Entries from September 2010 ↓

The free software, VUE (Visual Understanding Environment), is used for creating concept maps. VUE can be installed on your computer but if you want a class of students to have access to VUE, you can install the VUE on a server. But if you don’t have access to a server, you can install the VUE applet in the Public folder of a DropBox account. Although the main use of DropBox is for synchronizing files across multiple computers, DropBox can also be used for sharing files (and accessing with others by placing them in the Public folder, by placing the VUE applet in the Public DropBox folder, anyone can create their own concept map with VUE.

Here’s what you need to do.

1. Go to http://vue.tufts.edu/download/index.cfm and set up a new account if you don’t already have one.

2. Once you have created an account, you will be taken to a page where you can download the Applet.

3. The applet will be downloaded as a zip file. Unzip the file which will create a folder called vueapplet. Place the folder in your DropBox Public folder. You can rename the folder if you like.

4. One of the files within the vueapplet folder is named “index.html.” In order for others to create a concept map using the VUE applet, you will need to get a URL that will access the index.html file. The instructions for getting the URL can be found on DropBox’s site on this page. Give this URL to others and they will be able to create a map using the VUE applet.

Although YouTube allows you to create hyperlinks to other YouTube videos using the Annotations feature, if you want to create a hyperlink that will go to an external site, you can use the LinkedTube. You won’t be able to create a hyperlink within a video that is playing at the YouTube site but if TubeLink will allow you to embed the video in a Web page, blog, wiki, or any site that will accept the HTML code for embedding a video.