We have known for some time that MindManager is a great tool for studying and teaching. Only recently have we had the resources to really start making our presence known in academia. In the past, our efforts to introduce our technology were perhaps a bit haphazard. Now it is becoming a concerted effort:
- This year Mindjet has brought on a number of new staff who will lead our work to build strong ties to teachers, students, administrators and academic resellers.
- We have also begun to create case studies that, so far, show how both faculty and administrators use MindManager to improve the delivery and administration of education.
- We are also starting to see blogs like theStudentTabletPC, DaveShearon and CarlStormer.com discuss the academic benefits of MindManager in particular, or mind mapping (or concept mapping, which is close) in general.
- And just last week we announced that we are partnering with Douglas Stewart Company, one of the largest distributors of educational software, to distribute Mindjet’s new MindManager® Basic 6 and Pro 6 software applications to more than 4,500 academic resellers and 150 college stores in the United States and Canada.
We are really excited about this because we believe very strongly that mapping, which actually began years ago as a way to improve memory retention and as a note-taking methodology, has a lot to offer students. A few years ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Samuel P. Gompers Vocational Technical High School in New York City to see how teachers there were using MindManager in the classroom. It was pretty wild. Students in a U.S. History class were mapping out our nation’s past. Electronics students were using it to learn complex electrical theory. And the principal and vice-principal could already see the results: Better grades and more student excitement about learning. At the university level, Michael Ruffini is using MindManager to make it easier and less expensive for schools to create online learning.
Any thoughts on MindManager or mapping in general and education? I’d love to hear them!
Mind mapping in education
Post in MindJet blog about using mind mapping techniques in education. I do personally think that mind mapping is a must-have technique for students
Hi Kevin,
We are actually quite proud of the fact that we have an already very heavily discounted academic price (we offer MindManager for 50% off — as opposed to the from 20-40% off most other software companies offer). We do so because we think our software can really help people in higher education and want to make it easier for students and teachers to get into the product. On top of that, we provide the reduced upgrade price for people who already own the software. (I should also note that the standard practice among all leading software companies is to not offer academic discounts on upgrades.)
We sincerely appreciate your input, which has already become a part of the on-going review our pricing structure. Our continual goal is to make sure we meet or exceed industry standards in this regard. We think we currently exceed standards. But we are always open to input.
Thanks.
Darn — sorry for the duplicate comment — it didn’t show up when I came back to the page the next day.
I just heard from Mindjet that they won’t be offering an educational discount on the upgrade to the new version of Mindjet. That’s important to me, and I suspect to other education users of the program. Too bad — it looked like a good upgrade.
I have owned Mindmanager Pro through several versions and was interested in the upgrade. I just received email from a Mindjet salesman informing me that there will be no academic price for the upgrade. If you’re interested in stimulating academic use, changing this policy would be a really good place to start.