Visual literacy

An IT work colleague put me onto the Visual Literacy e-learning programme. The site focuses on the ability (a critical one I would suggest) of creating, evaluating and applying conceptual visual representations. The challenge of visualizing knowledge for successful communication is one we grapple with on a daily basis.

If you log-in as a Guest, you can check out some demo tutorials and, in the Maps section, you can find a great resource – A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods – which you can download here. What’s great about this Table is the breakdown into categories of visualization methods: Data Visualization; Information Visualization; Concept Visualization; Strategy Visualization; Metaphor Visualization; and Compound Visualization.

So under Metaphor Visualization, for example, you’ll find a Story Template, Iceberg, Heaven ‘n’ Hell Chart; under Compound Visualization, you’ll find a Knowledge Map, a Rich Picture, a Learning Map etc. It’s really fascinating stuff – Information Lense, Semantic Networks, Soft System Modeling, Evocative Knowledge Map – they’re all there; just place your mouse over whatever you’re interested in and enjoy!