Yoda: Cornell Notes Method & Online Template

IO Mapping
Got Crowd? BE the Force!
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Useful, this is.

Turn your notes into writing using the Cornell method

This post is by Dr Katherine Firth who works in Academic Skills at the University of Melbourne, with a particular interest in research student literacies. Basically, Katherine is a Thesis Whisperer, like me. Unlike me, Katherine is still an active researcher in her field of 20th-century poetry. Over coffee Katherine told me about the ‘Cornell Method’ and kindly agreed to write a post. I found it enlightening, I hope you do too.

I take a lot of notes.  Even when I was doing my PhD and I was taking thousands of pages of notes, I took them by hand.  I tried using a computer, but there are so many things that are really hard to do on screen (drawing an arrow to make a connection between points, for example) that are really quick on paper.  Also, you only need one hand to write notes, but two hands to type.  And that free hand comes in useful for holding open books, grasping coffee cups, or stuffing your face with Gummi bears.

. . . . .

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Firstly, the template gives you less space to write notes.  You aren’t supposed to record everything you see, or even everything that is interesting.  Having fewer lines to write notes encourages you to be selective—just to chose the quotes or paraphrases or details you expect to include in your thesis.  It’s so liberating.  And it’s so quick.  In under an hour, I went from opening the book for the first time to producing the notes in Figure 2.

Secondly, the template gives you a bigger margin than in a usual ruled note book.  This is where you put key words, identify themes, or recurrent patterns.  This is great to helping you to analyse what you’re putting down, and to find the relevant quote when you go back to it.  It also helps you to stay on track.  You can check: ‘are my key words the same as the ones in my research question / thesis title?’

But thirdly, and most valuably, the template gives you a big space at the bottom to write sentences that summarise the page.  That is, you start writing your critical response on the notes themselves.

TEMPLATE PDF CREATOR

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GI Wilson: Maps for Post-Sandy Recovery – Good, Bad, & Ugly – Comment by Robert Steele

Earth Intelligence, Geospatial, IO Mapping
Col GI Wilson, USMC (Ret)

We always have a map problem…I know you have known this for yrs and yrs and been the single voice in the map wilderness calling out….I wonder who got all those old Soviet maps after the fall…..we have never solved this problem…we just think we have. yes…No…?

After Sandy, Intelligence Agencies Scramble To Feed Maps, Data To Rescuers

Colin Clark

AOL Government, 30 October 2012

Click on Image to Enlarge

As FEMA, firemen, police and the National Guard wade into the devastation visited upon us by Hurricane Sandy, many of them are using maps and other information made available to them by intelligence agencies.

While intelligence analysts and their technical specialists usually spend their time targeting bad guys and helping troops plan to get them, some of them have gotten the rare and welcome chance to help their own countrymen at home several times since Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency provides most of the support to civil authorities during disasters. It takes photos, infrared and other data from satellites and airplanes and builds them into remarkably detailed and accurate maps.

Read full article.

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Yoda: Mind-Mapping Advances–Listening Does Not

Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Crowd-Sourcing, Government, IO Impotency, IO Mapping, P2P / Panarchy
Got Crowd? BE the Force!

Behold the Awesome Science of Mind-Mapping An Instructionalicious Guide

Mindmapping is a very serious and well researched subject, or art … or something . Whatever it is a map of the mind is definately something to be valued and this ‘instructionalicious' guide is no exception. Allow this infographic to simultaneously blow and map your mind.

DuckDucklGo Mind-Mapping

Phi Beta Iota:  Tens of billions of dollars are being spent on covert surveillance including the recording of all emails, telephone conversations, and other forms of exchange, but most of this is not being processed.  Worse, it is not being processed toward making sense in the public interest.  It is one thing to focus on the needle in the haystack threat warning.  It is quite another to focus on harnessing the distributed intelligence of the public.  That will be the next big leap for “national intelligence.”

See Also:

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Patrick Meier: Crowdsourcing a Crisis Map of the Beijing Floods – Volunteers vs Government

03 Environmental Degradation, Advanced Cyber/IO, Geospatial, IO Deeds of Peace, IO Mapping
Patrick Meier

Crowdsourcing a Crisis Map of the Beijing Floods: Volunteers vs Government

Flash floods in Beijing have killed over 70 people and forced the evacuation of more than 50,000 after destroying over 8,000 homes and causing $1.6 billion in damages. In total, some 1.5 million people have been affected by the floods after Beijing recorded the heaviest rainfall the city has seen in more than 60 years.

The heavy rains began on July 21. Within hours, users of the Guokr.com social network launched a campaign to create a live crisis map of the flood’s impact using Google Maps. According to TechPresident, “the result was not only more accurate than the government output—it was available almost a day earlier. According to People’s Daily Online, these crowd-sourced maps were widely circulated on Weibo [China's version of Twitter] the Monday and Tuesday after the flooding.” The crowdsourced, citizen-generated flood map of Beijing is available here and looks like this:

Read rest of post with photos and screen shots.

Future of the Library versus Future of the Librarian

Advanced Cyber/IO, Communities of Practice, Cultural Intelligence, info-graphics/data-visualization, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Policies, Threats
Seth Godin Home

The future of the library

What is a public library for?

First, how we got here:

Before Gutenberg, a book cost about as much as a small house. As a result, only kings and bishops could afford to own a book of their own.

This naturally led to the creation of shared books, of libraries where scholars (everyone else was too busy not starving) could come to read books that they didn't have to own. The library as warehouse for books worth sharing.

Only after that did we invent the librarian.

The librarian isn't a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user.

After Gutenberg, books  got a lot cheaper. More individuals built their own collections. At the same time, though, the number of titles exploded, and the demand for libraries did as well. We definitely needed a warehouse to store all this bounty, and more than ever we needed a librarian to help us find what we needed. The library is a house for the librarian.

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Engineers of India-Afghanistan vs China-Pakistan

02 China, 03 India, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, 12 Water, Advanced Cyber/IO, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government, IO Mapping, IO Multinational, IO Sense-Making, Methods & Process, Military, Peace Intelligence, Strategy

India-China-Pakistan: Indian intelligence agencies say they have credible evidence that several hundred Chinese working in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are People's Liberation Army engineers, the Times of India reported 12 May.

According to the report, Indian intelligence agencies are verifying that the engineers are engaged with military construction projects, such as bunkers, and said the presence of military engineers in civilian construction activities carried out by China in other countries is “unusual,” an intelligence source said. The information about the engineers was part of an assessment presented by the Indian Army to the Indian prime minister, defense minister and other senior officials weeks ago.

Comment: This is the first press report of Chinese military engineers in Pakistan's portion of Kashmir. Chinese engineers are working on road construction in far northern Pakistan which borders China, but no engineering agreements are known that cover Pakistani Kashmir.

India-Afghanistan:
India has committed about $1.5 billion to Afghanistan for developmental assistance and plans to commit another $500 million over the next five years, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on 12 May. Priority areas for the aid will be social programs, agriculture and infrastructure, according to Singh

India strongly supports Afghanistan's peace and reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Afghan President Hamid Karzai during Singh's two-day visit to Kabul. Singh told Karzai and senior Afghan officials that New Delhi is Kabul's “neighbor and partner in development.” He expressed support for Afghanistan's “unity, integrity and prosperity

Comment: The two news stores above help explain Pakistan's dogged support for the Taliban and other anti-Kabul movements and its anxiety about India. India supported the Northern Alliance of Uzbek and Tajik tribes against the Pashtun Taliban when Karzai still was working for the Taliban, before he switched sides.

The presence of Indian advisors and influence west of Pakistan confronts Pakistani strategists with the prospect of fighting on two fronts in a putative future war, with no strategic depth because Pakistan is so narrow. More importantly, the Indian Border Roads Organization (BRO) has thousands of workers and Indian Army engineers working on the “infrastructure” projects in Afghanistan about which Prime Minister Singh spoke. BRO seems to concentrate on improving the roads in Afghan provinces that border Pakistan.

Indian motives in helping Afghanistan are far from altruistic, just as are those of Iran. Both states have provided aid to the Northern Alliance and the Afghan government, based on their strategic calculations to restrain Pakistan and especially prevent it from annexing the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

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