Author: Sonia Stephens

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exam readings learning theory visuals

Exam readings: Using visualizations in science education

These two readings are from the literature on science education, about the importance of visualizations for science. These two authors focus on different topics in the broad area of visualizations and science education.

Barbara Tversky. “Prolegomenon to Scientific Visualizations.” in John K. Gilbert (ed.) Visualization in Science Education, pp 29-42. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005.

Summary: Tversky uses the analogy of scientific visualizations (and viz in general) as maps to aid understanding. Effective maps select important information and even distort it for emphasis (schematize it); abstract relationships are often thought of in spatial terms (e.g., good=up), and this mapping seems to hold meaning/be non-arbitrary. While maps are composed of elements (icons + morphograms [simple schematic shapes that are vocabulary-like: lines, arrows, etc.]) and the spatial relations between them, trees and graphs are composed of elements in an order or subset relationship (metaphorically, not directly spatial.) She gives a few examples of how we interpret maps (e.g., bar graphs suggest containers & make comparisons; line graphs suggest links & convey trends.) Tversky outlines two cognitive design principles: congruence (structure/content of viz should correspond to desired mental structure/content) and apprehension (structure/content should be readily & accurately perceived and comprehended.) She discusses two types of narrative in science viz: structure and process (the latter being more complex to depict.) For her, visual narratives should use analogy as well as present facts. While clarity and brevity are good in many situations, complexity sparks discovery and insight, so there are places for multiple types of diagrams.

Comments: Tversky’s general goal is to make use of schematic cognitive structures in the mind for design. She suggests several strategies for conveying concepts about process, including animations, arrows, and series of diagrams (as well as verbal descriptions.) She feels that animations are poorer in analogy, etc. than comic book format is (b/c animation mainly allows temporal links.) Perhaps interactivity would help address some of this concern about making different types of links.

Links to: Tufte 1, 2 (ideas about simplicity); Zhang & Norman (discussion of distributed cognition)

John K. Gilbert. “Visualization: An Emergent Field of Practice and Enquiry” in Science Education.” In John K. Gilbert, Miriam Reiner, and Mary Nakhleh (eds.) Visualization: Theory and Practice in Science Education, pp. 3-24. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008.

Summary: Gilbert discusses three levels of representation for scientific models: macroscopic, sub-microscopic (e.g., atoms, cells,) and symbolic (qualitative abstractions). External visualizations are used to create internal mental models; a key skill for full understanding is metavisualization, the ability to acquire, monitor, integrate, and extend from visualizations. He suggests two ways of classifying models: purpose (e.g., viz can be larger, smaller, show only processes, etc. of the subject) and dimensionality (e.g., 3-D ball & stick chem. models, 2-D diagrams, 1-D equations.) For metavisualization, people need to be able to understand the representation conventions for different dimensions, be able to translate between modes, construct their own representations, and solve problems using analogy by visualizations. He discusses challenges for mastery of conventions at different levels: macro representations are often taught in labs (they correspond with visible world); sub-micro level creates particular challenges for 3-D structures, but there’s a range of strategies for 2-D structures (e.g., diagrams, animations); and at the symbolic level one issue is differentiating between multiple systems (e.g., for chemical equations.) A key problem is being able to translate between levels (macro-micro-symbolic) or dimensions.

Comments: Traditional approach to mental models (internal vs. external), rather than distributed cognition. A lot of summary of classification systems and lists of skills needed to be visually literate. Goes into some detail about teaching strategies for developing metavisualization skills, which is not my main area of focus (except that multimedia may be good for this purpose.)

Links to: Zhang & Norman (distributed cognition view)

Categories
exam readings knowledge work networks public participation in science

Exam reading: “Crowdsourcing”

This book was more substantial and less rah-rah than I’d originally suspected it would be. There’s a fair amount of discussion of the different types of crowdsourcing, which includes public participation in science as well as the more profound stuff like t-shirt design 🙂

Jeff Howe. Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business. New York: Crown Business Press, 2009.

Summary: Howe discusses the rise of the “reputation economy”: unpaid work for recognition within a community, as an outgrowth of cheap production, underemployed creativity, and online communities. He calls crowdsourcing a “perfect meritocracy;” it fosters collaboration (as its own reward) and community formation. He does discuss drawbacks: shifts in business models/professions (photography, journalism), globalization & flattening of work hierarchies, and the possibility of ushering in cultural mediocrity (though he thinks the last is unlikely.) Overall, he suggests it’s away to utilize human talent better (idea is that people would still have day jobs, and collaborative projects would provide a creative outlet.) Howe outlines several types of crowdsourcing: collective intelligence (group innovation for problem solving; need diversity, and interaction can lead to a limiting consensus), crowd creation (making things, rather than applying existing expertise; need interaction for this), crowd voting/ranking, crowd finance (e.g., microloans.) For success, you need the right crowd and incentives, some professional employees (crowds are great at gathering data/brainstorming, but bad at analysis & organization), an overall frame and guidance for participants, and breakdown of tasks into doable pieces. Mentions 90% rule: 89% of everything is crap/10% is good/1% is great.

Comments: I’m still trying to decide whether crowdsourcing is a brilliant way to achieve meaningful personal expression or a clever ploy by the capitalist system to get free labor. I don’t want to be too negative about these efforts, because they do have great potential to add to the human experience. It seems like crowdsourcing operates much like academia is traditionally supposed to: open exchange of ideas, focus on interesting problems, etc., except that in academia people get paid for their work (I also wonder if there are also connections here to the current diminishing status of experts in a crowdsourcing world, which goes along with reduction in academic pay…) While academia left out a big group of people who now have potential to use this process, there’s still a majority without access to these technologies or who do not have time for this sort of collaboration that are being left out. Perhaps it’s best to think of these projects as a good place to start, rather than an endpoint.

Links to: Lave & Wenger (participants can be seen as LPPers); Liu (core list-politics of knowledge economy)

Categories
discourse community/community of practice exam readings knowledge work learning theory

Exam reading: “Minds on fire”

I had a strong reaction to this paper, probably because I’ve been thinking about these issues from a different perspective than the authors. This paper ties into some of my core T&T readings, like “Laws of Cool” and “Datacloud,” that address the knowledge economy and the future of work. However, here the focus is on learning.

John Seely Brown, and Richard P. Adler. “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0.” Educause Review Jan/Feb 2008.

Summary: Main idea is that an educated workforce with opportunities for lifelong learning is necessary to maintain competitive centers in a globalized world. The need for education for multiple careers and constant re-skilling (my term; they use more positive vocabulary) can be facilitated by Web-based free education & Web 2.0 networking technologies. The Web facilitates social, collaborative learning: work in small groups, “learning to be” a participant plus traditional “learning about” a subject, problem-based collaboration. Idea of legitimate peripheral participation: learners gain both explicit (factual) and implicit (social) knowledge at once. The authors look at online tools for learning: Second Life, “e-science,” informal discussions in social networking sites (I would argue that several of their suggestions aren’t good examples.) Discuss similarities between “long tail” niche marketing being supported by more popular commerce- the Web facilitates this setup- and how online education can be similar (once niche courses are developed, they’re out there forever.) Overall idea is to provide an environment that both facilitates and promotes lifelong learning; they call this “demand-pull” rather than “supply-push” approach.

Comments: Authors do not discuss what to do about the digital divide, the social dislocation associated with constant retraining, how hypothetical developers of free online courses would actually be employed themselves, how to evaluate accurate vs. inaccurate content, erosion of expertise and traditional methods of validating knowledge, etc. Basically, this reads like a Web 2.0 cheerleading piece for non-centralized/distributed education systems, and does not address a wide range of major economic and social justice issues (granted, this is probably not their intent.) The fact that the authors lump in non-online examples into their “online tools for learning” section suggests that they are stretching for examples.

Links to: Howe (discusses crowdsourcing-ultimate result of this educational style? or at least linked); Lave & Wenger (LPP)

Categories
politics

Election day!

…in the U.S.

If you’re registered, go vote! Find your voting location here.

Remember- if you don’t participate, you shouldn’t be complaining.

Categories
exam readings information representation learning theory visuals

Exam readings: Distributed cognition and visualizations

For today, here are two related papers on distributed cognition (the idea that our thinking processes are intimately tied up with our environments, rather than being just internal) and images. The first paper presents a framework for understanding visualizations as part of distributed cognition, and the second applies that framework to studying interactive visualizations.

Jiajie Zhang, and Donald. A. Norman. “Representations in Distributed Cognitive Tasks.” Cognitive Science 18(1): 87-122, 1994.

Summary: In this paper, the authors present their theory of distributed cognition to describe how people conceptualize and perform tasks. Tasks are modeled using both internal and external components to create “distributed” representations. There are three basic problems in this view: the distributed representation of information, interaction between internal and external representations, and the nature of external representations. They discuss the “representational effect:” how different representations of the same information can have different cognitive effects (e.g., Roman vs. Arabic numerals and ease of calculation.) At issue here is that there are both internal and external “rules” in all problem representations; some formats contain more explicit or more easily understood external “rules,” which makes it easier to mentally interact with them. They outline a methodology for representational analysis that breaks done representations into component parts (skipping over details of this.) While external representations are aids to memory, they have additional functions: structuring (internal) cognition and providing information that does not need to be internalized in order to form a mental representation (affordances), and changing the fundamental nature of tasks.

Comments: The authors’ model of cognition suggests that differences among external representations will influence internal representations, or how information is learned. Practical implications include applicability of their ideas to effective design of representations. Not sure I will apply their methodology to my work, but theoretical approach is useful.

Links to: Kostelnick & Hassett (take rhetorical, rather than cognitive, approach to representation, point out that efficiency is usually not the driving force behind design); Liu et al. (argument to apply these ideas to info visualization)

Zhicheng Liu, Nancy J. Nersessian, and John T. Stasko. “Distributed Cognition as a Theoretical Framework for Information Visualization.” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 14.6 (2008): 1173-1180.

Summary: The authors suggest using distributed cognition as a framework for information visualization research (not well-developed enough to serve as theory at this point-lacks predictive, prescriptive aspects.) Distributed cognition holds that cognition arises from the interaction of the mind with objects in the environment, rather than as just internal symbol processing as in the traditional view of cognition. The mind works by building an internal representation of an object that coordinates all the viewer’s external observations of the object; bringing the internal and external representations into agreement. Using this framework, we can look at interaction with data representations as the “propagation of representation states in a cognitive system through coordination;” i.e., as the process of building mental models. The act of manipulation helps us understand things (e.g., Tetris.) The authors also discuss the importance of testing how info visualization systems work in practice to help create mental models, rather than testing just ease of use or how well people like using a particular visualization.

Comments: Includes a discussion of Zhang’s and Norman’s “Representations” paper, which I’m also reading. The authors mention importance of linking research in interactive visualization to current cognitive science and perception research. This paper suggests both that interactivity is a useful property for building understanding and that holistic evaluation of mental models is appropriate for evaluating such interactions; they mention “social visualization:” sharing visualizations over the Web for exploring data representations.

Links to: Zhang & Norman

Categories
discourse community/community of practice exam readings identity learning theory

Exam reading: Situated learning

Jean Lave & Etienne Wenger’s Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation is a foundational text for several key concepts.

Summary: Their main thesis is that learning occurs as “legitimate peripheral participation” in communities of practice: it’s not only situated/place-based (negotiated meanings, relational character of knowledge), but an integral part of the social fabric. Knowledge is comprehensive & activity-based (vs. received), and there’s a mutually constitutive relationship between actors, activities, and the world. The traditional approach of learning as internalization is too cerebral; they see learning as a process of increasing participation in the comm. of practice. Their focus is on the “person-in-world,” rather than the solitary learner or abstract knowledge domains. They also take a historical approach; e.g., comms. are constantly renewing themselves through the admission of newcomers and centripetal movement of newcomers into full participation. They discuss several aspects of traditional apprenticeships as case studies: technology use, recruitment, power relations, and organization of activity. The learning process is a set of steps of conferring legitimacy on the newcomer; learning starts as observation of community, who to emulate, etc., while doing peripheral tasks like running errands (core tasks come later.)

Comments: Authors suggest that more research is needed on defining “communities of practice” and power relations within communities. They summarize with a few ways their approach differs from traditional approaches: person becomes practitioner, situated learning becomes LPP in comm. of practice, knowing is inherent in identity transformation, and the social world is always reproducing itself while changing (there’s a conflict between continuity and shifting membership- “displacement contradiction”). They also discuss technology use: tech has both “invisible” (unproblematic/easily integrated use) and “visible” (salience/utility for task) components- these together create the degree of technological “transparency” (tech. that are both easy to use and the user can understand the significance of tech. within the community are transparent.) Their ideas tie into the idea of discourse community (and they do discuss language), but they’re more interested in language as a way to talk about the community than as a vehicle for information transmission.

Links to: foundational text for a lot of stuff…

Categories
discourse community/community of practice exam readings information representation rhetoric visuals

Exam reading: The rhetoric of visual conventions

On to my next exam reading list, which is focused on discourse communities, and the use of new media technologies and visuals in these communities.

Charles Kostelnick  and Michael Hassett’s Shaping Information: The Rhetoric of Visual Conventions wasn’t exactly what I expected. It presents a rhetorical view of visual design, in a framework of discourse communities. I think I was expecting more specific recommendations from this book, but it does provide a good link between the visual and community-focused materials on my list:

Summary: The authors attempt to construct a framework for analyzing visual rhetoric, based on conventions used in various genres, the social forces that shape those conventions, and the situation-specific interpretation of conventions by users/readers. Visual conventions frame our understanding of the world; they make design coherent and provide shortcuts for interpretation by readers. Three types of factors shape conventions: discourse community (e.g., disciplinary, cultural), rhetorical (e.g., pragmatic, imitation), and practical (e.g., cost, laws). Conventions are generated within discourse communities (and learning conventions is required for joining those communities); they’re mutable but can appear permanent. There are different levels of understanding conventions, e.g., using a physics formula on a t-shirt to evoke “geekiness;” increasing centrality in a specialist d.c. leads to more complex understanding of codes. Conventions have shifting “currency” (size of user pool + frequency of use); designers must make rhetorical choices about what to use. Finally, conventions can be hard to see, because they’re usually deployed with other conventions, and especially in specialist discourse can seem “natural.”

Comments: Emphasis is on the discourse community process as the basis for discussion of convention use in different genres; there’s a large social aspect to visual design for the authors. They discuss the ways conventions can either simplify or complicate the act of perception, but do not include a lot of detail from empirical studies; they do include a chapter on the types of convention “breakdown” that can occur (designers and users are in different d.c.’s, conflict with other conventions in the same work, etc.). They also discuss evolution of conventions, framed by the ways that the discourse communities that gave rise to those conventions changed.

Links to: Tufte 1, 2 (K&H would call his a specific type of rhetoric)

Categories
bunny

Friday bunnyblogging

Like many animals, bunnies like to sniff you before allowing you to pet them. This is also a ploy to get in position for the ultimate in bunny ecstasy: the forehead rub.

Noe demonstrates the proper position.

If they’re not stressed, rabbits go into a trance-like state when you rub their foreheads. They’ll basically sit there, unmoving (or perhaps grinding their teeth a bit), even after you finish petting them. Bonded rabbits will slip their heads under each others’ chins, so perhaps this is a comfort thing?

Noe’s favored petting procedure goes like this:

  • Sidles up to a human, and places her nose night next to their hand. (Sometimes she does this with our feet, too.) Often, she will angle her body just enough that you have to move slightly to pet her. This reinforces that you are doing her bidding.
  • The human now begins to rub the forehead.
  • After a few rubs, Noe relaxes and the human is allowed to proceed to full-body petting. It is important not to touch the tail or feet (these are very personal spaces), but it is OK to stroke the ears.
  • When properly relaxed, shoulder rubs are welcomed. Just remember to alternate these with more forehead rubs, so the trance-like state is maintained. If the petting is really enjoyable, she will lick whatever surface she is laying on (this is probably a mutual-grooming thing, though she does not condescend to actually lick us.)
  • Petting should proceed until she gets up and hops away. She will let you know when she is done.
Full-body petting may now proceed.

Side note: After petting a rabbit, you should not be offended if the bunny gets up and immediately grooms him/herself to get the nasty human smell off. Unlike carnivores, rabbits do not have a strong odor to advertise their presence to other animals- in fact, they are better off not being noticed. This makes them smell MUCH better than dogs and cats (well, except right after eating a cecal pellet.) Us primates are apparently quite stinky in comparison.

Categories
birds Florida outdoors

Hiking Paynes Prairie Preserve

It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I should try to get something up here… I did pass my first candidacy exam (yay!), and am getting ready for exam #2 right now (on the public understanding of science material I blogged about earlier). I’ve also started to working on my reading for my last reading list, so I’ll be starting to post those summaries shortly.

For now, I’ll mention my excursion last weekend to Gainesville, to Paynes Prairie Preserve. This is a state park with a wide range of habitat, including oak uplands, pine flatwoods, and the eponymous prairie. Which was actually quite shrubby, rather than grassy, which surprised me. I was mainly three looking for birds, and the visibility was really limited by the head-height vegetation. But there were definitely a lot of birds around. Overall, it was a great day- not too hot, sunny but shady in the woods, and a light breeze.

I hiked on two trails: Cone’s Dike and Bolen Bluffs. Cone’s Dike goes through oak forest before heading onto the prairie proper. I did see a lot of birds, and a few deer. Bolen Bluff heads through similar habitat (though the different types of oaks), and terminates at an observation deck (more on that later).

Paynes Prairie is known for its feral horses, supposedly descended from Ponce DeLeon’s expedition to find the Fountain of Youth. In reality, they’re escaped from more recent ranchers. I did run into three of them- two mares and a half-grown foal. I was a little leery of approaching them closely, but other people were going right up to them taking photos. I will say that the ground contained copious evidence of horse passage (and also bobcat territory marking), which was pretty evident given that we have not been getting much rain lately. Yes, there was a lot of poo lying around.

In terms of birds, I saw a flock of turkeys, and a number of raptors (including a sharp-shinned hawk being mobbed by blue jays, bald eagles, red-shouldered hawk, and northern harrier). There were also a number of wood storks, some sandhill cranes calling, and a bunch of smaller species. I also saw a baby (pencil-sized) ribbon snake, and a more intimidating cottonmouth who was extremely casual about moving off the trail when it saw me.

from Wikipedia

The only jarring note was running into some UF students (or so I assumed from their Gator-themed clothing) having sex on the observation platform. I must assume they were there in order to be seen, because after all they were on top of a platform on a prairie. I must say that I’ve never run into people having sex in public while hiking before, and didn’t expect it in that visible of a spot- and the destination of the trail. I also wouldn’t have expected them to notice me, confer for a moment, then just keep on going (more loudly). Given that I was hiking alone, I wasn’t sure how to react, and just ended up walking back the way I came.

That episode made me think about the intimidation inherent in that sort of exhibitionism- it’s not like they were in a tent at night or in a really secluded area, so presumably they wanted to be seen, and were expecting not to be confronted about their activities. Or maybe they wanted a confrontation? Alternatively, they might get their kicks out of asserting their right to do whatever they want to wherever they want to, while sending a big “fuck you” to other people trying to use a public park. Would they have stopped if I had been a man? Or if I had been in a group? What if there had been a family with kids? What if I’d pulled out a camera and started taking pictures?

At any rate, it definitely made me conscious of my status as a woman hiking alone- not as scarily as if I’d been in a more secluded location, but enough to really be upsetting. Granted, there are much more dangerous situations to encounter while hiking while female, but this was plenty troubling. Confronting them wasn’t really a good option, but neither was waiting them to finish up before using the viewing platform to look for birds. So I turned around and walked away. A frankly shitty end to what had otherwise been a good day of hiking.

Categories
bunny

Friday bunnyblogging

For today’s post, I’ll reach back into time again and show Noe as a baby: this is from the fall of 2002.

I call this photo “Nobody puts Bunny in a corner.”

Bunny body language: both ears pointed forward means “alert” and “What are you doing?” Butt in corner means “I can keep an eye on you from here, but you can’t get behind me.” Crouched stance (in this instance) means “Why do you keep following me with that camera? You’re freaking me out.”