EDUC61711 Digital, Media and Information LiteracyWeek 2: Information Landscapes, and an introduction to

mapping them

Note: there is no audio file embedded in this presentation.

The nature of information

• Information is real. It has real effects upon the world.

• But it is intangible. Although encoded into a variety of resources (see later), information is, in itself, non-physical.

This intangibility is what gives information its rapid speed of movement; in the digital/satellite era, it can move more-or-less instantly around the world.

But we also lack the right lang-uage to talk about the structures and effects of intangibles, tendingas a result to resort to metaphor.

Three metaphors…

Three metaphors are presented in the week 2 materials,all useful for thinking about information and its effects.

Information…..

landscapes[discussed in the remainderof this presentation]

[discussed in the YouTube video and the activity]

overload

obesity

Landscapes……display enormous diversity…

Clockwise from top left: Ullswater; Morecambe Bay; Sydney; the RiverWharfe, Yorkshire

…even though all have the same basicingredients (water, rock, life)

There are particular types of landscape: the previousslide showed mountain, coastal, urban and lowland/woodland landscapes. There are others (e.g. deserts).

Nevertheless each landscapeis essentially unique, evenwithin the types.

The Lake District (left)…

…looks quite different from theBlue Mountains of Australia, even though both are ‘mountainlandscapes’

Landscapes do not just appear, they are formed, as the result of small-scale changes and pressures iterated over many thousandsof years.

The nature of these formations can be ‘read’ in a landscape, if one knows what to look for. For example…

This is Finse, Norway. Approx 18,000 yearsago the whole of that country would havebeen covered in ice caps resembling this.

As the glaciers retreated, the valleysthey had carved in the landscape were filled by the sea, resulting in Norway’s famous fjords (this is Lysefjord).

The existence of fjords is therefore evidenceof prior glacial action on a landscape.

Human activity clearly has a significant influence on landscapes…

…both for good and bad. Landscapes can be damaged, but also nurtured, sustained and managed by careful attention to them over a long period.

On the other hand, landscapes also shape human activity, often at quite profound levels. There are many examples of this but to name just a couple…

Most large cities originally grew aroundsome kind of strategic point in the land-scape — e.g. a river crossing, or a fortifiablehill (as with Edinburgh, pictured here)

Isolated and relatively inaccessiblelandscapes are less likely to have developed industrially — but nowadays will also attract tourism;places like the Lake District are thussubject to special regulations intendedto curb industrial development

And ‘information landscapes’?This term was used by Annemaree Lloyd as the title of her book (2010).It is a good metaphor because the things mentioned so far about(geographical) landscapes can be seen as applying to information as well.

Information landscapes are formed — the collective result of practices that take place in organisations and communities

The ‘ingredients’ of information landscapes include printed texts (e.g. books, newspapers), online resources (web sites, social media), and also knowledge that is inside the minds of friends, colleagues, teachers, etc.

Yet as with geographical landscapes, these ingredients appear in many different forms and configurations.

General types of landscape exist. forexample, one university lookssomewhat like every other (and I meanhere not just the physical appearance ofthe campus, though that is part of it)….

…but not identical. These three institutions (Manchester, Alabama, Bergen) may value and handle information in similar ways —but they nevertheless play host to differingpractices, systems and cultures.

And a university structures, values and presents informationin quite different ways from other educational institutions(like schools), which in turn differ from informal educationalsettings (like a football club). And so on.

Linking back to what we talked about last week — eachlandscape may exhibit cognitive authority differently.

Information landscapes can be nurtured and managed in healthyand sustainable ways, or they can be damaged by lack of careand attention.

They can also be ‘read’ if one knows what to look for — allowingone to see the trends and activities which have shaped the information landscape over time.

These are complex ideas… and time is short!

Let’s move on for now. But keepthese important ideas in mind ifyou can.

Mapping landscapesMapping has a long history as a method by which humanity hasdeveloped and represented its knowledge of landscapes.

The first maps date from prehistory. This is the ‘Hereford Mappa Mundi’, a medieval map of the world which resides in Hereford Cathedral, UK.

Jerusalem is at the centre*, with the British Isles to bottom left, on the edge.

* What this kind of thing says about the political implications of mapping is important, but wewill come back to it later.

As mapping and surveying techniques have improved over timewe can now make very precise and finely-detailed maps of theworld.

The UK Ordnance Survey maps are exceptionally good. There isa huge amount of information embedded onto a map like this, as there is on other map types (e.g. Google Maps).

The map and the photograph are both two-dimensional representationsof the same geographical space (Wast Water, Cumbria, UK); but themap has a lot more information on it than the photograph.

Note, though, that a map must be selective in what information it displays.This map is great if one wants to do a walk in Wasdale (which is what theblue line represents, by the way)…

…but not for telling you what isten centimetres beneath your feet, inother words, geology.

For that you need a map like this one(same place, albeit a smaller scale).

Maps, in short, are one way of summarisingthe information that is known about a landscape.

They can serve to communicate thatinformation to others.

They can also be used tosuggest routes of explorationthrough a landscape, evenif one has never been there.

This is a map of Kilimanjaroin Tanzania. One can imme-diately tell a great deal aboutthis landscape just from themap, and plan routes ofascent up the mountain —should one be so inclined*.

* I’m going up in June or July 2015.

Mapping the intangible…Not only is it possible to map informationlandscapes in much the same way… Wein fact do this all the time.

This is a map of an organisation.

In the same way as geographical maps(although we have not really exploredthis yet), it uses certain conventions(e.g. boss at the top, instead of north atthe top), emphasises certain properties,can be used for navigation, etc.

Informally we may use all sorts of methods to ‘map’ information,helping us to bring together different ideas, organise our activity, remember key points, etc.

I saw this ‘timeline’ doodle on a colleague’s desk last year. It is agood example — but, of course, a very personal one.

Even something like a short ‘to-do list’ is a basic map. It selectsinformation from a broader landscape and highlights it, in orderto help the user ‘navigate’ their way through the tasks.

Concept and mind mapsA more formal approach to mapping information landscapes.The two terms (concept mapping, mind mapping) are claimed bydifferent academic ‘camps’, but basically they are the same thing.

[This map was created by a MA: DTCE student in 2014, using thesoftware Mindmeister. The red box in the centre defines the topic ofthe map.]

Concept maps have many possible applications in helping assesscognition — that is, what someone knows.

Achieving knowledge of one’s own knowledge is called metacognition— in effect, a posh word for ‘study skills’…

References and further reading onconcept maps will be found on Black-board. You will need to look at thisin order to complete the week 3 jointDMIL/ETC activity.

Individuals can use it to organise their thoughts on a topic.

Or a group (as pictured here) cancollectively work on mapping a landscape, sharing different per-spectives on problems, resources, etc.

Concept mapping and information literacy

• The effective use of information is made more likely if the user can make connections between what they hear or read, and what is already in their mind.

• Concept mapping can help reveal connections between resources in the landscape.

• What resources are accessible? What might be more useful, but less accessible? What are the gaps in knowledge and, thus, what are possible information needs?

[NOTE: this can actually lead to blockson learning, as if the information is verychallenging it might be rejected. But wewill talk more about that next week (week 3)

Conclusion

• Hopefully this presentation has given you a sense of the potential richness of the ‘information landscape’ idea.

• There is a chapter from Lloyd (2010) on Blackboard which is guided reading…

• … and in week 3 (ETC) you will get some practical experience with mapping your own information landscapes.

• Look also at the other (YouTube) presentation and the short activity which consider ‘information overload and information obesity’.