i-Create

Sir Ken Robinson's 2006 TED speech struck a chord with me when he said, “children starting school this year will be retiring in 2065. Nobody has a clue...what the world will look like in five years' time. And yet we're meant to be educating them for it.” (Sir Ken Robinson speech 2006). I don’t believe it is an impossible task, but it is a task that requires educators to shift the way they teach.

Representing information and the connections between concepts visually is a powerful tool for making meaning and expressing personal understandings. Websites, such as Gliffy, recognize that information is a shared activity (Kapitzke, 2002, 81).

Wordle and Gliffy both honour the notion of multiple intelligences (Brown, 2000, 12) and are adaptive to different learning styles (Burd & Buchannan, 2004, 405).

Visual search engines such as eyePlorer and Search-cube are conceptually different to a textual search engine on several levels. They represent data through images, colours and shapes that connect with the user on a different level to text. Additionally, they usually allow users to manipulate the visual representation to create individual meanings. Being able to manipulate the data to express individual creativity and link concepts in a manner that is meaningful on a personal level is significant.

While it is true that “current formal education still prepares students primarily for the world of the past, rather than for possible worlds of the future” (Gardner 2007, 13) I hope it might not always be true. One option for breaking the traditions of educational facilities is to open up learners to opportunities to develop their own creativity.

Wordle allows users to enter text and generate a “word cloud” in which words used most often are more prominent in the cloud. This cloud can then be manipulated to change every aspect of its appearance. Wordle allows users to become publishers, not just consumers, of information (Holmes & Gardner, 2006, 112).

Gliffy is a website that allows users to create diagrams and mindmaps to represent concepts in a visual fashion. Users can then open their diagrams up to others to input on and edit which leads to a merged diagram representing a combined understanding of a concept. This clearly links users in a manner that is both as a consumer and a producer of information (Brown, 2000, 20).

The ability to have an editable diagram in an asynchronous environment that is physically disconnected is a powerful tool for creativity (Burd & Buchannan, 2004, 404).

eyePlorer

eyePlorer returns search results as a wheel divided into categories. Although the initial search is unrefined it is very easy to remove unwanted categories, expand a single one and further manipulate in an intuitive manner.

eyePlorer’s search results are easily manipulated to create personalized representations of information and demonstrate the connections between concepts. This personal connection to visually representing data is significantly enhanced by the Notepad feature which allows users to reflect on the information in a meaningful manner. Users who are investigating an issue are able to categorize their findings and return to their points at any stage, clearly linking to discontinuous learners.

Search-cube is a visual search engine that presents web search results in a three-dimensional cube interface of images. It shows previews of up to ninety-six websites, videos and images.

Once generated, the cube can be rotated via the mouse or keyboard but they cannot be changed or further manipulated. The ability to manipulate the cube’s images to create a personalized search-cube would powerfully enhance the user’s ability to make meaning.

Currently search-cube has a number of limitations that seriously affect its usefulness. Some of these include; a lack of advanced search options which limit effective searching; the cube’s sides are vaguely thematically arranged but these are fairly fuzzy; and occasionally the cube’s images are inverted and cannot be reset without undertaking a new search.

Visual Representation Of Information

Created by Simon

Timeline tools currently available are illustrative of how web 2.0 is expanding the potential of the learning to be experienced as a creative process.

Timeline creation tools available on Web 2.0 include Timetoast, Capzles, Dipity, CircaVie. While they each approach timelines from a distinct angles, they have all adapted the prosaic timeline as a powerful online instrument for social networking and blogging.

The key adaptations are:

Most of the timeline tools currently available incorporate a social networking angle. This introduces the capacity for collaboration. Drawing others into the development of a timeline – as collaborators or participants in a discussion thread - allows rich learning experiences to occur. Knowledge and meaning become genuinely social constructions, understanding is deeply held, learning becomes a creative experience.

The Now

RSS feeds can be embedded in most timeline tools, so information is constantly updated. Timelines can be linked to feeds from Twitter, news sites, other blogs…

Replies to threads, updated in real time, also generate dialogue and keep existing dialogue immediate and vital.

In its analogue incarnation, the timeline is a bland diagrammatic representation of chronology. It’s really just text, simplified and laid out as a simple diagram.

In its web 2.0 form, it becomes a far richer and more complex creation. With the facility to incorporate diverse media and applications, web 2.0 timelines can be loaded with features that embrace a range of intelligences. With the inclusion of these features, timelines have the potential to have far richer appeal in spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, kinaesthetic, as well as linguistic modes.

Created by Sean