps with more impact as the child tasks/connections are in a smaller font. At a glance one can tell what are the core topics and subtopics and their relation to one another.



MindMeister provides greater integration into other products with the full version. Calendars can populate with tasks and this does extend MindMeister into a project management/alerting tool. Notes, links, attachments and tasks can be added to the map via the 'Extras' menu. The 'Topic' tool lets one search for topics and inserts them as a link within topic areas of the map. I tried the Wunderlink under the 'Update Resume' topic area and it returned a site with tips on resumes.

MindMeister has plenty of export formats which include MS-Word and PDF.I decided that I wanted to share the MindMeister Map on my blog. First, I had to publish the map and then I could copy and paste the embed code for the blog. The MindMeister widget is more than adequate but I wish it was bit more like the one seen for Bubbl. I do like MindMeister and will continue to work with it to see if paying for the full version is worth the $5 a month.

Webspiration

Webspiration has a Beta version which is currently free for use. After signing-up and logging-in to Webspiration it seems that the features are more evolved over Bubbl and MindMeister. What immediately struck me was the vast selection of templates available for diagrams, outlines and templates. I chose the idea map to be consistent with early creations in Bubbl and MindMeister.

The initial object allowed me to easily add text along with underlying notes for the main idea or topic. There are many more options for formatting, inserting hyperlinks and graphics than MindMeister. Due to the additional functionality I found it took a bit longer to find just the features I wanted. I don't consider this a downside to Webspiration as it by far the most robust of the three products. I was very happy to find that I could copy a bubble and it retained the text and size. In my example I used this to clone or copy the 3 reference bubbles.

The export options from Webspiration were limited in that I could not share embed code and place my work in this blog. Please click on the link to see what I created in Webspiration.

http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/381153a38446 The collaborative aspects are rich in that one can create collaboration groups with access to the map/diagram. I feel that I merely scratched the surface with Webspiration and should revisit at a later time. The multitude of templates, ability to substitute boxes with graphics and insert hyperlinks has piqued my interest.

Bubbl is a quick and easy way to knock-out a map, MindMeister builds on that experience but has a greater feature set than Bubbl and Webspiration really shines with advanced features. It will be interesting to see what the production version of Webspiration brings forth upon its release.