GENERAL REFERENCE

Search Engines: Google -  WolframAlpha -  Powerset Search Tool -  News: Arts&Letters  -  CEO Express -  Reference: Dictionary -  WordNet® -  Wikipedia -  Library -  CIA World Factbook -  Humanities & Social Science Journals -  Maps -  File Conversion -  Language Translation -  Books -  U.S. Government -  Look Up: Zip Codes -  Postal Rates -  Area Codes I - Area Codes II -  Telephone Numbers -  People -  Health: Health -  Mayo Clinic/Fitness -  Harvard/Nutrition -  Nutrition and Diet Tools -  Pritikin Healthy Kids Guide -  Calendar -  Weather -  Time -  Entertainment: Songs -  Movies Imdb -  Free Movies -  YouTube -  Travel: Traffic -  Travel Planning -  Flight Status -  Airport Delays

FREE WEB DESIGN TOOLS

Google Interactive Charts (Visualization API) - 
CSS Tutorials -  Developing an iPhone App -  Lightbox PopUp Windows - Nettuts Spoonfed Web Skills - Video on the Web -  Pattern Browser - DimDim Webcasting - MOODLE Course Mgmt Software -WINK Tutorial Software - Pixorial Film Editing - Google Visualization API - Color Selector -  Cube - Wheel - Visibone Palette - Color Blind Palettes - Your Site as seen by the Color Blind  Colors As Seen by the Color Blind  

CONTENT-RICH PODCASTS/COURSEWARE

TED: Technology, Entertainment & Design
MIT: OpenCourseWare - Lecture Browser - MIT World - Long Now Fdtn - University Channels - NPR
Harvard: IIC:Initiative in Innovative Computing
eLearning: Tech, Business, & Design
Business Intelligence: B-Eye Network
Languages: Live Mocha

GREENSPACE

Mother Earth News - TreeHugger: How To Go Green - Sierra Green Building Resources - 
Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Lessons on Beauty in Nature:The Botany of Desire

Sunflower by Renata Scafuro, Bergamo, Italy

The simple beauty of a sunflower belies the sophisticated swirling pattern in the arrangement
of its petals. For additional photos and information on Self-Organization in Biological Systems, see Patterns in Nature by Scott Camazine. Looking for Botanical Resource Links? See the Herbarium of Louisiana State University

Visualization Software: Mapping Tools in Overview

Map of Major Contributors to Visual Literacy Field

GRAPHIC GEMS
 - Design and the Elastic Mind  - US Budget Chart
 - York Univ. Gallery of Data Visualization
 - Death and Taxes, 2010

Visible Human Project

  -Placing History: Introducing geographic information systems in the context of current humanities research

 
 Universal Leonardo
  -Picasso web site
  -Benjamin Edwards
- Julie Mehretu

VISUAL ANALYTICS

Biological evolution gave Homo sapiens a relatively large brain. Evolution in communication methods and technology enhanced our ability to store and analyze information. But paradigm shifts can confer and rescind advantages based on the way in which individuals process information. The shift in emphasis from

... spoken to written word - disadvantaged those deemed dyslexic as well as the blind; for the latter, Braille and speech recognition software provided some redress.

... printed word to digital data - created a new divide, computer literacy; however, graphic user interfaces helped re-level the playing field

... data to their inherent patterns - raised the premium on visual literacy, the ability to perceive and analyze patterns. Anecdotal evidence (see Negroponte and West below) suggests some people whose brain structure places them at a disadvantage in terms of reading may be better wired for visualization. For the rest there is "visual analytics, a contemporary and proven approach to combine the art of human intuition and the science of mathematical deduction to directly perceive patterns and derive knowledge and insight from them." Pak Chung Wong and Jim Thomas, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The tool set for 21st Century Skills now includes Visual Literacy, "the ability to interpret, use, appreciate, and create images and video using both conventional and 21st century media in ways that advance thinking, decision making, communication, and learning." North Central Regional Educational Laboratory® (NCREL)

SYMPOSIUM

IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology (IEEE VAST) -- the premier forum for data and information visualization advances for academia, government, and industry was held in October 2008. Many of the presentations can be found on IEEE's Visualization and Graphics Community site or visit the VisWeek 2008 or VisWeek2009 websites for complete program listing. Watch for information on VisWeek 2010 to be held October 24 - 29, 2010, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

RESOURCES

Overview

Three Special Events in the History of Technology
for Creating, Organizing, and Sharing Information
by C. Sidney Burrus, Richard Baraniuk

Illuminating the Path: The Research and
 Development Agenda for Visual Analytics
  text & video available from the NVAC

Visual Analytics: Why Now?
  James J. Thomas, NVAC

Why Knowledge Visualization?
  Visual-Literacy.org

Practitioners & Organizations

- NVAC, Natl Visualization & Analytics Center
- IEEE Visualization & Computer Graphics
- Gapminder-visualizing human development
- IBM's Many Eyes - Social Networking for Visualizers
- iCharts
- Infovis.net - InfoVis Wiki - Visual Complexity
- interdisciplines: adaptation & representation
- Image & Meaning, Harvard's Initiative in Innovative
       Computing (IIC) Envisioning Science Program
- LBNL, Lawrence Berkeley Natl Laboratory
       Visualization Group
- NECSI, New England Complex Systems
       Institute, Interactive and Visual Representations
- NYAS, The New York Academy of Sciences
       Visual Arts & the Brain
       Imaging Related e-Briefings
- National Science Foundation
       Science & Engnrg Visualization Challenge
       Video of award winning visualizations
       (Music lovers may skip to minute: 20)
- SciDAC, Scientific Discovery thru Adv.
       Computing - Visualization & Data Mgmt
- PIIM, Parsons Institute for Information Mapping &
      PJIM, Parson's Journal for Information Mapping
- Alice.org
- Ben Fry
- Colin Ware
- Edward Tufte
- Felice Frankel

BOOKS THAT OPEN OUR EYES

In the Mind's Eye:Visual Thinkers,Gifted People
With Dyslexia and Other Learning Difficulties,
Computer Images and the Ironies of Creativity
by Thomas G. West

Krome Barratt, Logic & Design in Art, Science & Mathematics

György Doczi, The Power of Limits, Proportional Harmonics in Nature, Art, And Architecture

Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte

Design and the Elastic Mind

Suggestions for inclusion on this page are welcome

Business Analytics

Overviews and Updates:
  -Stephen Few's site, Perceptual Edge
  -UC Berkeley VisualizationLab, N.B.
    ...Collaborative Visual Analytics
    ...sense.us (Economists, take note!)
  -Visualization Taxonomies of Visualization Tools

Commercial Visualization Products & Companies:
  - Tableau
  - Eye-sys
  - inxight's TableLens™
  - Oculus Tech & white paper
  - Palantir Technologies
  - Prefuse Information Visualization Toolkit
  - Spotfire
  - Space Syntax
  - TheBrain.com - for two examples visit
        + Ray Kurzweil's site and
        + James Burke's The Knowledge Web
            Podcast Part 1
            Part 2 - Just Highlights
Help on Using Spreadsheets for Visualization:
  - Contact Liz Webbink at inkweb
  - Peltier Charting Tips
  - Mr. Excel's Daily Podcasts
  - Dick Kusleika's Daily Dose of Excel
  - Data Visualization from ProcessTrends.com
  - Rummler Brache Chart Example
  - DuPont Chart Example
  - Financial Spreadsheets

Course Materials Online (no fee/open access)

- MIT: Scientific Visualization across Disciplines
- Georgia Tech: Visual Analytics Digital Library &
   Software Visualization Page
- Stanford: Pat Hanrahan's Visualization Course
- Columbia: Barbara Tversky: The Art & Science
   of Visual Communication
- Brown U. Andy Van Dam's Computer Graphics
- Rice U: Connexions, e.g.
  Education for the New Millenium
- The Charlotte Visualization Center at UNCC
  + Visual Analytics
  + Introduction to Computer Graphics
  + Information Visualization Techniques for Exploring Large Databases
- Visual-Literacy.org: VizBiz

BUILDING CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Richards J. Heuer, Jr., Center for the Study of Intelligence, CIA, 1999.

For a concise, but detailed checklist on "How to Think Critically" see Roger Darlington's website

The Critical Thinking Community

Gelder, T.J. Enhancing and Augmenting Human Reasoning (pdf file). Paper presented at Cognition, Evolution and Rationality: Cognitive Science for the 21st Century. Oporto, September 2002. To appear in a volume based on that conference edited by Antonio Jose Teiga Zilhao

Excerpt from Mindtools: Affording Multiple Knowledge Representations for Learning, David H. Jonassen, Chad S. Carr, Pennsylvania State University

Computers as Mindtools for Engaging Learners in Critical Thinking, David H. Jonassen, Chad S. Carr, Hsiu-Ping Yueh, TechTrends, v43 n2 p24-32 Mar 1998

.INSPIRATION FOR WEB SITE DESIGN

2006 Webby Award Winner-Jonathan Yuen
Best Design Aesthetic

  See also: Annual Webby Awards Gallery
 Experimental Media & Movement Arts (EMMA)