Final Post: Learning Experiences

Well, the quarter is coming to a close, and all the projects and papers have been handed in. Looking back at the progress we all made, I'm impressed by how much we accomplished in such a short amount of time, and how much thinking and learning we did surrounding the issue of underprivileged and marginalized populations. It was very rewarding to create a project from the ground up, and it's even more rewarding to do so for a worthwhile cause.

One of the things that impressed me the most was the incredible variety of projects my classmates put together. From the starting point of serving underprivileged populations, people came up with a whole slew of different ideas, from preserving languages to helping schoolchildren in India to providing first aid for people on the border. I wonder if our class had been twice as big, or four times as big, how many fascinating ideas would have emerged.

At the expo, I met several different people who had incredibly useful things to say about my project; I spoke with a woman who works with emotionally disturbed children, and a cognitive scientist who works with depressed patients, for example. It was great to get their real-life expertise on a subjects I'm just beginning to learn about. They gave me constructive feedback on things I hadn't even considered (What if they can't figure out how to play the game? How to deal with children who are pre-literate? Can you save your progress? What happens if the player just sits there without pushing any buttons?)

Since many of our projects are still in the early stages, I'm curious to see whether these endeavors will continue, and if so, in what form. I haven't decided yet how I plan to carry on my ideas, but based on the feedback I got from the people who visited my poster, it sounds like a game for childhood depression is a good idea, and with enough work and research, it could turn into something truly valuable.

It was very eye-opening to see the many different options out there in the field of online learning. It seems like the web is a great way to transmit education to the masses, and I hope to participate as these initiatives become even more prevalent in the near future.

Presentations: Digital Artifact #2

Class presentations

Last week we presented our digital artifacts to the class. There were some terrific ideas put forward, in various stages of resolution, and it's amazing how such a wide variety of concepts came from a single prompt. If so many ideas could emerge from a class of twenty students or so, it's pretty staggering how many ideas must be percolating with all the nonprofits, corporations, volunteer organizations, and individuals out there trying to make a difference. Maybe we do have a shot at making the world a better place...

Like last time, I thought I would post a few screenshots and an overview of my process. I had a really good time putting together this artifact, and I'm looking forward to making further progress soon.

Here's the splash page:



...and setting the scene:



...and a map of places to go (this one's my favorite):



I started with line drawings, which I scanned into the computer:



...then I used Illustrator to clean up the lines and add color:



Next steps

Before the big presentation in December, there are plenty of things I could do to beef up my artifact. Practically speaking, here are some steps I could probably take between now and the presentation:

1. Interface wireframes: I talked about game examples for the different animals; to make this idea even clearer, I'd like to sketch out a basic drawing of what I had in mind. Nothing too detailed, just something to bring the ideas to life a bit more.

2. Flash functionality: I've been meaning to brush up on some Flash, and this seems like a good opportunity. Although I don't want to create a fully-functional game at this point (I'd like to leave room for growth before setting things in stone), it may be helpful to show some active examples of how the game would operate.

3. Web structure: In order to make my game accessible to the public, it will eventually need to be presented on a webpage. I'd like to go ahead and build the structure of the page (and add some additional information for people who have never seen it before).

4. Other stuff: Some ideas I've been tossing around...it would be cool to prepare some family-friendly printouts that might come with the game, or some printed color screenshots to give the presentation some added flare. At some point, I'd also like to show a demo to a child psychologist here at Stanford and get some feedback / suggestions from somebody who knows a lot about this issue.

Coping strategies for kids

Child psychology

Last week in class, we heard from two different project in the education arena: a new video system for online lectures, and a research project about disseminating valuable information to schoolchildren in the Chicago area. There are so many details involved in these projects, so I'm glad they took the time to visit our class and hear our thoughts. It's helpful to have an outside perspective when you're designing or researching something brand new.

With that in mind, I've turned to some more outside sources for planning my zoo game. I'm looking for specific ways that kids can reduce their chances of depression, and/or alleviate the depression they are currently experiencing. There's a lot of vague stuff in the literature about "coping strategies," many of which are abstract and cognitive in nature. I'm searching for concrete examples, specific behaviors I can encourage kids to perform.

I was lucky to find several valuable child psychology sources with just this sort of information. I can use some of their recommended activities to build the small exercises within the game. I was especially interested in the concept of play therapy, which seems consistent with the warm, whimsical attitude I want to communicate in my game. The tool kit presented at playtherapy.org is so thought-provoking, because I think an online game could provide kids with many of those useful behaviors, like creative visualization, therapeutic story telling, drama role-play, and art/drawing.

If I can encourage children to play more (especially unstructured, active outdoor play, as emphasized in this article), I think I will be in a good place.

So here's what I found: some specific strategies I'd like to incorporate.

• substituting reasonable thoughts for unreasonable ones (polar bear exercise)
• self-monitoring mood (crocodile exercise)
• increasing positive activities such as unstructured childhood play (monkey activities)
• social skills: initiating conversations, responding, refusing / making requests (turtle game)
• self-control and monitoring (what animal could this be?)
• getting better sleep (koala exercise) as discussed here.

Flash games

Shifting gears a bit: I also checked out some fun Flash games for kids! Casual games are really big right now (I scoped this article for some tips about sustainability for casual games online). Here's a fascinating blog post that breaks down a popular game into all of its usability components, like this:



Pretty overwhelming. To see for myself what these game experiences are like, I tested out Diner Dash by Playfirst...



...and another one of their popular kids' games, Avenue Flo:



Unlike websites, these games don't have consistent navigation throughout. They are fullscreen experiences, with minimal references to previous screens or the outside world. They have their own specialized UI elements, rather than a list of web links. Since I'd prefer to make a web-based game rather than an executable right now, I think I can strike a middle ground between those two extremes.

Now, in terms of feasibility, I don't think I can realistically expect to have a fully functional game for my second digital artifact. So I'll have to scale my project down to its key elements:

1. Opening page with navigation
2. Choose a character
3. Story page (time to cheer up)
4. Zoo map
5. 7 introductions (zoo fades to background)
6. 7 game screenshots
7. About page
8. Extras page
9. Credits page

I can always add some more functionality over the break, or later down the road as I continue to feel inspired about this topic.

Sample art

And now your regularly scheduled update of "stuff I did."




The rest is a surprise ;)

A peek at zoo graphic design

Now the fun part: building the artifact! I've got plenty of work ahead of me, from drawing the characters to making the game to building the website, not to mention all that extra research. Before I jump in too deep, I thought I'd whip together a quick post with some of my ideas and early-stage work so far. I especially want to keep my eyes open for neat sources of inspiration.

The zoo aesthetic

I'd like to pattern my web design after your typical zoo homepage. Kids are already familiar with those bright colors, big photographs, and welcoming pages full of fun facts. Zoos are about both fun and education, which seems appropriate for my project, which deals with difficult issues but hopes to do so in a friendly, enjoyable way. You'll see that many zoo websites have a lot in common: similar colors, similar layouts, animals featured prominently on the homepage, emphasis on adventure, and enticing the visitor to come see for themselves:













This last one is a little different, and I love the concept. The visitor can click on different sections of land to go to that space. I'd like to incorporate something similar into my artifact (perhaps not as fancy as this one) to make the navigation more interactive.



Flowcharts

Here's a chart of what I'm envisioning for the opening steps:



...and a summary of what I'm planning to include in the website:



Character designs

Each character will be a cartoon-style animal, with a personality and a back story. They each have a positive feature (the parrot is friendly, the fox is smart, the flamingo is beautiful...) but they all have moments when they feel sad and upset. Since kids are used to seeing animals and relating to their stories, this could be a way of introducing ideas like sadness, depression, and anxiety. Here are some line drawings of what the characters might look like:



So that's it for now...I'll keep posting more drawings and design steps as they come along!

Reviewing an online therapy program

Notes on learning theories

In class last week, we discussed key learning theories and how to address them in practice. These theories turned out to be a useful tools for examining learning programs and evaluating how effective they might be. From our assessments in class (my team looked at Vyew.com) to the experiences all around us, concepts like cognitive load, meta-cognition, and interactivity can shape how we interpret and improve education.

For cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), there are a handful of theories that seem especially relevant. Vertical transfer is a big one: people have to learn important skills from their online CBT session and translate them to real life, which may involve a leap from a computer desk (or therapist's office) into the contexts and pressures of the world. Set effect is also crucial, since the literature on depression emphasizes how habit-forming negative thoughts can be. The way people think becomes completely automatic over the years, so in order to be effective, a CBT program needs to overcome these automatic habits, replacing unconscious harmful thinking patterns with conscious helpful ones.

I tried to keep a handful of learning theories in mind as I reviewed a site called MoodGYM this week, to see which areas were working and which areas could use some changes.

What it is

MoodGYM is an online CBT program for people struggling with depression. The program is geared towards young adults, not children, but many of the therapy principles are the same. I went through the core structure of the site, including making a profile and going through some of the modules.

The program starts with a neat ABCD-like approach, describing its specific goals and the behavioral changes involved:



The user begins with a lengthy questionnaire, which appears to include standard depression-related questions. The results were a bit simplistic for my taste (they are only divided into low, medium, and high amounts of depression, which is not terribly helpful), but the personalization is a good idea, and the questions can make people think about what's going on in their heads.


Each module goes through different characters and situations, and the user selects ways to respond to adversity, ways to counter negative thoughts, and so on.

Seeing a CBT website in action was very useful, and it would be a good idea to pattern my own digital artifact after this type of system, since the methods are already tested and seem to work. Here are a few factors I noticed:

Strengths

Sympathetic characters: Even though some of the characters were a little cheesy (there's actually a guy named "Noproblemos"), it can be helpful to have characters to relate to, so people can recognize similar thoughts in themselves.


Everyday language: The words are casual and colloquial. Since the website is based in Australia, there are plenty of amusing Australia-isms ("typical bloody me, I stuffed everything up"). It seems important for my own project to use language kids are familiar with, perhaps the sort of language they might hear in a children's book.


Relatable situations: The exercises go through specific experiences and how different characters might react to them. This strategy helps people apply valuable coping mechanisms to the real world. For kids, I would have to change my examples: instead of wrecking a car, hooking up with wrong person, botching a job interview, I might include things like fighting with a brother or sister, a bad report card, or a bully at school.

Weaknesses

Too much text: The lessons and modules have far too much of a preamble for kids to sit through. In fact, I suspect that even most adults would skip through the text. In particular, people suffering from depression, or people who are unsure whether they want to use the system, may be discouraged by reading too much before getting to the actual therapy. I would need to design a system that didn't rely too much on text.

Not enough feedback: It would be useful to include feedback about where you are in the module, how far you've come, and what's coming next. This would be more consistent with the learning theories of interactive media, and also more suitable for childrens' short attention spans.

Easy to forget the lessons: I would like to see an easy way to pull up summaries of what was previously taught. This would be especially helpful for kids who would have a hard time remembering all these new things. For my own project, it would be nice to have some handy printouts or summaries that kids can refer to later on.

My current idea

I'll be making adjustments and changes as I go along, but I'd like to try making a CBT tool geared towards kids. It can be a story that takes place in the zoo, and each animal will represent a different symptom (a crocodile who's always angry, a turtle who isolates himself from friends, a koala who is sleepy all the time). Based on the personalization principle we learned in class, kids will be able to choose their avatar based on positive characteristics about themselves. Then they will go through a small series of games / exercises to teach kids how to respond to different tough situations they might encounter.

Next steps

I'll definitely continue researching childhood depression, with a special focus on which coping mechanisms are most helpful for kids. I would also love to talk with a child psychologist or some kind of therapist who specializes in depression in young people, to get some insights on what elements would make my game most effective. And meanwhile, I'll start making character sketches and drawings to fully realize my idea.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Children

It was really inspiring to hear from the Edison Learning team about their program. They developed an entire online learning system from the ground up, and they are still planning and implementing new ideas. With my own project for the class, I'm inspired to move beyond the summaries and readings, and take the next step into developing a solution.

To help clinically depressed children, I could focus on prevention by promoting activities like healthy eating and lots of outdoor exercise. Or I could develop a system for treating existing depression, based on established therapy techniques. In order to focus my project specifically on the marginalized population (children with depression), I'd like to tackle treatment options first, and see what I can find.

I wanted to take a look at cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which is one of the most widely used treatment methods for clinical depression. In fact, CBT has been used successfully with children, and it is often recommended for various mental health disorders in young kids and adolescents. Although there is no specific protocol for CBT (it refers to a wide umbrella of treatments), it tends to rely on several key principles:

• Systematic and goal-oriented
• Time-limited treatments
• Focus on here and now
• Focus on alleviating symptoms

If you think about it, many of these characteristics make CBT a natural choice for mobile or web-based interfaces. Its goal-oriented nature can be channeled into games or directed puzzles, much as Edison's goal-oriented modules direct students toward understanding of a particular concept. Time limits are easily placed on computer-based activities, and many computer programs have a here-and-now focus. Plus, with an emphasis on alleviating symptoms, progress can be concrete and measurable.

In terms of the ABCD approach we learned in class, I found an interesting set of specific behavioral goals from the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy. After completing therapy, children should be able to:

• Recognize and modify irrational and self-deprecating thoughts.
• Adopt more appropriate and/or positive responses to their own and others’ thoughts and feelings.
• Improve listening, social, and problem-solving skills.
• Plan positive/pleasant individual and social activities.

Here are a few techniques used in CBT that could be easily translated to the web:

- Keeping a diary of events and feelings: The web is already a useful tool for journaling and recording thoughts, and it would be an interesting challenge to develop an online journaling system specifically for managing childhood depression.

- Questioning assumptions and beliefs: People learn many cognitive skills from the Internet, including critical thinking and questioning what they see. I could imagine a game based on rejecting beliefs that don't make sense, and accepting ones that do.

- Gradually facing avoided activities: People often use their mobile devices to set reminders for themselves or plan activities. Perhaps an application could be designed to systematically propose new activities (such as exercise or social interaction), gradually encouraging the child to try them for a reward.

- Relaxation, mindfulness, distraction: Stress management is a big part of both prevention and treatment for depression. There are hundreds of stress management programs online, and along with soothing video and audio collections designed to enhance relaxation. I wonder if I could design a web-based relaxation system especially for children.

As it turns out, there are already a few computer-based therapy programs, collectively referred to as Computerized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CCBT). These programs have the advantage of being less intimidating than talking to a therapist, less expensive than paying for sessions, and more accessible for people who would have trouble getting to a doctor's office. Children often fit these criteria very well, having little to no disposable income and not much personal freedom without their parents. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has described a set of guidelines for using CCBT, and preliminary studies have suggested that it can be a successful supplement to existing treatment programs.

Computerized therapy initiatives have been developed for a number of mental disorders. Specifically for depression, NICE recommends a program known as "Beating the Blues," which consists of 8 sessions of self-help treatments. The program is described as follows:

"They work through cognitive modules which focus on the identification and challenge of automatic thoughts, thinking errors, distractions, core beliefs and attributional styles. Interwoven with these cognitive elements are problem directed behavioural components where patients can work on any two of activity scheduling, problem solving, graded exposure, task breakdown or sleep management according to their specific problems. The final module looks at action planning and relapse prevention."

Although I can't access Beating the Blues without making a payment and performing a screening over the phone, I might send an email to request access for my project, because I'm curious as to how the program works. There's also a free program called Mood Gym, which I'd like to check out as well.

To develop my next artifact, I'd like to take advantage of the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy to reach out to children, especially those who want help but aren't seeing a therapist yet. I'd like for my web-based system to emphasize education: teaching kids the skills they need to manage depression. Hopefully I can pull inspiration from Edison Learning and other online educational programs to make an effective treatment tool.

Digital Artifact Debrief

Class Presentations

Last week, we presented our first digital artifacts for marginalized and underprivileged populations. I was impressed to see such a wide variety of topics, and so many ways to discuss them: videos, Powerpoints, websites, posters...I enjoyed seeing the circumstances and populations people are passionate about. The presentations came from all over the place, from rural America to the far reaches of Africa and India. Seeing so many situations in which getting a good education can be difficult or impossible, I realized that our own niche in the system is the exception, not the norm. Only a few people have the chance to grow up in upper-middle-class America and attend fancy universities. It's nice to see that despite our mostly privileged backgrounds (and certainly privileged in terms of education), we still have the desire to reach out to those who don't share these opportunities. I'm curious to see how all this information will be translated into a second digital artifact.

I chose to explore childhood depression in schools, and I used a mind map as a presentation tool. It seemed to go pretty well, and I think people got most of the points I wanted to express. To find out everything I could about childhood depression, I looked through lots of different resources and articles. I was surprised at how little we still know about depression in general, and especially how it affects children. Given the devastating effect it can have on a child's education, it's certainly an area that could use more research.

Drawings / Process

I want to share a little bit about how I put together my artifact. I had a good time constructing the diagram and the website, since I enjoy visual thinking, and my past few blog entries have been focused on how people lay out information. I started with some drawings, and built them into a map and webpage framework:

Lots of icons to go into the map:



What the full map looks like:



Website screenshots:





A lot of little details go into the actual implementation, like the Flash plugin for the images and little Javascript goodies for the mouseover effects. These are always some of my favorite parts, because they offer a tricky set of little challenges, but they really give that something extra to a webpage.

Ideas for Digital Artifact #2

So now what? Now that I've gotten a decent overview of childhood depression, naturally I want to keep finding more resources, but ultimately turn this information into something that can help people. There are lots of organizations out there designed to spread awareness about mental health, but I wonder if there's something more active I can do? In the spirit of the presentations I heard last week, I'm optimistic that technology can be used to make a real difference to people who are suffering.

I had a few ideas of what I could do about the problem of depression in schools. It seems impractical to tackle the whole thing at once, so perhaps I could focus on a few elements that seem manageable. For example, I found that depression is often ameliorated by healthy food and exercise, especially for children who are prone to obesity. I'd like to develop a game that would encourage kids to play outside and eat healthy food. My current idea is based on what my siblings and I used to play when we were little: set up outdoor "restaurants" with snacks, and ride our bicycles between each one. If I could place this kind of game in some sort of framework where lots of kids could use it (such as a website or application), it might help kids go outside and eat healthy snacks...two for one.

Still shuffling through some ideas, but I hope that in the next few weeks I come up with something exciting and concrete.

To the drawing board

As a thought experiment, I imagined I was in charge of designing a new, better information management system. How would I organize things? What would I include? What would I change? The way we handle information is crucial for how we learn, and perhaps a better system would help people retain information and learn new things more quickly.

My design specs:

After checking out some organizational tools, I considered their key elements that could inform my own design. If I were to construct a visual information system, it would have to include these features:

Large volume of information: It's important to include the flexibility of systems like Jira and EndNote, which can handle as much information as you care to throw at them. This is the Achilles' heel of MindMeister and Comapping. I would love to see a visual information system that could somehow include tons of bookmarks and links without becoming chaotic.

Icons / graphics: The plain interface of EndNote makes me yawn...I love the punchy visuals and colorful graphics, like the ones at 37signals (see image further above).

Visual layout / structure: Long lists and endless spreadsheets tend to make information blur together, and as the paper about visual mapping (Kim, first post) demonstrates, people learn more when they can organize in a more visual way.

Collapse / expand: I was pleased to see that the mind maps allow you to expand and collapse their information. This feature is useful in Jira as well. To keep from being overwhelmed by information, it would be nice to allow users to selectively view chunks of data at a time.

My sketches:

If I were to make the ideal visual organizing system, what would it look like? Here are some different ideas I was thinking about...

I'm not planning to make a fully-functional information system, but it's useful to think about what design principles make such tools easy to use. And actually, it would be nice to incorporate some of these elements into my presentation on Wednesday, to make the information more memorable for my audience.

Evaluating some new tools

I was pleased that we went over concept mapping in class, getting some practice with mind maps and checking out some new websites (comapping.com, mindmeister.com). I thought I'd look a bit deeper at these sources, along with some other information management websites that are starting to become popular in schools and workplaces. A few impressions:

37signals: Love the visual nature of this website, home of small-business solutions Backpack, Highrise, and other "make work easier" systems. 37signals has specific tools and interfaces for different types of data: people / important contacts have a system, tasks / projects have a system, and so on. I liked seeing all the different methods of handling information. Like 37signals, my ideal system would incorporate many different tools to allow for robust, versatile data management.

Jira: I used this task management system during my summer internship at Linden Lab. They've taken advantage of Jira to make an enormous task system, well-organized and indexable by identification number, title, category, or asignee. Jira can accommodate a massive amount of information (there must be thousands of tasks in Linden's development category alone). Scalability is very important, and I admire that Jira can be used by a single person wanting to store their daily to-do list, or by a large company like Linden trying to manage the entire realm of Second Life.

Comapping: I watched the introductory video and cruised through some sample maps from Comapping. Favorite feature: Comapping allows lots of file types, including pictures, links, and text. This would be very useful for an integrative system, rather than limiting someone to purely text. Main concern: the maps have a tendency to become unwieldy and confusing as they expand, which harms their scalability.

Google Wave: New collaborative conversation tool from Google. I watched a chunk of their long introductory presentation, which described the features of the new system, and ways it can encourage collaborative work. I like the simple interface and real-time updates, and I think the ability to allow multiple contributors could add a new, interesting dimension to the system I'm imagining.
MindMeister: We used this website in class to construct big idea webs. I love the concept of organizing ideas visually in space, instead of just a boring drop-down list. Like Comapping, however, MindMeister tends to generate large, confusing maps, and it's difficult to jump cleanly from one place to the other. I also found it limiting that these maps (as far as I can tell) only include text inputs.

Wikis / Blogs / Google Docs: I considered a handful of other websites that were designed for one purpose (like word processing or journaling) and can be appropriated for other purposes of information management: for example, someone might use Google Docs to store a list of important links, or start a blog with lists of key resources for a paper. These flexible websites allow for a wide variety of different uses, but it would be nice if I could develop something with more affordances for specific information needs, like bookmarks, sources, contacts, etc. I'm picturing the specific tools of 37signals with the versatility of Google Docs and the scalability of Jira (sound impossible yet?).

EndNote: I've been using this program to store resources for my honors thesis. Its design is barebones and simple: big spreadsheet-style assortment of items, organized by title, author, year of publication, etc. The program conveniently formats your sources for you, according to the formatting convention you choose. Perfect example of a program designed to handle one type of information. Now if only I could expand it to include other types of information (links, videos...) and present the information in a more appealing way.

Thoughts on Health Education

I've been browsing through articles and research papers in my search for a project topic. I'm starting to gravitate towards studies about psychological health, especially in children. When it comes to education, "underprivileged" refers to more than just socioeconomic disadvantage; learning disabilities, preexisting health conditions, psychological distress, and a host of other factors can impact a student's ability to learn. All else being equal, a student who struggles with a psychological disorder will have a more difficult time in the classroom than his healthy classmate. I'm curious whether web technology can be used to alleviate some of these differences, making education more accessible to the marginalized and underprivileged.

I was intrigued to see the article about web-based avian flu education. As it turns out, applying web technology to health initiatives (especially for children) is more complicated than I realized. How do you set up a post-test that accurately measures understanding? How do you measure attitude change? What about behavior change? If a study changes someone's knowledge and attitude, but doesn't change their behavior, was it successful? It was discouraging to see that no behavior changes were noticed after the avian flu study, but I wonder if we can still take advantage of the web's unique capabilities to make strides in children's health.

One of the valuable aspects of web technology is the sense of control people derive from using web applications. People use the web to organize their mail, communicate with friends, manage their tasks, and keep their lives in order. Web technology can instill a sense of self-agency, and if this feeling could be harnessed, it could have a noticeable impact on health. I've started some cursory readings about depression and stress, both obstacles that can take a toll on education, and it seems that self-efficacy has a profound effect on the degree to which people experience stress. In fact, a feeling of control can have a positive effect on a variety of chronic illnesses. So it seems that an important aspect in health is the ability to control what happens to your body, or at least to perceive that they can.

So web technology has perhaps a unique ability to shape health education. Adjusting a sense of control, and consequently adjusting stress and attitudes, can be particularly relevant with psychological conditions that impact learning, like ADHD, depression, mental illness, and certain learning disabilities. My next step is to keep investigating: one of my favorite parts about reading relevant research papers is that they almost always offer a whole new set of sources to check out. In the References section of the avian flu paper, I circled 19 sources to check out, some about health, some about web tech, some about the role of humor in education.

Which reminds me: I'm intrigued by the science of laughter and humor, and its possible role in health and learning. I think laughter is perhaps underutilized in education, and since I've always had an interest in cartoons and humor, it seems like an avenue I could explore further. So as these disparate factors are coming into focus -- child psychology, web technology, humor, and visual learning from last week -- I'm hoping a fruitful project will begin to come together.

Visual research

I've been thinking about our big challenge for the quarter: tackle an important educational need, and produce two digital artifacts to encapsulate what we learn and invent. I'm intrigued by this year's theme of developing web technology for the underprivileged, and I'm curious to see what kind of issues my classmates choose to address. I've been inspired by brainstorms from CS 147: Human-Computer Interaction, in which students are currently coming up with ideas for a mobile application. Seeing last year's 391X projects in class gave me an even broader sense of what kind of work can be done.

Here are a few topics I've been thinking over:

• Visual / kinesthetic education for kids with learning disabilities
• Attracting girls to math and science
• Health education and management for people with chronic illnesses
• Sensory therapy for childhood depression
• Encouraging young people to get more exercise to enhance cognition

So I want to do some reading about these issues and get a feel for what's out there. But here's my first obstacle: every time I undertake a new project, I find myself a bit daunted by the prospect of organizing all my resources, and I find the current organizational tools rather unsatisfactory. Truth be told, I've always wanted a more "visual" way to undertake research...so I was pleasantly surprised to find this article in the list of recommended Google Scholar documents:

Kim, P. and C. Olaciregui (2008). "The effects of a concept map-based information display in an electronic portfolio system on information processing and retention in a fifth-grade science class covering the Earth’s atmosphere " British Journal of Educational Technology 39(4): 700-714.


I'm fascinated by concept maps and visual representations, like the one used in the study (above), and I found this paper especially relevant as I'm embarking on a big information-based project. What if we could build concept maps for bookmarks and sources, and track our research efforts visually? I wish there were a better way to capture and display important materials, and so far I haven't been able to find one.

Personally, I've been floundering along with a Frankenstein's monster of organization systems: I have a collection of folders on my hard drive for pdfs and images, a pile of bookmarks in my browser, a text file with notes and "stuff to look up," an EndNote library for academic sources, and a half-finished Google doc with some of my favorite links. Basically, it's all scattered, and I wish there were a visually juicy way to pull it all together.

Most bookmarking systems follow the folder-based convention, essentially the same as the system used in the study's control group...which turned out to be less effective for learning than the visually rich alternative. Firefox claims to have the most advanced bookmark organizing tool, but it still follows the traditional nested-folder design (see image below), and it doesn't offer anything in terms of conceptual mapping. Delicious (bottom) is a cool concept, but visually boring and not as customizable as I would like.


Interestingly, the web offers a number of intriguing new "mind mapping" tools and diagram-building programs, such as MindJet and MindMeister pictured below.


But these mapping methods currently don't translate to bookmarks, which remain lackluster and rather old-school. It's something to think about. Maybe research needs a makeover...