Knowledge Visualization Models and The Role of Significance-based Learning: Chronicle of a Group Work Experience in Virtual Environments

Abstract

If effective communication, particularly the communication of knowledge rather than the communication of facts, requires knowledge of how the message may be understood and considered by the receiver (Te’eni, 2011), it is thus necessary to be acquainted with the concept of knowledge visualization (Eppler and Burkhard, 2004). This emergent domain refers to the use of visual representations of information and how it can be viewed from two perspectives: from the point of view of the user and from the point of view of the designer of a graphic representation. To this end, I discuss the impact of knowledge visualization models in a significance-based learning. In connection to this, I explain the positive role of introducing new and dynamic zooming presentation editors, such as Prezi (Prezi, 2009), in the everyday classroom experience. The study is based on the fact that Prezi allows users to prioritize notions depending on its content-based significance and not so much on the sequential linearity that traditionally drags along visual representations of information.