In watching the Semantic Web video by katy ray, I had a flash of meta-cognition. The video was playing, and I was talking notes. The clips were organized a certain way, but I also wanted to learn about the people who were speaking in the clips (David Weinberger, Clay Shirky, Tim Berners-Lee). I had a pad of paper and a pencil, as I always do. I started with linear, outline-style notes, as I always do. But I began putting snippets of info up near the person’s name instead of in order.
As the video continued, talking about how there’s too much information, I worked on reducing the information from the video into a form I could more easily access later. In one place, I put the sources of images being shown on the right-hand side, like a column. In another, I used brackets to indicate an author (Jason Lanier) whose ideas dovetailed with the speaker in the clip (Clay Shirky), especially because these two don’t, in my understanding, usually agree. At the same time, I was noting the style of the video itself (that words filled the screen to express information overload, for example).
Paper and pencil was the only way I could efficiently do this while I watched. It was, as would be supported by Rick Schwier‘s presentation last night, the right technology for the job. Or at least, the right technology for the job if the job was being done by me.
What about the content of the video? That’s not only on the paper, but the paper expresses some of the ideas in the video about the Semantic Web, that the links between the information have their own meaning, and that corraling this meaning is its own task.
Hi Lisa. Are you a mac or PC kinda person? There are plenty of digital notetaking programs/services. One of the most popular, I think, is Evernote. It allows you to “capture anything, anywhere” by working on your computer or your smartphone. If you’re a PC-type person, Microsoft’s best product that very few people know about is OneNote. It’s a powerful digital notebook that allows you to incorporate screen clippings, audio, video and, if you’re on a tablet, digital pen input. Either example helps you to create links within your notes and allows you to search your notebooks rather than leafing through pages and pages of notes.
Would be interesting to break out of the linear/vertical note-taking format, especially given the flood of info and unexpected connections. The designers I work with free-connect ideas by simply sketching connections in a very visual way, much like the spider-web note-taking constructs that many kids are taught in school. Seems that seeing note-taking in phases, first being free-form in a big web, then drilling down into an intentional list after brushing away the looser pieces.
Thank you, Christian, for the reminder about brainstorming maps. I should have students use that also in a more directed way for notetaking.
Indeed. Always a nice blend when you create a free-flow + intentional balance of brainstorming and idea-gathering.
Hi Lisa,
I enjoy you posts, they are educative and well organized (something I have to work on…)
Here is very good example of organizing data creatively and practically:
David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization.
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html
Thanks, both for the compliment and the link!