The article discusses the possibilities of using mental maps in training of bachelors of pedagogical specialties. Technological and didactic features of online services for developing mental maps, such as Mindmaps, Mind42, etc. are described. Methodical aspects are presented also by the description of the principles of introduction of mental maps in training process accompanied with concrete examples. The organization of work on using mental maps in real educational process has to be determined by a number of the methodical principles among which, in particular, one can indicate the principle of freedom of choice of a format of representation of the described object and communications between its elements. Such a choice assumes a possibility of some variation of this or that basic configuration depending on preferences of the student. The principle of activity is to provide conditions for purposeful mastering by students separate actions to build mental maps and operating with them, as well as combinations of these actions of varying degrees of generality. The principle of full coverage involves creation of various opportunities of effective use of mental maps at all stages of educational process (an explanation of new material at lectures, fixing it on laboratory and practical classes, self-preparation for the current and final assessment). The proposed methodological solutions were successfully tested in Penza State University with second and third year students of the Faculty of Physics, Mathematics and Natural Sciences in the study of the discipline “Programming”. As a result of approbation, students had accumulated a kind of bank of mental maps of various formats and different degrees of generality. This bank was actively used in the course of the current and final diagnostics of students’ preparation in the subject. As a result of approbation, the significant advantages of using mental maps in terms of the quality of students’ preparation in the discipline, which was especially clearly manifested in relation to the initially lagging students, were found out.
