- Jul 2022
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Local file Local file
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By the method of note-taking that I have described, it was practicableto sort out all our thousands of separate pieces of paper according toany, or successively according to all, of these categories or combinationof categories
The broad description of Beatrice Webb's note taking system sounds almost eerily like the idea behind edge notched cards, however in her case she was writing note in particular locations on cards in an effort to help her cause rather than putting physical punch holes into them.
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drive.google.com drive.google.com
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portability, thedisplays are getting ever smaller. Unfortunately,small displays force you to classify your notesimmediately you receive or generate them. The studysuggests that knowledge workers may beuncomfortable with these devices as note-takersexcept for non-prima~ aspects of their work such asnoting a telephone number, a diary date or a shortmessage for a colleague. In these cases, users canclassify the note’s subsequent use before they start towrite it. In contrast, if knowledge workers are usingsuch a notebook to jot down an idea they have justheard, they will be forced to classi~ the inherently“unclassifiable” and it is unlikely to inform themlater as it will have disappeared for ever into thebowels of the device. Maybe this is why the A4 pador notebook is an old-favourite of knowledge workerswhose functionality will be hard to match.
Kidd indicates that knowledge workers may prefer to take notes in physical notebooks because they're not forced to classify them immediately, but they can use their physical presence and location as a means of indicating that some sort of follow up is required. Comparing this to most digital notes which don't have this same sort of location, one is more worried that the computer filing them away will mean that they become lost almost instantaneously. Some notes like diary dates and phone numbers which may have very specific locations for noting them don't fall under these auspices, but other longer and more detailed notes certainly would.
A digital zettelkasten or commonplace may help to alleviate this as individual ideas are linked and indexed in multiple ways which make them easier to both find, use and expand upon.
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Unfortunately, many corporate software programsaim to level or standardise the differences betweenindividual workers. In supporting knowledgeworkers, we should be careful to provide tools whichenable diversification of individuals’ outputs.Word-processors satisfi this criterion; tools whichembed a model of a knowledge worker’s task in thesoftware do not.
Tools which allow for flexibility and creativity are better for knowledge workers than those which attempt to crystalize their tasks into ruts. This may tend to force the outputs in a programmatic way and thereby dramatically decrease the potential for innovative outputs. If the tools force the automation of thought without a concurrent increase in creativity then one may as well rely on manual labor for their thinking.
This may be one of the major flaws of tools for thought in the educational technology space. They often attempt to facilitate the delivery of education in an automated way which dramatically decreases the creativity of the students and the value of the overall outputs. While attempting to automate education may suit the needs of institutions which are delivering the education, particularly with respect to the overall cost of delivery, the automation itself is dramatically at odds with the desire to expand upon ideas and continue innovation for all participants involved. Students also require diverse modes of input (seen/heard) as well as internal processing followed by subsequent outputs (written/drawn/sculpted/painted, spoken/sung, movement/dance). Many teachers don't excel at providing all of these neurodiverse modes and most educational technology tools are even less flexible, thus requiring an even larger panoply of them (often not interoperable because of corporate siloing for competitive reasons) to provide reasonable replacements. Given their ultimate costs, providing a variety of these tools may only serve to increase the overall costs of delivering education or risk diminishing the overall quality. Educators and institutions not watching out for these traps will tend to serve only a small portion of their intended audiences, and even those may be served poorly as they only receive a limited variety of modalities of inputs and outputs. As an example Western cultures' overreliance on primary literacy modes is their Achilles' heel.
Tools for thought should actively attempt to increase the potential solution spaces available to their users, while later still allowing for focusing of attention. How can we better allow for the divergence of ideas and later convergence? Better, how might we allow for regular and repeated cycles of divergence and convergence? Advanced zettelkasten note taking techniques (which also allow for drawing, visual, auditory and other modalities beyond just basic literacy) seem to allow for this sort of practice over long periods of time, particularly when coupled with outputs which are then published for public consumption and divergence/convergence cycles by others.
This may also point out some of the stagnation allowed by social media whose primary modes is neither convergence nor divergence. While they allow for the transmission/communication portion, they primarily don't actively encourage their users to closely evaluate the transmitted ideas, internalize them, or ultimately expand upon them. Their primary mode is for maximizing on time of attention (including base emotions including excitement and fear) and the lowest levels of interaction and engagement (likes, retweets, short gut reaction commentary).
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danallosso.substack.com danallosso.substack.com
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I'm trying to get info OUT of my note-taking system. It's not as easy as I'd like it to be.
This is one of the biggest problems with any of the systems digital or analog. The workflows for this are all generally not great.
I'm actually trying some advice from Konrad Gessner from the 1500s today. I've printed out some of my digital notes about Tiago Forte's new book to arrange and organize them in an attempt to reuse all my writing and thinking about it into a review of the book. It'll probably take a bit as I've left them for a week or two, but I'm curious to see what the manual process looks like here in an effort to help make the digital portion potentially easier.
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www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
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How to write a thesis, by Umberto Eco. Eco is very heavily opinionated, in a brash and amusing way. Naturally, the writing is stellar. He also dedicates a lot of the book to the use of index cards for managing a bibliography, which was very pertinent at the time it was written. Even though the physical medium of index cards is no longer current and we are all busy fighting the Mendeley/Zotero/Endnote wars, there is still much to be learned from this book about effectively managing a bibliography.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GradSchool/comments/68n2ec/graduated_a_few_days_ago_so_heres_a_list_of_my/
Anecdotal evidence of someone who thinks that digital bibliography managers are better than older manual methods of bibliographical and note taking methods.
This may be the case if the management of bibliography is wholly divorced from note taking, but one still needs to integrate the two pieces at some point.
Is there evidence that people use bibliographic tools like Zotero, Endnote, Mendeley as bookmark tools for things they intend to read?
What affordances do these tools provide beyond pulling reference markers from an article and simply spitting out a fully formed and formatted bibliography?
Zotero has recently updated with version 6 to make pulling in annotations from pdf files into their bigger enterprise much easier, so perhaps it's a step back toward integrating the older zettelkasten-like methods of note taking?
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- Jun 2022
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www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
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surveys indicate that screens and e-readers interfere with two other important aspects of navigating texts: serendipity and a sense of control.
Based on surveys, readers indicate that two important parts of textual navigation are sense of control and serendipity.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Electronic_journal_literature.html?id=YSFlAAAAMAAJ
How does the control over a book frame how we read? What does "power over" a book look like compared to "power with"?
What are the tools for thought affordances that paper books provide over digital books and vice versa?
I find myself thinking about people publishing books in index card/zettelkasten formats. Perhaps Scott Scheper could do this with his antinet book presented in a linear format, but done in index cards with his numbers, links, etc. as well as his actual cards for his index so that readers could also see the power of the system by holding it in their hands and playing with it.
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Local file Local file
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Some digital notes apps allow you to displayonly the images saved in your notes, which is a powerful way ofactivating the more intuitive, visual parts of your brain.
Visual cues one can make in their notes and user interfaces that help to focus or center on these can be useful reminders for what appears in particular notes, especially if visual search is a possibility.
Is this the reason that Gyuri Lajos very frequently cuts and pastes images into his Hypothes.is notes?
Which note taking applications leverage this sort of visual mnemonic device? Evernote did certainly, but other text heavy tools like Obsidian, Logseq, and Roam Research don't. Most feed readers do this well leveraging either featured photos, photos in posts, or photos in OGP.
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Sometimes you know a project is coming and can startsaving things to a project folder in advance,
no mention of the affordances of being able to cross-link things or even transclude them from an original location (which works for one currently) to another useful location.
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- May 2022
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Local file Local file
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digital, we can supercharge these timelessbenefits with the incredible capabilities of technology—searching,sharing, backups, editing, linking, syncing between devices, andmany others
List of some affordance of digital note taking over handwriting: * search * sharing * backups (copies) * editing * linking (automatic?) * syncing to multiple spaces for ease of use
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There are four essential capabilities that we can rely on a SecondBrain to perform for us:1. Making our ideas concrete.2. Revealing new associations between ideas.3. Incubating our ideas over time.4. Sharpening our unique perspectives.
Does the system really do each of these? Writing things down for our future selves is the thing that makes ideas concrete, not the system itself. Most notebooks don't reveal new associations, we actively have to do that ourselves via memory or through active search and linking within the system itself. The system may help, but it doesn't automatically create associations nor reveal them. By keeping our ideas in one place they do incubate to some extent, but isn't the real incubation taking place in a diffuse way in our minds to come out later?
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threadreaderapp.com threadreaderapp.com
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Who can integrate bidi links into a larger system, expand in concentric circles, and take them to their logical conclusion — ubiquity across all information surfaces. ... Across Closed Worlds (Chat, Notes, Projects) to Open Worlds (Twitter, Blogs, Feeds) & everything in between The [[wiki link]] is just like #'s and @'s — public-domain innovations in hypertext. But just cause your social app has @'s and #'s doesn't mean people will use it.
This is a fine sentiment, but a networked version of wikilinks is bound to cause conflicts in folksonomies and issues with sourcing and verifiability. The potential for context collapse is potentially too great to have these scale for this type of knowledge production. One would need to have trusted groups to create usefulness. Search at scale for these is likely to be at issue as well.
Are the affordances beyond the local scale really any better than current web technologies? What about the potential effects on the commons?
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Local file Local file
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$L(#&$'&$+-41,[*$4'2'+18$081**)--C*Y$*+=4#&+*$=*#$+"#*#$+--8*$+-$8#1)&$"-H$+-$H)'+#Y$4)1HY$1&4$0180=81+#$-&$*"##+*$-.$919#)$+"1+Y$H"#&$08'99#4Y$*+198#4Y$-)$28=#4$+-2#+"#)Y$7#0-C#$1$&-+#7--@V
What are the differences in the affordances of handwritten notes versus digital notes? Worth making a complete list.
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- Jan 2022
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julian.digital julian.digital
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You could write down notes like this in a separate notebook, but then you’d lose the connection to the source they are based on. What makes post-it notes so interesting is the spatial relationship between the notes and their respective context.
Sticky notes or Post-It notes create a physical and spatial relationship between the note and its context. This same sort of relationship is recreated by taking notes in Hypothes.is which links the note or idea directly to the part of the web page or document which spurred it. Moving these notes into other platforms (Roam Research, Obsidian, etc.) can be done in a way so as to keep the physical link (using URLs) so that one can quickly and easily revisit the original context if necessary.
This affordance is an incredibly useful one which is generally neglected in the note taking space.
How often in practice is this done though?
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psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
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Benson-Greenwald, T., Trujillo, A., White, A., & Diekman, A. (2021). Science for Others or the Self? Presumed Motives for Science Shape Public Trust in Science. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/yjvbw
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- Jul 2021
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ayjay.org ayjay.org
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A technology whose affordances run contrary to your convictions can rob you of your independence — and any technology deployed on the scale of Canvas will inevitably do that.
One could insert many things here for Canvas.
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it’s never true to say that technologies are neutral and what matters is how you use them: every technology without exception has affordances, certain actions that it makes easy, and other actions that it makes difficult or impossible.
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URL
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- Feb 2021
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design-justice.pubpub.org design-justice.pubpub.org
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What is the relationship between design, power, and social justice? “Design justice” is an approach to design that is led by marginalized communities and that aims explicitly to challenge, rather than reproduce, structural inequalities. It has emerged from a growing community of designers in various fields who work closely with social movements and community-based organizations around the world.
Alles wat niet wordt gedisciplineerd en gestructureerd door natuurwetenschappelijke wetmatigheden hangt samen met de menselijke creativiteit en behoeften. Van de inrichting van steden tot de inrichting van de maatschappij hebben we te maken met het ontwerpactiviteiten. De relatie tussen die inrichting en het gedrag van gebruikers waarvoor die inrichting is bedoeld is een vrij complexe. Of zoals Churchill het eens (1943) verwoordde:
“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.”
Niet veel later (1967) werd een vergelijkbare uitspraak (ten onrechte) toegeschreven aan McLuhan:
"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us."
Degene die deze uitspraak deed, John Culkin, illusteerde dit aan de hand van de intrede van de auto
Once we have created a car, for example, our society evolves to make the car normal, and our behavior adapts to accommodate this new normal.
De wederkerige invloed (performativiteit) van al hetgeen de mens creëert (uiteenlopend van gebouwen en apparaten tot 'simme steden' en algoritmes) is een belangrijk om te begrijpen dat een ontwerp meer is dan kenmerk dat het gebruik bevorderd. Ontwerpkenmerken hebben blijkbaar wederkerig effect op het menselijk gedrag. Ze zetten niet alleen aan tot gedrag dat is bedoeld en wordt getriggerd door de affordances van het ontwerp: unieke relatie tussen de kenmerken van een ‘ding’ in samenhang met een gebruiker die beïnvloedt hoe dat ding wordt gebruikt. Een relatie die verder gaat dan een eenzijdige perception-action coupling.
Met betrekking tot sociale media kunnen we bijvoorbeeld spreken van 'transactional media effects':
"... outcomes of media use also influence media use. Transactional media-effects models consider media use and media effects as parts of a reciprocal over-time influence process, in which the media effect is also the cause of its change (Früh & Schönbach, 1982)."
Het gegeven dat ontwerpers vaak alleen de positieve ervaring van gebruikers voor ogen hebben is volgens Danah Abdulla niet constructief.
"...optimism in design is not always constructive. In fact, it hinders the politicization of designers. If design is going to contribute to tools that can change the world positively, it must begin to embrace pessimism."
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parsejournal.com parsejournal.comPARSE1
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To what extend does that what is perceived as human agency actually emerge from what is afforded by the ecologies in which humans operate?
key question here so far
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- Feb 2020
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link.springer.com link.springer.com
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Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) (Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014; Bruineberg and Rietveld 2014; Van Dijk and Rietveld 2017; Rietveld, Denys and van Westen forthcoming), a philosophical, ecological-enactive approach to understand the situated and affective embodied mind.
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- Mar 2019
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www.getmagicbox.com www.getmagicbox.com
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personalized mobile learning solutions to create effective learning paths This appears to blend personalized learning and mobile learning. It is prepared by a specific vendor, MagicBox, so they might be assumed to have their own agenda. This page describes some of the affordances of personalized mobile learning, such as the capacity to track and presumably respond to learner preferences. rating 2/5
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- Jan 2019
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wendynorris.com wendynorris.com
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Experimentation, the third affordance, refers to theuse of technology to encourage participants to try outnovel ideas.
Definition of experimentation.
Describes the use of comment/feedback boxes, ratings, polls, etc. to generate ideas for new coordination workflows, design ideas, workarounds, etc.
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Recombinability refers to forms of technology-enabled action where individual contributors build oneach others’ contributions.
Definition of recombinability.
Cites Lessig in describing recombinability "as both a technology design issue and a community governance principle" for reusing/remixing/recombining knowledge
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Reviewability refers to the enactment of technology-enabled new forms of working in which participantsare better able to view and manage the content offront and back narratives over time (West and Lakhani2008). By allowing participants to easily and collab-oratively review a range of ideas, technology-affordedreviewability helps the community respond to tensionsin disembodied ideas, because the reviews can provideimportant contextual information for building on others’ideas.
Definition of reviewability.
Faraj et al offer the example of Wikipedia edit log to track changes.
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Technology platforms used by OCs can providea number of affordances for knowledge collabora-tion, three of which we mention here: reviewability,recombinability, and experimentation. These affordancesevolve as new participants provide new ways to use thetechnologies, new social norms are developed around thetechnology affordances, and new needs for fresh affor-dances are identified.
Ways that technology affordances can influence/motivate change in social coordination practices.
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Given the fluid nature of OCsand their rapidly evolving technology platforms, and inline with calls to avoid dualistic thinking about tech-nology (Leonardi and Barley 2008, Markus and Silver2008, Orlikowski and Scott 2008), we suggest technol-ogy affordance as a generative response, one that viewstechnology, action, and roles as emergent, inseparable,and coevolving. Technology affordances offer a relationalperspective on human action, where neither the technol-ogy nor the actor is dominant in the sense that the tech-nology does not define what is possible for the actor todo, nor is the actor free from the limitations of the tech-nological environment. Instead, possibilities for actionemerge from the reciprocal interaction between actor andartifact (Gibson 1979, Zammuto et al. 2007). Thus, anaffordance perspective focuses on the organizing actionsthat are afforded by technology artifacts.
Interesting perspective on how technology affordances are a generative response to coordination tensions.
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- Oct 2018
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Across the technology industry, rank-and-file employees are demanding greater insight into how their companies are deploying the technology that they built. At Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce, as well as at tech start-ups, engineers and technologists are increasingly asking whether the products they are working on are being used for surveillance in places like China or for military projects in the United States or elsewhere.
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- Nov 2017
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www.educause.edu www.educause.edu
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"potentiality" (to graft a concept by Anton Chekov from a literary to a technical context). This is the idea that within the use of every technical tool there is more than just the consciousness of that tool, there is also the possibility to spark something beyond those predefined use
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- Jul 2015
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A bias is simply a leaning—a tendency to promote one set of behaviors over another. All media and all technologies have biases. It may be true that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”; but guns are a technology more biased to killing than, say, clock radios. Televisions are biased toward people sitting still in couches and watching. Automobiles are biased toward motion, individuality, and living in the suburbs. Oral culture is biased toward communicating in person, while written culture is biased toward communication that doesn’t happen between people in the same time and place. Film photography and its expensive processes were biased toward scarcity, while digital photography is biased toward immediate and widespread distribution.
Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age, Douglas Rushkoff
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