Room with a VUE

Also via Ray Schroeder this link to Syllabus’ Phillip D. Long writing about Tufts University’s VUE software. I have long been an advocate of concept mapping in the classroom and I think concept maps have the potential to add much to the online environment.

VUE reminds me of IHMC’s prototype Learning Environment Organiser (LEO), part of the CmapTools package. LEO is described in this paper which also summarises the theoretical foundations on which concept mapping is based, and from which you can derive the advantages of mapping, some of which are noted by Long. One of the most compelling advantages is that concept maps move away from the linear lecture/book metaphor embedded in mainstream LMSs and instead show the conceptual relationships between topics.

When Long claims concept maps are “relatively static” I can only assume he has not used the CmapTools software to which he refers. CmapTools is much more than freely available concept mapping software. Leveraging the Internet, CmapTools allows users to build concept maps collaboratively by proposing and discussing relationships between concepts. I’m not sure you could get much more dynamic than this!

You can also attach resources to concepts in CmapTools, although not direct links to objects hidden inside repositories. This is where VUE, through its use of OKI’s Open Service Interface Definitions (OSIDs), differs. I’ll have to download VUE and have a play. More on that later.

[Update: If you're curious about OKI, Graeme Daniel provides a comprehensive introduction in this week's wwwtools For Education e-zine.]