Making a basic Concept Map to aid your learning

• Go to View Menu-- Toolbars. Be sure Drawing and Autotext are ticked.
  
  
• The Drawing Toolbar appears at the bottom of your screen - underneath the horizontal scroll bar.
  
  

• To make a square or rectangle just click on the rectangle on the toolbar near the word AutoShapes. Then click and drag on the section of your page that you want the shape to be on.
  If you don't like what you get, move the cursor over the shape until you get the cross arrows, click on the drawn object and press delete and start again.

• You might experiment with the Autoshapes.

• To make a circle or oval, use the oval shown on the toolbar. Don't try to draw four identical circles or ovals as they are tricky - ust use the Edit Menu and copy and paste as you do text.

• You can change the thickness of the line(s) using the lines next to the "A " where you change font colours. You can also change the type of line with the next icon.
  
  However, the shape you want to change must be selected (have the little squares showing).

• To change the colour of the lines, go to the Lines menu (looks like a paintbrush) and use the drop down menu to pick one of the set colours or a custom colour.

• The arrows are made using the arrow next to the rectangle. Fancier arrows are available in the Autoshapes section. The arrow will point whichever way you draw it.

• You can fill the shapes using the bucket - and can change colour as you wish.

• You can add text in a textbox or right click on the shape and choose Add text.

• The Draw Menu on the bottom tool bar allows you to reorient shapes and to join all elements together to make one image (to avoid shapes and text moving around illogically). Click on all the elements and choose Group.
  
  You should not spend more than 30 minutes doing this task, and learning the historical knowledge has priority over beautifying your work.

Adding Clipart

• To insert a piece of clipart, choose Insert from the top toolbar, then Picture, then clipart. You will probably need to go online in order to find something suitable to illustrate the concept. Choose an appropriate image that will aid your learning of the concept being mapped.

• Resize the clipart so they are all nearly the same size. If you want to show that one thing is more important than the others, you might make it bigger than the others, or place it closer to the central figure. Click on the picture at the corner to resize without distorting the shape.

• Choose similar style clipart. Consistency of style is it better to aiding understanding and learning - to see connectiveness with the concept you are mapping.

• Save your work frequently.