Serious information used to be relayed in words, graphs and charts - pictures were just pretty window dressing. That's all changing, says David McCandless. E-mails. News. Facebook. Wikipedia. Do you feel ever feel that there's just too much information? Do you struggle to keep up with important issues, subject and ideas? Are you drowning in data? In this age of information overload, a new solution is emerging that could help us cope with the oceans of data surrounding and swamping us. It's called information visualisation. The approach is simple: apply the rules of visual design to information - make information into images, rather than text.
- Nicola
"connectivism is the idea that knowledge is spread across networks, and as technology-centered educators we must help learners build a network, successfully engage that network, and build reciprocity so that knowledge flows in and out of our network. We are accessing knowledge which we most likely would not have had access to. Educators should help learners become a valued node of exchange (my own term) within these digital learning communities. Ok, that is a non-expert’s description. Having read several articles and on-line discussions, I personally have concluded that connectivism is not a learning theory, but instead a description of how our pedagogy can “play out” when we add technology to the mix. You can decide for yourself by reading here, here, and here. Though I have a different view than the connectivism advocates, I have appreciated this discussion because it has helped me to clarify my thinking about links and networks in education."
- Nicola
"qi has remained somewhat elusive to modern medical science, as it is yet to be measured or proven to exist. Researchers from the International Alliance for Mind/Body Signaling and Energy Research in the United States have applied the latest biomedical technologies to gain a better understanding of the physiological aspects of such effects. At Alliance laboratories, different types of measurements were made on more than 20 high-level qigong and taichi practitioners and several control subjects. Researchers find that when the taichi practitioners are doing movements, which are co-ordinated with deep breathing cycles, there is a big increase in peripheral blood flow. While achieving the effect, practitioners must be relaxed."
- Nicola
"I wondered if student engagement, like Latour regards networks, could be a reflection of the quality of all that connecting work. The Web 2.0 tools, that are being relied on to generate increased student involvement, could be under-performing the students expectations as a support system for all that connecting work. If that pattern is occurring, we could expect the tools of engagement to result in increased disengagement."
- Nicola
"Some of the online community’s members do not participate, people referred to as lurkers, whereas others who have been in the community for a long time, referred to as elders, participate regularly & support others. Understanding what drives these individuals and how they chose whether or not to participate will lead to online communities that thrive. This paper proposes a conceptual framework to describe what drives such individuals to carry out actions such as posting messages and adding content (level 1), the cognitions they use to determine whether or not to take such actions (level 2) and the means by which they go about carrying out the action in the environment (level 3). Finally, framework is applied to the problem of encouraging members to participate by discussing the methods by which people can be persuaded to participate by changing the way they interpret their desires & environment." via http://www.feverbee.com/2009...
- Nicola
+ http://vimeo.com/7010463 Imagine painting with projections, without the use of any paint, live and with out post-production. Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy of the new SWEATSHOPPE collective have done that with the use of Jitter and a laptop, transforming ordinary paint rollers into tools for apply real projections like light graffiti. They demonstrate the work on the walls of New York City neighborhoods. In an effort to establish new platforms for public art and performance, the multimedia duo SWEATSHOPPE has developed a new interactive technology that enables them to explore the relationship between video, mark making and architecture. Dubbed "video painting", this technology allows them to essentially "paint" video onto any surface. Shooting in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, the duo spent weeks documenting their work in urban settings to create "The Landing" that showcases their work as artist, technologist and performers.
- Nicola
"For me, drawing is an inquiry, a way of finding out – the first thing that I discover is that I do not know. This is alarming even to the point of momentary panic. Only experience reassures me that this encounter with my own ignorance – with the unknown – is my chosen and particular task, and provided I can make the required effort the rewards may reach the unimaginable. It is as though there is an eye at the end of my pencil, which tries, independently of my personal general-purpose eye, to penetrate a kind of obscuring veil or thickness...To get the essentials down there on my sheet of paper so that I can recover and see again what I have just seen, that is what I have to push towards. While drawing I am watching & simultaneously recording myself looking, discovering things that on the one hand are staring me in the face & on the other I have not yet really seen. It is this effort ‘to clarify’ that makes drawing particularly useful and it is in this way that I assimilate experience"
- Nicola