If your purpose is to develop critical and creative thinking skills, you need to undeistand cognition, and how cognitive processes and strategies overlap with and complement information literacy processes. For both students and teachers it's not enough to know about mindmaps and other graphic organisers, whether they are drawn on paper or on a computer screen using one of several programs available for the purpose. Thinking happens in the head. Knowledge is built in the head, and it's the head that directs what happens on the screen. Students become thinking literate by learning to think.
Students become information literate by learning to use information critically to build knowledge.
Cognitive tools help them to understand and deepen their thinking and learning processes. It was really exciting to discover where David Hyerle's approach and mine coincide. We base our work in common theoretical underpinnings. Use them with your kids. Buzan was mindmapping happily in the 7Os.