Intro+to+VUE

Written by: Aisha Arshad

VUE is a free mind-mapping (aka 'concept-mapping') program. A concept map is a visual representation of ideas, contained in nodes, that are connected via links. So nodes and links are the basic building blocks of VUE. But VUE can do so much with those nodes and links! A node can have a normal text label, but it can also have images, links to other files, and even other nodes! And once your concept map is complete, you can do lots of things with it, such as generating an outline, creating a presentation, perform connectivity analysis, merge maps together, and of course search your map. The educational applications of mind-mapping software such as VUE are endless. It can be used:

-- as an aid in writing, to organize your ideas, which can then be converted into an outline, and even used to generate slides for a presentation; -- as an aid in examining cause and effect and other relationships in social studies/history/geography; and -- in math class to map out the steps in solving complex word problems.

Basically VUE is suited for any application where you have to brainstorm or organize or express ideas. It is MUCH easier than starting out by writing in sentences. Just try it yourself! The next time you have to plan out a lesson or help a student understand a complex idea, map it out using VUE. I especially like the rapid prototyping tool, it makes creating a map so much faster. Good luck!

Below you will see a link to a VUE file that will give you an introduction to this software (you will need to have VUE installed on your computer in order to view it :-). It contains hyperlinks to the most important elements of the VUE User Guide (which took me a day-and-a-half to read!) Just click on the nodes that have a the word "Web" on them and jump straight to that portion of the User Guide. Or, if you don't have VUE installed on your computer yet, just go to our "Intro to VUE" page and you can see a screenshot of the same file.



References:
== “ENGLISH USER GUIDE - VUE User Guide - Confluence.” Web. 18 Apr. 2010. ==