Choosing mind mapping software for presentations

Click the images below to see a larger version of the image. To go to the site of the software mentioned, click the caption below its image.

Presenting with visual models[edit]

Many mind mapping applications can be used for presentations and provide a welcome relief to the familiar PowerPoint. One web-based app has been designed specifically for presentations, though: Prezi. It doesn’t exactly make mind maps, but as a mind mapper, you’ll find plenty about it that’s familar, and many original ideas in the way it works. If you give presentations or want to put them on the Web, you should look at this example to see how it could change what your audiences see and engage with. You need to watch the example to understand the effect of the zooming, swinging and sliding round this map during the presentation. The static images below cannot convey this.

Another tool, VUE or Visual Understanding Environment, takes a different approach but has presentations as one of the purposes for which it was made. It allows you to define pathways through the map that your presentation is to take. It has the concept map model as a base, and is desktop software. It’s free, by the way.