Last summer SpiderScribe was one of the most popular tools that I showed during my mind mapping workshops. At that time SpiderScribe was still in beta. Last week it left beta and announced some new features. The new features include new keyboard shortcuts, new stencil options, and the option to embed your interactive SpiderScribe mind map into your blog or website. Most importantly for teachers, SpiderScribe will remain free for schools. If you would like to see how SpiderScribe works, check out Russell Stannard’s series of how-to videos or watch this two minute demo.

Applications for Education
One of the aspects of SpiderScribe that the teachers I showed it to last summer liked was the option to include images and maps within a mind map or web. One teacher that I worked with liked that her students could create webs about books they read and include images to represent important characters and places in those books.