Mind Map Software and the 3 Main Learning Styles

I'd like to begin by asking you a concern - do you know what your learning style is? Did you realize you'd an understanding style? Everybody has their very own unique means of absorbing and learning information and during the last 40 years approximately a variety of different types of learning style have cropped up. In this article I'll introduce one to the basic business and free time learning styles and explain to you how the proper utilization of the best Mind Map software can allow you to tap into every one of them.



To begin with i'd like to offer you a quick lesson in learning styles. We sound right of the entire world using our five senses - what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell. We also use those senses to understand about ourselves, our environment and about new information so whenever we started likely to school it's our senses that we used to gather and absorb what we were learning. The three senses that began to dominate our learning as we experienced our education were the things we saw, what exactly we heard and the items we physically did. Our reliance on our taste buds and sense of smell dropped off rather rapidly as there isn't much to be found from a text book on the Napoleonic wars by liking it or sniffing its dusty pages! That's not to say that individuals don't learn using these senses (how would chefs and the manufacturers of deodorant survive!) but just that text book type learning doesn't tap into them.



So we're left with three main methods to process information and in Learning Style Speak these have grown to be called our Visual (what we see). Auditory (what we hear) and Kinesthetic (what we do) learning styles. Research has shown that whilst we may have the capacity to tap into all three learning styles, we generally have a preference. I as an example am someone with a powerful visual preference because I want to see what it's I'm learning. I struggle to know, absorb and retain a thing that I can only just listen to. I can learn physical stuff e.g. fighting styles moves but it requires me a long time to obtain it into my body and I would rather start to see the moves in order to try and copy them.



What this research has additionally uncovered is that though we may have a preference for one particular styles, we shall still learn a lot more effectively when we incorporate all three into our learning and thinking - and this is where using Mind Map software can help tap into our visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles.



So let's focus on the easy one first. A Mind Map is a graphical representation of our thought process because it's images, it's visually stimulating and you can see the relationship between the main themes and detail branches. As anyone who has a strong visual preference, Mind Maps are great for me. Mind Mapping software also has a unique in this style because it's very easy to produce a map and add images in a good package.



So how about using Mind Map software to tap to the auditory learning style? Well one thing you could do as you create your map would be to quietly keep in touch with yourself describing everything you are doing as you do it. However whilst this might help, another more powerful feature of Mind Mapping software is the capability to attach audio recordings to branches. So you can create your branch and then record your thoughts about that branch to be controlled by at a later date. At this time I am planning to jump ahead a little and recommend you use iMindMap for this. Other software enables you to url to audio files but you will have to create them in a different program, url to it and then when you wish to listen the link will need to open up your default mp3 player. However iMindMap has this really cool audio notes feature that allows you to record the note inside the software (you only desire a microphone) and link directly to the branch.



And finally we arrive at the kinesthetic learning style. Whenever you produce a hand drawn map the physical activity of drawing the branch at a specific point across the map helps tap into this learning style. Its orientation, its length and even the physical act of employing a different colored pen all increase the physical experience. Early attempts to produce Mind Map software were limited within their physical interaction with the map because it absolutely was merely a case of either utilizing your insert key on your own keyboard to generate a fresh branch or a primitive point and click action with the mouse.



Many current software programs still have that limitation but one of many reasons that iMindMap is surging ahead is that it has had the oppertunity to reproduce the physical action of the hand drawn process on a computer. This can be a huge benefit to those people who have a solid kinesthetic bias in the direction they process and internalize information.