LifeMap User Manual

This tutorial is designed to introduce you to the basics of concept mapping using the LifeMap program. By following the steps outlined below, you will become more familiar with the features available in this program by creating the concept map shown below (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Finished Concept Map.

Double click on LifeMap (Shown in below in Figure 2.)

Figure 2. LifeMap's Icon.

Note: If your computer does not show the icon, you should see an application program named LifeMap. Double click on the LifeMap application.

LifeMap's opening screen will reappear (Figure 3). Click anywhere in the window to close it.

Figure 3. LifeMap's opening screen

The top menu bar should now look like the one in Figure 4.

Figure 4. LifeMap menu bar

Figure 5. File Menu

You will now see a box which asks you to save the LifeMap file (Figure 6). You can either save the new file directly onto the hard drive or insert another disk on which to save the new file. Type an appropriate file name for the map you are going to create and click "Save". For our purposes you may want to name this file "Tutorial".

Figure 6. File Box which requires you to title and save a new map.

A LifeMap file will now be open and ready for use.

You may see a small window like Figure 7 below. This is LifeMap's main control window. It contains navigation buttons which are useful for some of LifeMap, but not relevant most of the time. You can close it by choosing "Hide Main Control Window" in the Apple Menu (Figure 8) To see the navigation buttons, click the grow box in the left hand corner.

Figure 7. LifeMap's Main Control Window, small version.

Figure 8. LifeMap's Apple Menu

Having followed all of the above steps, you will now see a window like the one below. (Figure 9)

Figure 9. Sample window in which a concept map can be constructed.

You are now all set up and ready to begin concept mapping!

Figure 10. The Concepts Menu.

The ConceptMaker window will appear. (Figure 11)

Figure 11. The ConceptMaker window.

At the blinking cursor, located in the scrolling text field, type the first main concept "Environmental Destruction" and click "New".

The concept you just entered should appear in the upper left hand corner of your screen surrounded by a box. This is the general way to insert concepts into your map. Anything typed into the scrolling text field box will be transported into the upper left hand corner of your map when "New" is selected.

Practice making some more basic concepts by following the same procedure above. Add the concepts "degradation of air quality" and "degradation of water quality" to the map.

Note: The concepts will overlap, but will be rearranged in the next step.

To move a concept, click on the box of the concept you want to move using the mouse. While still holding down the mouse button, drag the concept to a new spot on the screen. Release the mouse in a new location, and the concept will move to this location.

Try rearranging the concepts to look like the sample map below. (Figure 12)

Figure 12. Sample rearrangement

Figure 13. Concepts Menu.

A window such as the one in Figure 14 should appear on your screen.

Figure 14. MultiConceptMaker Box

The purpose of "Create Multiple Concepts" is to allow the user to add a number of different concepts to the map at one time. After you type in each new concept, hit return. For our purposes, type in the following concepts:

natural disasters

human carelessness

pollution

Be sure to hit return after you type in each individual concept.

Click the Create Multiple Concepts oval to add these concepts to your map.

When the computer has finished generating the concepts, click on the small box in the upper left hand corner of the MultiConceptMaker box. The concepts you just entered can be seen on the map.

Rearrange these concepts to look like the map shown below.

Figure 15. Rearranged Concepts.

Note: Create Multiple Concepts allows you to create several concepts at once. If you have a large number of concepts that you need, and you don't need to give each one a different font or type size, this is the fastest way to produce concepts. You can always change the font or type size, and make other changes at a later time. We will address this issue later in the tutorial.

Now that you have created a central theme and a few concepts related to that theme, you are ready to connect them by linking.

Creating linkwords (words not enclosed in a rectangular border) can be accomplished using Create New Concept under the LifeMap heading. Type in the linkword "as seen in" and click on the Basic Linkword oval in the right-hand corner of the ConceptMaker box. Now click on the "New" oval and the basic linkword will appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. Position the linkword to the correct position on the map which is below the "Environmental Destruction" concept and centered above the "degradation of air quality" and "degradation of water quality" concepts. Create another linkword, "can be caused by" and position it on the map. Your map may now look as follows:

Figure 16. Adding Linkwords

Click on the "Environmental Destruction" concept box. The concept box will now be highlighted with four boxes in each of the corners. This will be the starting point of the linking line.

Figure 17. Links Menu

You will now see a message telling you to double-click on the concept you want the link to go to. The cursor will change to a downward pointing arrow (the hot spot of the cursor is the point of the arrow.) Double click on the desired destination linkword, "as seen in." You will see the "LinkMaker" window open while the new link is being created. The LinkMaker window will go away, and you will have created a brand new link. Following the same procedure connect the link word "can be caused by " to the "pollution" concept.

If successful, your concept map should look similar to the one in Figure 18.

Figure 18. Sample map showing basic linking.

Note: When you move a concept or a linkword, the link will automatically redraw.

Also Note: This tutorial is written under the assumption that you have set the "Create a Link" preferences to "default settings", and that you have set LinkMaker to "Arrow". If you have not set it up this way, your linklines may look slightly different from the user manual illustrations.

Creating Multiple Links allows the user to connect a main concept to other concepts in a single step. There are two ways of creating multiple links using LifeMap.

The first method uses Create Multiple Links (origin). Select three concepts to be connected by shift clicking on each one. (Shift-clicking is clicking with the mouse while holding down the shift key.) For our purposes, select the linkword "as seen in", and the two concepts "degradation of air quality", and "degradation of water quality."

Figure 19. Screen to Create Multiple Links.

The computer will generate the lines and arrowheads from the main concept which you highlighted to the other two concepts that were selected.

If you had any difficulty up to this point and need to erase a mistake that you made, click on the area that you want to erase. You should see it highlighted in the four little squares. If the area you want to erase is boxed in by the four squares, press Command and the letter X key simultaneously and, it should disappear. (Now might be a good time to point out the fact that the Edit menu has two cut options: cut and vanilla cut. As a general rule, use the cut option, not vanilla cut. See the section on cluster icons for more about the purpose of vanilla cut.)

When selecting concepts, if only one concept is to be selected it can be highlighted by clicking on it with the mouse. If multiple concepts are to be selected at the same time, press the shift key while clicking on each of the concepts you want to select.

Up to this point, you have used some of the basic features of this program to create a very simple concept map. From this point on, we will demonstrate how to use a variety of other techniques designed to facilitate easier mapping and add some style to your concept map.

In order to place a particular concept in a specific spot on the screen, place the arrow on the screen wherever you would like the new concept box to appear. Press down the Apple key and the letter K at the same time (or pressing the option key and clicking with the mouse) you will see the ConceptMaker box appear. Type in the concept you want to appear at that particular location and click "New". The concept you just entered, will be transported to the location of the cursor on the larger map. You must keep the apple key, or option key depressed until you see the ConceptMaker Box. Otherwise, the new concept you create will be placed in the upper left hand corner of your screen.

Try using this feature by inserting the concept "oil spills" directly below the "human carelessness" concept. While pressing the option key, click the mouse at a spot directly below the "human carelessness" concept. When the ConceptMaker Box appears, type in "oil spills" and click "New". The concept should be added onto the map where you had option-clicked.

Link 2 with Linkword is a fast way to connect two concepts with a link word.

Select two related concepts that you would like to link. For our purposes, select the "pollution" and "human carelessness" concept by shift-clicking on the two.

Open the Link 2 with Linkword option under the Links menu.

You will see the workspace for Link 2 with Linkword on your screen (Figure 20).

Figure 20. Link 2 with Linkword Command Screen.

Select the way you would like the arrow to point by clicking on one of the circles on the right hand side of your screen. Make the arrow go from the "pollution" to the "human carelessness" concept.

Click on the rectangle between the two concepts. When the blinking cursor appears, type in the linkwords "is caused by." Click "Insert LinkWord and Create Links".

The computer will now generate a link between the two concepts with the link word inserted.

Repeat the procedure, this time linking the concepts "pollution" and "natural disasters" with the linkwords "as a result of".

If successful, your concept map may look something like the one below. (Figure 21)

Figure 21. Map after using Link 2 with Linkword.

There are two different ways to add fonts to your concept map.

1. Option-click on a location directly below the "human carelessness" concept. Type in a concept at the ConceptMaker prompt. For our purposes the concept will be "oil spills". Now highlight this text using the mouse. With the text highlighted, you can alter the text size by either clicking on the up or down arrow next to the Size menu or by clicking on the down arrow next to the box denoting the current text size and dragging down to the appropriate size. Change the size of this text to 10.

With the text still highlighted, you can also change the style of the text. Click on the down arrow in the Style box and drag down to the desired style. For our purposes, change the text style to italics. When you are finished editing, click "New".

Add two new concepts in italics to the map. These concepts are: "deforestation" and "release of fluorocarbons." Now using Create Multiple Links link all three new italicized concepts to the larger concept "human carelessness." Your new map may look similar to the one in Figure 22.

Figure 22. Map after adding three smaller concepts

If you want to change the font style or size of text for a concept that has already been placed on the map, click on the concept box of the text you want to change. Then go to the Style menu (Figure 23).

Figure 23. Style menu

Select the appropriate size or font. The changes you made should show on your screen.

For this tutorial, change the size and font of the main theme "Environmental Destruction." Click on this concept box and go to the Style-Size menu. Change the size of the text to 18.

Note: When you are trying to change the size of text that has already been inserted in the map, the computer will not automatically readjust the size of the concept box to fit the size change. This must be manually done by the user by clicking on the concept box so all four corners are highlighted with little squares. Click on one of these squares and drag the box so it is large enough to fit the size of the text. (You can also double-click on the concept to open it in Concept Maker. Select the text. Change the type size. Click "Redraw". The concept box will automatically resize.)

Also, the style menu will change the style of all of the text in the selected concept or concepts. To make a concept have parts of its text in one style and other parts in a different style, you must open the concept with ConceptMaker.

Practice this process again by changing the type face of the "environmental destruction" concept to bold type.

To finish this tutorial create some examples of natural disasters and link them to the "natural disaster" concept box. The following is a list to help generate some ideas:

earthquakes, dust storms, volcanic eruptions

floods, hurricanes

Figure 24. Finished Map.

You have now completed the basics of concept mapping. We hope that this short walk through the program has developed your interest in using LifeMap to effectively concept map. Other features of this program can be found in the rest of the user manual which includes information about connecting concepts without arrowheads, changing the direction of linking lines, borders, proposition databases, multimedia concept maps, and much more.

In the above tutorial, you constructed a concept map in what many people regard as the classic style, with one exception. Classic concept maps use arrowheads for linklines that end in a concept (indicated by a one point box around the text), but do not use arrowheads for linklines that end in a linking word (indicated by no box around the text). Try turning the tutorial map into the classic style. To remove an arrowhead from a linkline, simply select the arrowhead.

Figure 25. A Sample linkline with arrowhead selected.

Choose CUT from the EDIT menu. You will see the following dialog box.

Figure 26. Arrowhead removal options.

If you choose "Temporary" the arrowhead will be removed, but it will reappear when you redraw. Use this option if you want to see what the linkline will look like when the arrowhead is removed, but you are not yet sure if this is what you want. If you choose "Permanent" the arrowhead will be removed and it will not reappear when the linkline is redrawn.

Figure 27. A Sample linkline with arrowhead removed.