Information Graphics: is Information an Art?

Direct Link to the video: BBC Newsnight: Information Graphics
Via @dMultimedia - Blog dMultimedia

This BBC broadcast from August 9, 2010, looks into the art of making information beautiful, and poses the question: How do you make statistics look interesting? The writer and designer David McCandless replies:

..."you just need to apply the rules of visual design to information"...

Is information an art? And how does this affect the nature and evolution of science and knowledge?

The art historian Judith Wechsler engaged in interdisciplinary studies exploring some of this at MIT, and edited a book: On Aesthetics in Science, which we found very useful and informative when teaching epistemology of science. We were looking for creative original sources to approach the generation and processing of information, and how this triggered certain effects in social communication working with an interdisciplinary team in the late '80's. Encountering this book was mind blowing, as are many of the clips we encounter today.

The dawning of the internet and tools that enabled social learning and networking in business environments in the '90s, brought the means and resources that the University did not have at the time: processors, personal computers and of course, the net. Today you don't need to be sitting in a University nor working with a major corporation, to be able to acquire the means to develop your own learning paths of inquiry, and personal development. It's a matter of personal interest and professional responsibility.

What you may need is scaffolding, and coaching to recognize where you stand, and how to be able to learn and design your information and knowledge domains, how to distinguish what is relevant and what is useful to you, for your projects and teams.

Are you aware of the impact that a medium and a format can have, informing the interactional design in different settings? Likewise, your interactional design informs your chances to sustain successful communications, when engaging in conversation and negotiating or "sharing" information with others.

..."images are a powerful global language packed with emotional power"...

..."However even a bar chart can be misleading, if taken completely at face value"...

Are you aware?

Project Based Learning

This group of teachers was able to take ownership and allow students to take ownership over their learning process.

Highlights:

"... the students would have a hard time telling you what subject they are learning, and not because they are not paying attention, but because they don't learn in segmented subjects. Three teachers have worked together to combine history, english and information processing, and embedded the principles of project based learning (PBL), to create a truly unique learning experience for students..."

"... we love this class and teaching this way ..."

"... beyond the curriculum... "

"... the student learning outcomes are all there... "

The video illustrates engaged pull motions and group collaboration, working together towards the integration of areas and skills, in order to achieve certain goals. Notice they mention that they had to approach their administration, cause they were running into all sorts of structural roadblocks.

A Brief History of Data Storage

The video below shows a progression of data storage (capacity) in terms of traditional formats such as texts and documents that can be organized into newspaper print editions, magazines, books and documents and libraries that can contain printed text and image files.

It not only illustrates changes in the design and dimensions of the information storage medium, it also gives good hints of the evolution we've seen (and will continue to see) in data portability aspects. By data portability we mean different things: "open standards" and/or "the possibility for people to reuse their data across interoperable applications." You can find many interesting projects on the internet, involving different market players and organizations, regarding data formats, policies and such.

We hope they may extend the clip in ulterior versions and mashups might show up later. We tend to say that the internet has changed many things and yes it has, but it's not the only thing changing our approach to and activities with information and knowledge.

Watch it on YouTube and read the credits and info generously provided by ihsabawagode.

Will they walk the talk?

We sure hope they do. These brief inputs (see clip) from the panel sound promising. They seem to be calling for a very different approach to knowledge, than the current institutionalized one, which continues to be reproduced via the usual channels. In Europe we need to walk the talk.

There seems to be an urgency to inform, revamp and disseminate quality stuff "bottom-up", fostering business and innovative learning communities. They underscore the need for quite a different "operating system" to approach knowledge as such, to prevent the historical protection of "status quo"... that we know so well.

Check their pledge: here is the transcript.

Where is the comma!

Let's look at the whole iPad buzz from another perspective: this or any other similar tool can allow a 99 year old woman, to enjoy reading and writing as she did, before suffering glaucoma.

The clip (it) shows how fast she learns how to interact and look for items on the touch screen, by just tapping. She's even started writing again, so she came up with this:

"To this technical-ninny it's clear

In my compromised 100th year,

That to read and to write

Are again within sight

Of this Apple iPad pioneer"

(Virginia Campbell; Lake Oswego, 99 yrs old)

The original video was posted on YouTube, one of Virginia's daughters told OregonLive.com and the rest is just well... viral story... (kudos to the apple marketing guys... )

Original clip on YouTube - Article on the Unofficial Apple Weblog - Article on Mashable

Coolest teacher ever... yep

Imagine this setting and such a cool learning environment to study maths... or whatever?

Maths without learning restrictions

John Mighton shares amazing ideas... on what kids actually do (when the system allows...)

www.jumpmath.org is dedicated to improving the teaching of mathematics in public schools.

Direct link to transcript Direct link to site.

Ubuntu Cola

Ubuntu Cola from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Via network this amazing contribution to a good design contest ... watch and learn yourselves.

Turning Cars and Computers into Art

Rocketboom interviews Zach Lieberman on his latest projects. (3:57min video)

Transcript:

-I'm here with Zack Lieverman and I don't know exactly what to call you... What would you title yourself as?

-Like nerd, artist, researcher, hacker, yeah... I don't know.

-Renaissance man of technology?

-I guess so maybe.

-So how did you get your start in the field that you're doing right now?

-I discovered this community on-line, especially through Flash, people writing code to animate, and I've always loved animation... And for me it was just really beautiful this idea that you could write some lines of could and you could see something move, and then you could make really elegant types of motion.

One thing that I'm involved with now is an open source project called open frameworks, which is the C++ toolkit so... I said before I'm sort of a nerd artist, I you know, re-write software, we do sort of low level hacking, and this is making a tool for other people to make stuff with.

-For each individual use you're creating a brand new kind of software...

-Yeah, every time we have a new problem, a magician comes and says I want to do augmented reality card trick and then it's like, OK, let's make new software, about, you know, how do we track a playing card... we have a new problem and we come up with software to solve it.

-So I saw a really cool video on ... I think that it uses the open frameworks software with a car...

-Yeah, the project was in Belgium, and it was an advertising company that has the Toyota account and then, once they had the idea of driving and making a type face they contacted me through that... they needed to use software kind of real time software, in order to track the car to get a good sense of what the outcome would be. They did some experiments here, with, kind of , imagining on paper what the movements would be like. The driver would then take those drawings and try to interpret it driving, he would drive slowly at first and then drive faster, cause some of the things are really... involved wipe outs ... I software outputed in image and then the software designers took that image traced it and cleaned it up a bit, and then made the font.

We were making an eye tracker for a disabled graffiti writer, named Tempt, and Tempt has "Lug...ris" disease, and we were making a tool to help him retro feel again with his eye... Ok let's hook this up...

We're actually tracking the pupil, so as the pupil moves around we're following it, so we're like using open frameworks... write some code in order to find it and fitting and ellipse through it. There is data coming from the camera, and then we have some illumination from this infrared LEDs, your eyes are very good input devices, not a very good output device, and when you actually start to hook it up to draw, it's a little bit tricky.

And so we have to do a lot of work to make it easy for ourselves, and also easy for Tempt, it's all Tempt can use to communicate

-I guess this takes a bit of a learning curve ...

-It's a little quirky right now...

-I just closed my eyes that's the weirdest thing...

-So if anyone wants to look into using your software, how do they do that?

-Sure, so they can join the main list, it's at frameworks.cc and then we have workshops and events all the time.

-Somebody could learn from the master..

-No no, we're all learning so that's the exciting...everybody is in it together and learning and growing and evolving together.

-Very cool, thank you very much, that is cool stuff.

Have a look at Funky Forest

Mind Blowing Thinking Tools

Another example of what is going on across borders ... superseding traditional media filters, traditional education restrictions and limitations, and a lot more... learning with new tools... in action: the E-Learning Journeys, by Julie Lindsay.

Changes in educational tools (a.k.a to some of us as "thinking tools" ) can get messy: we know how to institutionalize things all right building gigantic structures involving many rules, but we seldom have a smooth process to assess needed changes nor do we have the means, to implement them smoothly. Cultural changes whatever they may be... tend to disturb on-going routines that make us feel safe (even when an announced tsunami is bound to happen...).

Interesting notes from the 5th Episode of the ISTE Eduverse Talks.... go watch!). Listen to the story of the kids in the rural school (US but we could extend this to any other place), informing their teacher that according to their very real conversations with kids from other places they didn't know (and will probably never visit but now they have the means to get to know via interactive social media platforms...), some of the information provided by the traditional media and printed matter they were studying... wasn't .. how can we put this... accurate? ... to-date ... properly informed?

Components to think about: the infrastructure to enable this, acting leaders like Julie to show & educate the way letting others go do..., respect for dissent and learning from others across conversation (usual filters), the will, the space and time but also the tools to allow creativity in the classroom, the patience to learn from growing the learning experience by seeding the rules and coaching the learning process throughout the many mistakes that will inform the learning...

Furthermore we need to learn how to "grow" the freedom of mind to allow learners to explore and develop their own paths and ways to achieve given milestones... above all: listen... like Julie does... meaning: really pay attention to whatever the findings may be. If you don't listen and pay attention to your students... don't expect them to pay attention to you. If you play the game of heteronomy, don't expect responsibility and autonomy ... which game do you really want to play?

Heinz von Foerster informed meme with a slight variation: if you want to learn and know more... learn how to act... learn how to learn and which tools you need to explore ...and adjust. He defined cognitive homeostasis as stable realit(ies) recursively informed by certain "thinking paths". Put in simpler terms, heteronomous re-enforcing structures demand that we generate a great Spanish tortilla ... without allowing anyone... to break any eggs.

Are any of the current Bologna informed (and misinformed) rumblings in the Spanish educational system, even aware of any of this?... do they even know what is at stake? ...are we paying attention to the digitally informed generations that will have to live throughout whichever cathedral of given rules we decide to change or NOT change locally speaking? I don't think so.

Changing Challenges

Says Jim Stagnitto, Director of Engineering for WNYC, in New York, referring to the changes in technology and concepts throughout the years at the FM transmitter's site:

"The challenges have changed. The basics remain the same" (...) You have to get audio out to a transmitter somewhere. But we're no longer called broadcasters, we're content providers. You get that content in various forms to computers."

... and on the clip:

"It's more impressive to somebody who's been doing it a long time, and has seen the progression. To me, I've been doing this now 37 years, and for me to look at this and realize exactly what's happening? ... It's amazing."

Via Wired Science from Wired.com

Imagine all the wonders we could be developing in the near future, which we are not able to grasp as individuals today? Collaborating with different disciplines to imagine the impossible... who "knows" (today) what we may be able to accomplish (tomorrow)? 

A psychology professor at Uniovi recently banned a research project stating:  "this cannot be done here for "it's not psychology", "it's  communications"! He also pointed out that it was too practical... he definitely does NOT enjoy digital tools.  For he mentioned he'd just participated in a course to learn about Moodle and his conclusion was: it's just about practical matters, not worthy of scientific research ... (meaning our project on: perception, learning models, digital tools.) 

So he dismissed our project based on his perception of just one tool? Our project was not at all about any such tool or learning how to use a one tool, it was more about learning by doing and changes in the perception via the doing.... (of course it all depends on the way it's facilitated which is what we wanted to test). He refused to have a look at any of the prototypes ... how can he "know"? Gee, he is giving proof! ... of the limitations of "departamentalized" knowledge on the one hand, and the impacts of perception on learning on the other...  

So after one month of reflection,  somewhat "puzzled" by recent academic events, these have now been re-framed and are inspiring us even further:  YES!, we love to develop and adjust prototypes that could be useful to many who, unlike him,  enjoy learning by doing,  participating and sharing with personalized digital tools.  

And we keep "encountering" many who think likewise and also produce very good results by researching on the cloud, and many who contribute to re-known institutions... already working and sharing in the open.  So as a result of this reflection, we won't lose one more minute knocking at the wrong door. Thanks :) 

How Do We Know What We Know?

Image from the Site of The Exploratorium

California Academy of Sciences offers "sneak previews" of the new building, in Golden Gate Park. This would be close to completion according to the site. Scott Morgan, Senior Project Mgr. mentions the marvels that await inside to visitors. "You'll notice we've actually combined a little bit of the old, with the new".

The intent of the architect was to let the people in the building, reconnect with the park having a direct sight line to the nature outside.

On the 4th clip the Senior Curator of Botany talks about a "Living Roof" with native species grown during years and they wanted something compelling, educational : "when something is beautiful, it's much more compelling, educational all the way round".

Browsing the Golden Gate area wonders ... I had to visit the Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception, to check what's up :-) since the last time I visited.

Highlights: Podcasts from the Exploratorium in San Francisco... start with: Alfred Wegener's crazy idea, an interview with Mel Zucker, Professor of Geology, Skyline college, San Bruno, California.

Follow with Today's Science Headlines and choose to Download a Booklet or a Widget to receive updates on your desktop.
Check feeds from: BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel, EurekaAlert!, MSNBC, National Geographic, National Science Foundation, Nature Magazine, Nature and Science, New Scientist, Science Daily, Science Magazine, Science NOW, Scientific American, and...Yahoo!

Exploring beyond maps

Link to clip:

Never was the expression "the map is not the territory" so relevant: FYI we still have plenty of "frontier(s) of science ... and space" within our planet.

Dr. Robert Ballard doesn't need much presentation if you've watched the clip. After reading TED's 2008 Bio my first move was to go directly to the Jason.org site to learn more, and register.

Observing the clip again several times with students, it brought forth conversation flows drifting on to NASA's explorations, and the ways it may have fostered many of the technologies we now enjoy. NASA's surprising new storytelling capabilities IMO, show it has revamped at least a bit in its communication strategies, by outreaching with social-multi-media, opening some space for participation, "folksonomy" and fun. e.g. Twittering MarsPhoenix and the "Spacevidcasts", highly info-edu-entertaining leads I came across -once again- via NYTimes AND Twitter. It might be just a one person in NASA focusing on the Twitter activity, hopefully more, I find it a wonderful tool to inform and motivate kids learning languages, sciences, et al, to use, comment, observe... and go for more.

Recently a science researcher had distinguished NOAA, as his preferred site for climatology data, and it also rang more than a bell: the many cute stories involving submersibles and ocean exploration heard back in '98 at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The island (University base for the mapping & exploration project with Internet 2!!) appears to be Rhode Island, and the site of Dr. Robert Ballard, appears listed under "The NOAA Ocean Exploration program". Although at the NOAA site, it doesn't show unless you run a search for it, then it shows this.

From Dis-enabling to Enabling

An International Psychology and Education Congress took place in Oviedo, Spain, this past week. The diversity of frameworks attempting to dialogue and debate was a very interesting experience to observe, according to the reports of some participants. Hopefully the planned integration of these two major areas of inquiry -if it does occur, might evolve into a different type of "learning organization". Think "win-win" you guys!! for a change...

At the same time, the now confirmed c h a n g e of Governance at the University of Oviedo following the electoral process, might bring forth not only new challenges (some change for starters) but also (hopefully) a bit more of an evolutionary learning context in the future.

Now back to check "what's up" in virtual planet following favorite authors, experts in "thinking tools" who actually "walk the talk", and evolutionary learning communities, that do exist and "insist", I came across this:


See: Howard Rheingold's Vlog
Yochai Benkler's web

Accessing, Sharing, Collaborating

CrossTalk Publication on issuu.com

Loving the way it works: scroll around the pages, zoom in/out, use the top bar to change page, use the "share" option to Web2.0 link, rank, map, and more ... mail&add a message, embed as I did here above...

Distinguishing: Page 30 "Net-Centric Virtuosity"

Quote from Gary A. Petersen's post: "Information technology history teaches us .. (...) Fixation on a technology can limit our exposure to new possibilities, experiences and insights. Even horse blinders were state-of-the-art once".

This publication deals with-caters for Defense Info Tech and Soft Engineering...so what? These industries have given us wonderful tools such as systems' thinking, cybernetics and the internet for starters. How we use them is a very different question. Notice they seem to be promoting practices that in some highly reputed universities in NSpain we are still NOT embracing i.e.: people-process-technology, access-sharing-collaborating.

Regarding "fixation on a technology" this could be: scribes, print, edu board broadcasting, PC centered or the usual you may have in mind. Same goes for fixation on a particular model/mental frame: linear sequential "progress" approach pertaining to '60s-'70s "new new thing" mode and killer app of the late '90s, "zero sum games" and other ... How about incorporating an open-mind to emerging models, practices that may be relevant, creative exploration with programs, as well as looking into retro when applicable, teaching-learning mode for all in the classroom, and out, indeed, participatory modes.

Page 32 states (bold is mine):

"Vision: Deliver the Power of Information: An agile enterprise empowered by access to and sharing of timely and trusted information":

"Mission: Enable Net-Centric Operations: Lead the Information Age transformation that enhances (...) efficiency and effectiveness"

"Goals: Information on Demand: build the net, populate the net, operate the net, protect the net"

Beware PhD program/resources and context organizers: a high level edu system calls for hands-on informed practices and research meaning also some pretty "hot" updated stuff, PLUS: enable and foster collaboration, sharing, distributed learning and new media tools with contextual relevance, or else... we are working- learning - living in the past.

Science and the in-between

Michael Winters offers very inspiring memes posted on Wired Science - Education on how to better align what students learn in the classroom and what they then do with the information. Will they learn more and be better informed when they are able to apply what they've been learning? You bet.

Tuning in to his proposal that technology experts and science teachers could help figure out the "in-between of theory and its outcomes", I propose that every time we make an observation we ask ourselves the question: what does my observation inform about my own frameworks? Namely, to enquire ourselves about sets of assumptions and "in theory" factual information we usually take for granted. Information and frames of learnings that we may have kept without any updating, in a long, long time.

For students to work at the same time they are studying, could not only help maintain a healthy information flow between isolated domains of knowledge, namely between practical common sense in life and work, and academia, it might also cross-polinize learning environments and allow double-checks to prevent dis-information. Food for thought.

Smart Bird

I wrote this post in 2004 when I started blogging. Things have changed quite a bit since then, so it needed a few twitches here & there.

Sometime in the '90s I stumbled upon incredibly inspiring thoughts spread around by Allan Wilson, Professor at University of California at Berkeley. Professor Wilson had established three conditions, which were necessary for a species to improve its abilities in a given environment:

i) the members of the species must flock and move around in herds, rather than sit individually in isolated territories

ii) some of the individuals must have the potential to invent new behaviours and skills

iii) the species must have an established process for transmitting a skill from the individual to the entire community, through direct communication

The story of the different birds. Via the works of Arie de Geus probably triggered other ideas that had been informed in study and work exploring constructivism and systems' thinking a the university, but let's get back to the story of the bird(s).

Two species of birds living in England had a very different approach to learning and sharing socially: the titmouse and the red robin. Both took advantage of the old milk bottles that were left uncapped by the milkmen, to sip a bit of the cream that floated on top of the milk.

Changes in the milking business brought a technology to cap the bottles with seals, which had contrasting effects on the two populations of birds. The titmouse population learned how to pierce the new seals that capped the milk bottles, and "spread the word" because they were social birds.

The robins were territorial birds with a strong inclination to single male leadership, disallowing other males from settling in the proximity, limiting the chances to share knowledge that may have been beneficial to all. They were stuck.

You can follow some other interesting leads such as the above on Arie de Geus's The Living Company , here some quotes from an interview posted on Dialog on Leadership, Sept. 1999, read on 2004 :

"I’m beginning to see more and more loops that strongly reinforce the idea that there are hierarchically, higher placed living systems, higher than the human being. I called them "A Living Company," because basically I talk about the commercial population of the institutional world population. I talk about commercial tribes, but there are many other tribes. ..."

How my avatar came to be

The bird you see above was grabbing bits of toast from my lunch bag, while I sat reading at the Asilomar conference center in Monterey Bay, California, a decade ago. It reminded me of the story.

There were many birds like this smart one, at the MIIS university campus in Monterey Bay, flocking around and grabbing bits here and there. I wondered if they were behaving like the Titmouse birds ... or like the Robins.

The story emerged again much later Spain, when I needed an avatar, upon joining Twitter in 2007. I've lived in Spain for many years now and noticing how resilient we can be in Europe, when faced with changing trends in communications and information media... (well, in some countries more than in others ... ), I cannot but wonder ... will it play like the story of the Titmouse... or more like the one of the Robins?