lawaugh

To segway from my brainstorm of Study #1 into making, I’ve looked at some of the existing organizational tools and research on visual thinking. One of the websites that I’ve come across are the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE), a research project based out of Tufts University, which is an open source tool for concept mapping and that offers a variety of options for constructing content. In the intro video, the presenter describes VUE as “concept mapping meets the digital world.” I think that many of the features offered through VUE could be applicable to organization within a writing environment, especially since many people use concept mapping to construct outlines for writing. In particular I think that the affordances for linking and annotation within VUE are a more targeted way to save and relate information than simply tagging or bookmarking.

The other site I’ve looked at is Designs for Thinking which showcases a set of thinking maps, which are more targeted than a general concept map, developed for use in school settings. Even though these are tools developed for a younger audience in a learning environment, I think they would also be applicable in other types of situated learning for older audiences. Below is a screenshot of one of my favorite examples from their website (it’s an example of a double bubble map).

Both of these case studies are informative in terms of what’s out there and what’s working for teaching thinking, memory, and framing skills, but, as Kermit and I’ve talked about, concept mapping is very diagnostic. I’m interested in creating an environment that’s more dynamic and organic—something that feels more like curating, collecting, sorting, etc. But that might be for the larger project. My next step is to go through some quick ideating to focus on a small portion of these thoughts.