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...