Donald Norman: Things that make us smart…

Donald Norman is ’smart’ about human-centered design as opposed to machine-centered design- which is what drives most technology development. This is a pretty good way to orient one’s understanding of the application/adaptation of technology to educational settings. Technology should “serve us”, as he puts it. And not the other way around.

Norman is concerned about the design of technologies to make us “smarter”, then and writes at length about his understanding of cognition and learning. He makes an essential distinction between reflective (rational, logical, deductive, scientific, paradigmatic) cognition and experiential (reactive, sensory-based, situated, and also refers to Bruner’s narrative mode of thinking) cognition. HOWEVER, Norman is arguing against the experiential (unlike Bruner) and for the reflective.

But this is a somewhat gross and not cleanly cut distinction that simplifies the experiential to something that I don’t think Bruner would agree with. I think, Norman is taking a reductively information-processing (cognitivist) view of cognition. Accordingly, he sees the experiential as an order of simple information processing, and the reflective as a more complex processing schema (a kind of cognitive flexibility model). Quote: “In the terms of cognitive science, reflective cognition is conceptually driven, top-down processing” (pg. 25).

To be fair, Norman is also critiquing this distinction, and argues that “much of our technology seems to force us toward one extreme or the other. With proper artifacts, we can enhance each mode”(pg. 26).

Norman is arguing for using technology to build integrated and transparent tools that aid the appropriate kinds of cognition, so that the benefits of experiential are coordinated with the benefits and necessity for reflective cognition. The worst case, and one that Norman thinks much technological artifacts have come down to, is exploiting the experiential mode at the expense of the reflective. Seductive engagement, i.e. entertainment without any learning.

Norman talks about 3 phases or types of learning too, that move from an accretion or information “accretion”, to “tuning” or the stage of practice with coaching and expert reflection, to the level of “restructuring” which sounds something like Piaget’s accommodation stage. But he also brings in here the point about Motivation and the Optimal Flow state (Csikszentmihalyi). Norman is somewhat equating the state of optimal flow to optimal learning, where reflection and experiential cognition work seamlessly.

Informal learning settings are so far where one can find optimal flow states of learning- whether in the best, interactive and meaningful science exhibits, or while engaged in game-play. The point is to try to design multimedia tools that can facilitate successful learning- by creating the conditions for the coordination of experiential and reflective cognition, the 3 stages of learning and optimal flow.

My comments so far: useful analysis of the problem of “machine-centered design”, but a reductive in his view of cognition.

Do we think in “pictures”?… Zenon Pylyshyn argues for the spatial perception of mental images

Pylyshyn asks why there is a renewed interest in a pictorial theory of mental images when the research in neuroscience doesn’t bear this out? Conversationally, figuratively, we talk about mental images in their visual, pictorial sense. But are the brain’s cognitive processes neurologically mimetic in this way? Some scientists do go so far as to propose that there are pictorial correlates to our mental images that get projected in parts of the brain.

Rather, Pylyshyn argues for a “spatial” understanding of mental images. Even taking an external image, something that we perceive with our eyes, the image is cognized as a series of relationships- figure to ground, location in an environment, relationship to other objects in the environment. And the spatial orientation of the image is not a superimposed code (a spatial code) that helps us understand the image, the spatial relationships are part of the process of cognizing the image. The same goes for a mental image (an internal image) that manifests in the “mind’s eye” in a pictorial form, that our spatial understanding that underpins the image is not a superimposed code. Thus we seem to cognize mental images “spatially”- that the images are perceived and oriented through sensorimotor modalities- proprioception, audition (hearing), etc.

EXACTLY!!! This is why I think it’s important to expand learning out of two-dimensional surfaces and into three-dimensional environments. Cognition, or learning happens best when it is somehow intimately linked to sensori-motor experience. Pylyshyn also writes that this is why “visual neglect is sometimes accompanied by imaginal neglect, as there is reason to believe that neglect involves a failure to orient attention in real space” (117). Pylyshyn also cites Noe & Regan’s research on cognition that also takes the same position arguing for a sensorimotor account for experience.

Pylyshyn, Z. (2003). Return of the mental image: are there really pictures in the brain? TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, Vol. 7:3, 113-117.

Articles on “Information Design” and “Representation”

Horn, R. (1999). Information Design. In Jacobsen, R. (Ed.), Information Design, pp. 15–33. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Main Ideas:
• Horn argues for an understanding of information design as the (both) art and science of preparing information “so that it can be used by human beings with efficiency and effectiveness”
• Information design is necessary for both efficiently and effectively navigating 2-D and 3-D information spaces (3-D including the design of interactions with equipment, and through physical space).
• The profession of information design is located and finds its history across a wide variety of fields of practice and research, but the predominant research foundation for modern information design is in cognitive science.
• Because of this diversity of practice and research orientation, there are many tensions in the field: especially between graphic designers and technical communicators, and the professionals and amateurs.
• Horn is arguing for “the emergence of a new visual language” which the field of information design is developing- which communicates through a tighter coupling of words and images.
Comments/Notes:
Horn discusses the notions of “efficiency and effectiveness” as the “values” of an information designer- and I wonder if the gap between an information designer and information design for instruction is here in how “effectiveness” is defined. For an educational setting, the information design has to effect learning outcomes, and this may involve a whole other set of considerations than an information designer would take in a commercial (advertising oriented) setting- such as considerations of transfer and retention…? Or maybe not. Consider further.

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Hall, S. (1997). Representation, meaning, and language. In S. Hall (Ed.), Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, pp. 15–30. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Main Ideas:
• The concept of “representation” is analyzed and presented here through a Saussurian (language is socially produced, semiotics) constructionist approach.
• Representation is defined as the premiere conceptual activity that humans engage in to communicate and make sense (meaning) of experience.
• Representation/meaning is constructed over language and operates through a process whereby a set of concepts are organized, arranged, related in specific ways- hence, into a “system of representation”.
• Two systems of representation are distinguished here, internal and external- or the internal mental representations we figuratively hold and manipulate in our minds, and the external or material manifestations of language through words, images, objects, sounds, movements i.e., “signs”.
• All signs are not the things themselves, however, and thus need to be interpreted by a “code” which prescribes the relationship between the sign and the signified.
• Shared codes constitute a culture and become internalized but also subject to change.
• The relationship between the sign and the concept is thus arbitrary (Saussure identifies the sign as composed of the signifier (form) and the signified (the concept)).
• What constitutes the “meaning” is thus not the form of the sign (reflective approach to representation), nor the intended (intentional approach to representation) concept attached to the sign, but the relationship between signs or the coded “differences”.
• Meaning-making is thus an ACTIVITY which involves INTERPRETATION, or actively reading the differences.
Comments:
If information design is about facilitating the “reading” of information, this understanding of representation argues for a more sensitive practice of information design that acknowledges the variance in how different people will “read” the same set of signs (text, images, as well as spatial configurations, sounds, etc.)

Article on a “Living Systems Design Model”

Plass, J.L., & Salisbury, M.W. (2002). A living systems design model for web-based knowledge management systems. Educational Technology Research & Development, 50, 35-58.Main ideas:

• In the more recent history of instructional design, attempts to dynamically generate the design of computer-based instruction (through instructional systems design (ISD) approaches, through iterative prototyping, user input, and constructivist approaches), the resulting instructional designs were static once developed & couldn’t accommodate changes in needs and requirements over the lifetime of their use. Designing a knowledge management system (KM) poses such a challenge.

• There are 2 levels of change that need to be addressed in developing a KM: change that happens over time at the level of the organization (changing users, forms, methods, etc.) and change that happens as an effect of the interactions of users (the organization) with the system. This latter kind of dynamic coupling resembles the emergent processes of living systems (Maturana & Varela).

• Autopoeisis theory- defines living systems as “closed” in that they have all the components for self-reproduction, but they are also “open” to the input and accommodation of new data in the environment.

• A living systems (LS) approach for designing a KM system views the system as a living & adapting organism (autopoetic).

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• The LS approach develops a design model through various phases to accommodate change at different levels of the system, predominantly with mechanisms of continuous assessment and evaluation.

• The basic design models itself on a “digital nervous system” functionality where input into the system is assessed and reassessed and modifications to the system are made accordingly.

• End of article discusses some potential issues for further research and discussion- such as the challenge posed to the apposite development of the system by relying on user contributions to the knowledge base and their willingness/degree of motivation to share knowledge.

Comments:

A broad but dense sweep over the ground of designing an instructional system that evolves over time to allow the optimal functioning of an organization/organism…

I’m very interested in systems theory, and the work of Varela (of Maturana and Varela, 1980) in particular. Varela has written about an “enactivist” view of cognition, or “embodied cognition” which I think may have much relevance for educational design…

Question: While I’m very intrigued by this application of autopoetic systems theory, and though it seems accurate to characterize both a KM system and biological system as autopoetic (based on how much I understand of the theory), I wonder if every level of organization between the two systems correspond? Is there a degree of intentionality, for example, in the production of the KM system (by the designers, by the users who are motivated or not to share knowledge (as mentioned in the end discussion) ) that makes the development or self-organization of a KM system different than a biological system?

Information Architecture (I)- Video Representations for Education

Article Questions Representational Practice of Using Video in/for Educational Research

Goldman, R. (2007). Video Representation and the Perspectivity Framework: Epistemology, Ethnography, Evaluation, and Ethics.

This is the introductory chapter to the book, Video Research in the Learning Sciences.

• Summary: this chapter reflects upon and raises questions about using video technology as a tool for creating representations about and with others in the process of research on learning.
• Epistemological background & orientation: In the field of education as well as anthropology, it is no longer possible to presume to transparently represent the “other”, whether in writing about, educating directly, or designing for others. The contemporary movement in education as well as anthropology is towards acknowledging this “crisis of representation” and also towards a conception of knowledge as local, situated, and socially constructed.

Ricki is arguing then for self-reflexivity, practices of awareness around one’s own and others perspectives. New technologies seem to make this kind of observation more possible and also more complex.
This introduction then goes on to examine the questions that arise in using video technology in the research process. One question that has bearing on interaction design concerns the affordances of video technology, and whether it has specific benefits or poses problems when deployed in the context/setting of research. Another important question for information/interaction design concerns an awareness of the representations that we are making (designing)- what ideas and beliefs (our ethical stances) do they reflect, how will they be interpreted by various others?
Comments:
Any practices we engage in as researchers, educators, designers are essentially practices of representation. Representation-making is not a neutral or transparent practice. In thinking about information or interaction design for education, what results in more “effective” (and thus “good”) design, may have to be based in considering these kinds of questions and reflexivity about ourselves and our actions in relation to others.