The aim with interactive collaborative maps of this kind is to weave together all of the salient issues, positions and arguments dispersed through the community into a single rich, transparent structure – in which each idea and argument is expressed just once – so that it’s possible to explore all perspectives quickly and gain a good sense of the scope and perceived merits of the different arguments

via What next for newspapers? – Press, Media – The Independent.

In “As We May Think,” Vannevar Bush who was Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during the years America was figuring out the A-bomb in WWII, poses the essential question for our time : How do find tools that allow our human minds to make sense of the firehose of information that is now what we face? Bush referred to all the information as “the record,” and says that we are using outdated methods to organize and make sense of the record (like alphetizing topics in a card catalogue) and we have reached a moment in human history, where we can’t keep up with the burgeoning information and knowledge stream unless we discover tools that let us organize and report what we know in ways that are “as we may think.” That means tools that work to highlight associations and connections between ideas. That means tools that put facts in context and let us comment and build on the ideas of others to make “meta arguments.” This diagram map tool looks like it has potential to help us do this.

The challenge for educators and for professionals in all fields, is to understand the tools, begin to use them, and be able to teach them to others so that we can utilize all of the knowledge, facts, and information out there. We don’t always need to work alone and find some tiny new concept — we live in a time where we should be digging into the record enthusiastically, and commenting, analyzing, and critiquing what is there, as we build knowledge scaffolds for others to use to follow new arguments.