Human society has created extraordinarily diverse media for creating and sharing information. While text-based systems have had exceptional influence, this course is devoted to exploring the value of a diverse range of non-textual visualizations of concepts, models, and knowledge for the purposes of learning.
Visualization has been defined as "the use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of data to amplify cognition," but we will also examine how non-computational visualizations may support cognitive and communicative processes. What are some of the distinctive cognitive and social advantages of visual representations for learning? How are new computational systems for visualization transforming inquiry and communications in science, mathematics and other knowledge domains? What new forms of visual literacies and representational practices are emerging and what do we know about their challenges for learners? As an attentional-focusing medium, what roles can digital video play in helping people "learn to see" how specific disciplines make sense of social and physical phenomena?
We will consider theory and research literature encompassing visualizations such as 2-D images and 3-D models, diagrams, geo-gridded visualizations in science and social science, temporal visualizations such as animations and video, concept maps, tree-maps, and matrices. Subject areas for our consideration will span various sciences, mathematics, medicine, architecture, history, psychology, and teacher education. This course should be of interest for learning theorists, designers of instructional and interactive learning environments, and those concerned more broadly with augmenting human capabilities with information technologies.
Our work together will involve critical discussions of key readings on theory and research in visualization, and demonstrations and explorations of information visualization environments and tools useful for learning. We will also use DIVER -- a "point-of-view authoring" tool we have developed at Stanford for creating DIVEs into media such as video (and other forms of visualization). DIVER provides a new medium for media annotation and analysis, and DIVEs can be shared and commented on using the WebDIVER website.
No special expertise in videorecording or digital video software tools is expected. Students will be coached in support of their preparation of a final video paper using the DIVER software.
After the first two orienting weeks, student groups will provide a series of short presentations and interactive activities that engage the core ideas of the readings, and create DIVEs on videos that they will create of uses of visualizations and interactive visualization systems. Students will also prepare an integrative final "video paper" using DIVER that is due the final day of class, and an interactive presentation of their final paper work using DIVER in one of the final class sessions.
Assessment will be on the basis of classroom contributions, student group presentations, your final presentation, and your final DIVER video paper. It will be possible to establish student teams to work collaboratively in creating the final presentation and paper. Required books are listed below; for more details, please visit the schedule page.
Class Meets: most Thursdays 9-11:50am, in Wallenberg Hall, Rm. 127.
3 Units.
Required Course Materials:
- Course Reader, comprised of selected preprints and articles, available for purchase the first day of class or ordered from Copy Source, (650) 968-6351, located at the intersection of Alma St. and Rengstroff in Mountain View.
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Please purchase the following book from the Stanford Bookstore or Amazon.com, and read the assigned chapters by classtime, if at all possible. The book is also on reserve in Cubberley Library.
