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This article was updated for back to school 2023
Graphic organizers, including mind maps, Venn diagrams, infographics, and other tools, allow teachers and students to organize and present facts and ideas visually in order to understand both the big picture and the small details.
These top graphic organizers for schools make it easy to create beautiful, informative, and productive graphic organizers that can be incorporated into lessons, quizzes, collaborative classroom projects, and more. While the freemium sites may offer added bells and whistles, the fully free sites provide a surprisingly robust selection of templates and ideas.
BEST FREEMIUM GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
Ayoa Mind Mapping
Ayoa’s flexible platform includes mind map templates targeting specific needs, such as the speed map, radial pie-chart-style map, simple capture map, and “organic” map, which replicates the freehand drawing process. Free accounts permit unlimited mind maps, while paid accounts range from $10-$13 monthly.
GoConqr Mindmap
Meta mindmap, anyone? That’s right -- GoConqr provides a mind map detailing how to create your mind map! While the free basic account offers limited tools, the annual premium subscription costs a modest $12.95 and allows full access to flowcharts, flashcards, mind maps, slides, quizzes, and more.
Coggle
Coggle’s clean, stylish interface invites users to explore the creative possibilities of its collaborative mind maps, diagrams, and flowcharts. The free basic account includes unlimited public diagrams and import/export/embed features, while the professional account is just $5 per month.
Mindomo
Using Mindomo, teachers can create diverse, multimedia mind maps that contain everything from images to math formulas to icons to audio/video. With its dedicated platform for education, Mindomo supports collaboration, commenting, grading, and much more. Integrated with G Suite and Office 365. Free basic account.
Storyboard That
Students can create their own storyboards using the provided graphics (no drawing talent required!) or select templates from the storyboard library. With storyboard options from the simplest to multilayered, this platform is ideal for users of any age. Teachers can create timelines, storyboards, graphic organizers, and more via the education portal.
MURAL
Use digital sticky notes to create and organize lists, flowcharts, diagrams, frameworks, methods, and drawings. Integrates with Dropbox, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Calendar, and other top apps. Free basic account.
bubble.us
A popular browser-based application that lets educators create a mind map, save it as an image, share, collaborate, and present. Want to try it out first? Use the editable example mind map to try the mind map editor without creating an account. Free basic account and 10-day free trial for all premium accounts. Students, teachers, and employees of nonprofit organizations receive a 50% discount.
Bublup
Bublup helps users organize all their digital content visually via an intuitive, drag-n-drop interface. Create shareable folders with content such as links, documents, images, videos, GIFs, music, notes, and more. Folders can be transformed instantly into shareable web pages. It’s easy to get started, but if you need help, peruse the detailed support pages for using the app. Free basic accounts.
MindMeister
This stylish full-featured mind-mapping site allows educators to easily customize maps with images and links, share with students, and collaborate with colleagues. Free basic account.
BEST FREE GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
Corgi Graphic Organizers
A friendly, research-backed STEM platform that features a collection of digital graphic organizers, this Corgi isn’t a dog breed, but a process. Each step—Explore, Organize, Synthesize, Share—is intended to support learning for all middle and high school students, including those with learning disabilities. An impressive resource that integrates with Google Drive and Classroom, Corgi also includes a Next Generation Science Standards-based lesson library and clear instructions for use.
Graphic Organizers from Michelle M. Truman
Nineteen graphic organizers in the form of Google docs. Simply copy the document to your Google Drive and start editing. Ranging from Concept Wheels to Character Webs to Question Frames, these simple templates allow students and teachers to start working right away. No account required.
Free Google Drawings Graphic Organizers
These 25 easy-to-use free creative templates are great if you’re tired of the same old graphic organizers. My favorites include Paint Chip Vocabulary, in which students organize words by depth or richness and SWBST (Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then), a method for exploring elements of a story. Many of these templates serve not only as graphic organizers, but also as formative assessments for your students. Just click on the template, and copy to your own Google Drive. No account required.
Graphic Organizers from Avid
Excellent diverse collection of free graphic organizers for nearly every purpose, conveniently organized by 13 categories. Each category, from Activity Builders to Games to Problem Solving/Critical Thinking, supplies both a Google Slides and Powerpoint version of the graphic organizer. A rich resource that educators can easily incorporate into their classroom lessons and formative assessments.
WiseMapping
A free and simple web-based open-source tool, great for creating shareable, exportable mind maps and brainstorms.
Mind42
Mind42 offers simple, free collaborative mind-mapping software that runs in your browser. For inspiration, search publicly shared templates by tag or popularity. The intuitive user controls include tool tips to aid in operation. Although its features are not as extensive as other graphic organizers, it’s fully free, fast, and simple to start creating your first mind map.
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