Concept Mapping Meets the Digital World

David Kahle, who teaches T-581 Advanced Design Studio, wears many hats. One of them is Executive Associate CIO at Tufts University, where he oversees university-wide education and research technology initiatives. He is also the principal investigator on the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) research and development project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The VUE project creates flexible tools and related curricular activities to help students, educators, and researchers visualize, understand, and communicate important relationships between ideas and digital information. VUE enables exploration of complex topics using online resources, and improves information retention and the transfer of knowledge to new situations. See a short video (4:05) demonstrating VUE in use in a project about the painter Manet.

David is also an active promoter of open-source educational software within the higher education community. His recent article on designing open technology is published in Opening Up Education from MIT Press (an open access book).