TUTORIAL FOR VEE DIAGRAM
Creating a Basic Vee
This tutorial will familiarize you with some of the basic features of the Vee Diagramming application.
1. Open the LifeMap application as instructed in the basic User Manual. Under the File Menu, choose "New LifeMap File." You should see a box appear like the one in Figure 27. Save the New File you will create as "Sample Vee Diagram" and click save.
Figure 27. "Save LifeMap as:" Dialog box
2. If you have proceeded correctly, a blank screen will appear in which you will create the Vee Diagram. (Figure 28).
Figure 28. Window used to create Vee Diagram
3. Under the "Concepts" menu, located in the menu bar, select "Open Vee Diagram Maker." (Figure 29)
Figure 29. Concepts Menu
4. Click on the oval that says "Create Basic Vee Diagram." (Figure 30)
Figure 30. Vee Diagram Maker Dialog Box
5. The computer will then generate the template for the Vee Diagram. You will see the ConceptMaker box appear a number of times as the computer self-generates the template of the Vee Diagram. The template you should see will look like the one in Figure 31.
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Figure 31. Vee Diagram Template
6. It is now time to add your own information to the Vee Diagram. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will construct a simple Vee Diagram that was used as an example in Novak and Gowin's book Learning How to Learn.
Adding Information to the Vee Diagram
1. The first piece of information we will add to the diagram is the focus question. The template of the Vee Diagram at this stage in development, requires you to keep the template headings that are already made. To add your own information under the headings, double click on the concept you would like to add to. When the ConceptMaker box appears, you can add your own information below the already established concept.
2. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will first add a focus question to the Vee Diagram. Double click on the "Focus Question" concept box. You will see the ConceptMaker box appear on the screen. (Figure 32)
Figure 32. ConceptMaker Box
3. Under the "Focus Question" Concept, type in the focus question for our tutorial--"How well does the Daily Food Plan link food choices to health?" and click the redraw oval near the bottom of the ConceptMaker Box. (Figure 33)
Figure 33. ConceptMaker box with added concept
4. The computer will regenerate the concept with our focus question inserted beneath the template concept "Focus Question" (Figure 34).
Figure 34. Vee Diagram with Focus Question
5. Continue to add information beneath the appropriate template concepts by double clicking on the template concept and adding in the information we wish to beneath the already established template concept. When you are finished filling in the information, click on the redraw oval at the bottom of the ConceptMaker Box. Repeat this process until all the necessary information has been entered onto the Vee Diagram. Add the following bits of information onto the diagram:
World View:
NutritionPhilosophy: None
Theory: None
Principles: 1. Vitamin A is essential to health.
2. Fats are essential.
Concepts: Health
Essential nutrients
Nutrients
Event: None
Records: None
Knowledge Claims: 1. The minimum number of servings listed forms a foundation for a good diet.
Transformations: None
Value Claims:
When you are finished, the Vee Diagram will look like the one in Figure 35.
Figure 35. Finished Vee Diagram
When you have finished entering this information you can readjust the concepts to the Vee by opening the Vee Diagram Maker and clicking on the oval that says "Align Vee Concepts to Vee Graphic."
Note: If the concepts you have entered are too large for the "V" that was scaled originally, you can change the shape of the "V" so that it is wider or thinner depending on your preferences. To change the shape of the "V" double click on the "V" at any point. You should see a number of small boxes on the "V" at various locations. Click on one of those boxes and continue to hold down the mouse button as you drag the box to a new location. You will see that the shape and size of the "V" will also change to your desired specifications.
You can also alter the size of the category boxes by clicking on the category box until it is highlighted with small boxes in the corners. You can realign the size of the boxes by clicking on the little box in the corner and dragging it to a new position to change the size of the box, or hold down the shift key while dragging the little box to change the shape of the box.
If you wish to move the V-diagram to another location on the page, simply click once on the "V" and drag it to the desired location. Only the black "V" will move. In order to align the concepts to the new position of the "V", you have to click on "Align Concepts to Vee graphic" in the Vee diagram Maker Box. Some of these changes have been made to the sample Vee diagram pictured. If your diagram does not look exactly like the one pictured, do not worry. Take some time to play around with the features. The style of the Vee is simply a matter of preference.
Now that you have been led through the most simple type of Vee that you can construct, there are a few features which allow you to customize the cateogories you choose to use in the Vee diagram. In the example Vee that we constructed, we did not have any use for the categories: Philosophy, Theory, Event, and Records. Instead of writing "NONE" for these categoires, we could have eliminated them from the Vee before we began filling in the concepts. In order to eliminate those cateogires which you do not wish to use, click on the boxes that contain the unwanted categories and hit delete. For example, we would want to delete the following categories in our sample map: Events, Records, Philosophy, Transformation and Theory. Click on these five boxes and then hit delete. (Remember, to highlight more than one box at the same time you must hold down the shift key while clicking on the boxes you wish to remove.) Your diagram will look like the one below (Figure 36):
Figure 36. Vee Diagram with deleted concepts.
Since we do not want spaces in our Vee diagram, we will want to rearrange the concepts. In the Vee diagram Maker box, click on the oval that says "Align Concepts to Vee graphic." If you have deleted any concepts, the computer will ask you if you wish to remove these concepts or add them in at this time (Figure 37). Since we are interested in removing them, click the oval that says "Remove them."
Figure 37. Dialog box to create or remove concepts
The concepts will realign to the "V" and your diagram should now look like the one in Figure 38.
Figure 38. Finished Vee map with realigned concepts.
You have now completed the Vee Diagram. If you wish to see those categories which are currently being displayed on your Vee diagram, click on the "Load Existing Vee categories" oval in the Vee Diagram Maker Dialog box.
If at any point, you wish to return to the original categories that are presented when the Vee Diagram Maker box is opened, click on the "Use Default Categories" and the original categories will appear in the Dialog box.