Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design from the Tactical Technology Collective a free eBook published by Tactical Tech, an international NGO working at the intersection of advocacy and technology. Although the eBook is aimed towards non-profit advocacy, but it’s a good read for all information designer and learning experience designer. 

An Introduction to Information Design is a manual aimed at helping NGOs and advocates strengthen their campaigns and projects through communicating vital information with greater impact. This project aims to raise awareness, introduce concepts, and promote good practice in information design – a powerful tool for advocacy, outreach, research, organization and education.

Found via a Tweet post of Beth Kanter

Although I am little late on this, already lots of (unnecessary) talks floating around, but I have to mention : James and Lorelle VanFossen  launched a neatly designed, usable magazine for the edublogging community : "Edublogs Magazine".

The Edublogs Magazine features articles and posts by edubloggers from around the world and aims to provide news, views, information, ideas, help and stimulation for all those working with or studying education and technology.

Currently, the Edublogs Magazine feature the following post categories on:

• Edublogs News features the news, information, and resources found around the Edublogs community of bloggers.
• Blogging Students covers examples and interviews of students using blogs to communicate, learn, teach, fundraising, and more.
• Blogging Teachers will showcase teachers using blogs and online technologies in their classrooms and life, having their say about the state of education.
• Online Education looks at the industry and technology of online education and distance learning, bringing the classroom directly to the student.
• Pedablogy is about the arts and sciences of teaching blogging and blog technology.
• Professional Development covers training programs, workshops, conferences, special events, and news about professional education development.
• Teaching Technologies offers articles on how on teaching technologies, how to teach, how to teach specific subjects, and products and services that may improve teaching techniques and skills.
• Blogging Tips offers tips, tricks, and techniques on blogging, invaluable to the blogger or the teacher teaching blogging and web technologies.
• Multimedia covers integrating modern multimedia technologies into blogs, websites, classrooms – all aspects from podcasting to moblogging.

Exploratree (a project by Enquiring Minds is a three-year research and development program which is run by Futurelab and funded by Microsoft) offers an impressive selection of free visual thinking tool, guides and framework.

It is a free web based tool where you can download, use and make your own interactive thinking guides. Thinking guides can support independent and group research projects with frameworks for thinking, planning and enquiry. We’ve provided a set of ready-made guides which you can print out or use online. All of the guides are completely customizable or you can start from scratch and make your own! You can share them and work on them in groups too.

Exploratree’s library of visual ideation tools includes some well recognized idea-generation techniques, such as SCAMPER and Lotus Blossom, as well as tools for evaluating ideas like PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) and Thinking Boxes (considering things from different perspectives).

Found Via The Mind Mapping Software Weblog

I know I am very late on this, but I just finished reading the book and so fascinated that I can’t miss the opportunity to mention it here.

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger

If you fancy a ride, going beyond  hundred years old concept of categorization, putting things into boxes – folders or metadata, beyond taxonomy and stepping into the world where no attribute of a ‘thing’ and whoever defines that get left behind, you will love this book.

Apart from the well reasoned argument for folksonomy and tagging, another point that enthralled me in the book, is the very concept of metadata itself. When we step outside the preconceived definition of metadata, where it is separate from the data itself, and look at it under a different light – ‘whatever we search  the data with’ (it might be the fragment of the data itself), a whole different world of possibilities opens up. A must read.

Everything Is Miscellaneous Blog | Feed
Read the 1st Chapter

Video : David Weinberger’s talk at Google on Everything is Miscellaneous

Excerpt:

Human beings are information omnivores: we are constantly collecting, labeling, and organizing data. But today, the shift from the physical to the digital is mixing, burning, and ripping our lives apart. In the past, everything had its one place–the physical world demanded it–but now everything has its places: multiple categories, multiple shelves. Simply put, everything is suddenly miscellaneous.

In Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger charts the new principles of digital order that are remaking business, education, politics, science, and culture. In his rollicking tour of the rise of the miscellaneous, he examines why the Dewey decimal system is stretched to the breaking point, how Rand McNally decides what information not to include in a physical map (and why Google Earth is winning that battle), how Staples stores emulate online shopping to increase sales, why your children’s teachers will stop having them memorize facts, and how the shift to digital music stands as the model for the future in virtually every industry. Finally, he shows how by "going miscellaneous," anyone can reap rewards from the deluge of information in modern work and life.

From A to Z, Everything Is Miscellaneous will completely reshape the way you think–and what you know–about the world.

For Internet based research work (and play) I use a simple workflow. I use de.icio.us for saving a link with minimal personal context and Google Notes, when I am collecting information from different sources and adding notes and comments to them for further use (Blog or Work). Zotero, the free and open source  Firefox extension takes it to a sophisticated height.  Developed by Center for History and New Media at George Mason University Zotero helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways.

You can capture full web pages, PDF or images; categorize and tag them, take notes and make comments and search your source collection, all from the comfort zone of your browser. For heavy duty research work, a must try.

Download Zotero | Screencast Tours