Some interesting facts about Tony Buzan (Source):
- Inventor of Mind Maps®, the thinking tool described as 'the Swiss army knife of the brain', now used by over 250 million people worldwide.
- The world's leading author on the brain and learning (over 100 authored and co-authored books to date, with sales totalling three million (and accelerating!)).
- Buzan's books and other products have achieved massive success in more than 150 countries and 30 languages, generating revenues in excess of £100 million.
- A global media personality, having appeared on over 100 hours of national and global television, and over 1000 hours of national and international radio. He has been seen and heard by an estimated three billion-plus people!
Yes, I am also one of those who have used mind maps to make my learning more efficient and effective. Actually, mind maps partially helped me to improve my grades during my Undergraduate days. Anyway, those days were really about memorization more than learning. If you ask to me to remember what I learned back then, it will probably be a big zero. Though, I do remember some of the colourful mind maps I created during those days, and not only do they help you remember and see the connections and relationships between different concepts, they also help you to nurture your creativity.
FREE VIDEOS?
Click here to access the latest list of FREE Tony Buzan videos. Here are a few to enjoy:
- Tony Buzan - Using Mind Mapping
- The Power of Mind Mapping - Using both sides of the Brain
- Maximise The Potential of Your Brain - Tony Buzan Talks About Mind Mapping
FREE ARTICLES?
Click here to access the full list of FREE Tony Buzan articles. Here are a few to enjoy:
- The Mind Map as a Creative Thinking Mechanism
- Mind Mapping for Dyslexics
- Perfect your presentations through Mind Mapping
iMINDMAP?
Alright, some things are free, some are not. I suppose the main agenda for this site, is to promote iMindMap, a new commercial mind mapping software, or as they put it, "The ONLY Official MindMapping® Tool that allows you to produce true MindMaps™ on a computer."
I got to admit I was really impressed with the potential creative, colourful, and useful mind map output you can develop using this tool (example: Mind map above), but ZaidLearn does not really dwell upon commercial content or tools. Instead....
FREEMIND? 
If you are looking for a free alternative mind mapping software, FreeMind is a worthy alternative. You are probably not going to get the kind of feature list or creative output that is empowered by iMindMap, but it is free and you know what, it also has a quite impressive set of features, including:
- Fully functional following of HTML links stored in the nodes, be it www links or links to local files.
- Smart Drag'n Drop, including the possibility to copy nodes or copy style of nodes; dragging and dropping of multiple selected nodes; dropping of texts or list of files from outside.
- Possibility to decorate nodes with built-in icons, colours and different fonts.
- Export of map to HTML, with folding.
- Low costs of risk of switching away to another mind mapping tool, because FreeMind stores maps in XML format.
In addition, it has a few weak spots and bugs, but it is certainly a good alternative.
However, if you really want to nurture your whole brain, memory, connective intelligence, artistic ability and creativity, I still believe the best tools for creating a mind map are colourful pencils and pens, a blank piece of paper, and your amazing imagination :)
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