FreeMind Tutorial

This tutorial explains in detail how to use the freeware mindmapping software "FreeMind." This is akin to the "bubble-mapping" you might have done in grade school to help brainstorm or outline a paper or project. FreeMind is very powerful, easy...and -- FREE!

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hi this is Mike and I'm a graduate
teaching assistant in the English
department at Clemson University and I
want to share piece of software with you
today that i think is extremely useful
and it's called freemind use this
program from my home writing projects i
have students right now that we're using
this program and i have one student that
occasionally uses free mind to take
notes in class as opposed to using
microsoft word so it's quite a versatile
program and it's not for everyone but
it's worth it's worth sharing as it can
be easily incorporated into a lot of
your own writing projects and i would
highly recommend that you try and share
this with your students for those that
are strong visual learners this might be
a good way for them to conceptualize
some of their papers take notes
brainstorm in particular it's very
flexible in that sense and it is
java-based so you can actually run this
on your mac pc linux and edit files
between all these different systems as
it is cross-platform like I said it's
java-based so that's really really
awesome
now let's talk about the workspace here
let's go ahead and start a new mind map
by pressing the new blank sheet there or
you can do file new your left you have
icons that you can insert into your mind
map the trash can will actually delete
them all the X will remove the most
recent icon that you've inserted and
essentially these icons are just little
visual cues and reminders you can put in
your mind map
I don't know if there's something really
important that you want to share with
someone if you send your mind map to
them or if there's for example you can
put this bomb in
if you think it's a bad idea at the top
it's very similar to other interfaces
you used in that you can print save copy
cut paste and so forth
change your tight face the zoom level
and the size of your type face as well
so let's go ahead and make a mindmap
real quickly i'll show you how it works
you have a default bubble in the middle
it's called new mindmap let's go ahead
and set a mindmap up is that we are
composition students who are working on
the it's a final group project so there
we go
and although you can use this mind
mapping software to outline of paper or
project we're going to use it today to
divvy up the tasks of our group so we
have it selected the main bubble we're
going to press tab and we've inserted a
branch click on it again press tab
another branch tab tab so now we have
four branches and just my personal
preferences i like the bubbles so i'm
going to select all using Apple a or
control a and format everything in a
bubble form
so let's go ahead and set this up we'll
have a team member one here will hover
over this one insert an icon for team
member 210 number three and team before
and let's give them each a few tasks so
will hover over this new tab once again
and team number one will be responsible
for games and food team member to will
be responsible for movies playstation
remember three will be responsible for
bringing the crossbow and wiffle ball
that and team member for will bring a
dictionary sorry i can't type today a
dictionary blank dvds and will be also
responsible for establishing world peace
you know that's good let's highlight
that and let's put a smiley face there
because that seems like a good idea to
me
the crossbow also seems like a good idea
food i think we should put a penguin
there and for the PlayStation let's go
ahead and put a flag there because
that's of great importance
so you see how we can just add these
notes by pressing tab by the way you can
also press return to make what's called
a sibling node as you see we press
return
it's on the same level as these that's
called a sibling node will just delete
that though or tab tab a return to make
these men's
and you can also click on the background
anywhere and you can drag and move your
map around sometimes these maps become
pretty large and unwieldy so you can
drag and change your view you can also
click on these two contract them if you
have too much stuff going on
likewise you can click up here
to expand and contract your map as well
another key thing is that you can
highlight one of these nodes you can go
to insert and you can insert a hyperlink
to a webpage for instance you can
actually insert a picture so if you're
doing a visual rhetoric paper you could
set up a bunch of different paragraphs
you could outline your paper paragraph
by paragraph and you can actually insert
the pictures that you intend on using
with those paragraphs to see how it
works together as a group in which is
just just brilliant i think and another
thing that I think it makes this
particularly powerful is as opposed to
actually drawing these this bubble map
on paper you can move information around
just by dragging and dropping so say for
instance team member for has to drop out
of school he had some sort of industrial
accident at his night job hard-working
student just trying to work his way
through school he's gonna have to delay
that for a couple years it seems so all
we can do is adapt right so we'll take
world peace and click on it dragged into
team member to remember two will have to
establish world peace now remember three
is going to have to get a dictionary to
remember one is going to be responsible
for games food and like DVDs team member
for will hover over press Delete because
team number four is gone and you see how
easy it is to manipulate this
information fact we can take team ever
three and actually make to MIT team
number three we could put him under the
control team member to who's starting to
dominate this entire project and then we
can put team number one under team
member to as well so the team member to
is the complete authority for everything
that takes place in this group project
which tends to happen doesn't it
and we've set up a mind map although
there's a strange mind map and we can
just move this back here we don't like
that
team number three could succeed if we
want them to
so we have a mind map now and another
key feature here within this program is
that you can export your mind map in as
a web page form as HTML just go to file
export you can export it as text HTML as
a PDF as a SVG PNG or jpg these are
image files and you can actually upload
these and make a webpage so let's go
ahead i'll show you how this export
function works let's make an HTML file i
guess we have to say that first sorry
about that
save it to the desktop will call this
sample ok now we'll try exporting it
again
here you go you have exported and kind
of a rough outline now what is
particularly handy is you can export
this with a the JavaScript that will
enable you to embed your mind map on the
webpage and visitors to your webpage can
then explore it they can drill down on
the data they can collapse it and expand
it and visit the links that you've set
up in your webpage your brainstorm you
can share this web page with the world
with teammates and there would not be
able to edit of course but it's just
pretty neat you have to get a the
company
the applet to do that you don't like
that you can also embed it into a web
page is a simple expandable intractable
outline
or you could go to file export export as
a PDF
and if you'll allow me to just open up
that PDF here real quickly
there you go it actually can
automatically crops it you see based on
what you're doing so it's a very
powerful program it can do a lot more
actually there are a lot of ways you can
customize these maps you can change the
outlines you can change these various
branches the boldness we can change the
typeface here make it bold make it a
larger font and that is all i have for
you right now so give it a look see what
you think
and thank you for watching my tutorial