1240 Words
‘Frameworks’ is a thinking tool. It is a methodology for structured and independent thinking. It is a simple tool for modelling and visualising thinking and understanding in the form of simple graphical models.
‘Frameworks’ is a prototype for the ‘Age of Big Information’ besides and beyond ‘Big Data’. It is the latest in an evolutionary series of information modelling tools developed in a programme of user-centred R&D conducted in the 1980s and 1990s by Peter Ward and his small IMP team at the University of Leeds.
The ‘Frameworks’ Project aims to situate ‘Frameworks’ in the educational domain and, in the first instance, in primary and foundational education. The project involves prototyping, testing and evaluating the tool – “The Intelligent Frame”- its usability and its usefulness – enabling ordinary people and children to become engaged in simple creative computing providing for the creation of models of their independent thinking.
The project aims to disseminate the methodology and the tool by representing it and debating it with creative thinkers and practitioners. Working with professionals, teachers and students in various collaborations, I aim to situate ‘Frameworks’ in test beds in order to secure evidence and traction for its usefulness and for its continuing evolution and deployment.
My guiding principles have been “Visual”, “Graphical”, “Schematic” and “Simple”: graphical schemata – derived through simple analysis of systems and domains – reducing scale and complexity to comprehensible proportions; simple graphical interfaces with fewest buttons; browsable information models, with hyperlinking and for discovery. My focus has been on people-centred computing, thinking-centred computing, and discovery learning-centred computing. I have aimed to promote the development of human intelligence and intellect, human learning and thinking, and strategies for dealing with scale and complexity, change and disruption. “People First! Gadgets Subsidiary!” is a guiding principle.
My work has been concerned with object-oriented information modelling – employing the object-oriented paradigm and pure object-oriented languages to build working prototypes of ideas, theories and designs for what people call “Tools”: tools for information modelling; tools which are simple, easy-to-use, and useful; tools which are essentially visual; tools which are interactive, which enable creativity; tools which are enjoyable, stimulating, and fun; tools which are positively cognitively stimulating; tools for promoting and providing for structured thinking, for clarity in simple visualisation, for good communication and sharing, for good and evolving understanding.
‘Frameworks’ has been described as an elegantly simple methodology for structured thinking and for the modelling and understanding of complexity. It is based on a simple theory of information and information modelling. Through simple analysis, structural decomposition, and the discerning, naming and categorisation of things, it provides for the step-by-step construction of simple graphical models as hierarchical graphical trees made up of nodes and links of association. High-level meaningful models are reduced to the fewest key elements to capture the essence of a system or domain, to act as organisers, as filters, as browsers; models as interfaces to thinking and understanding and for communication and sharing.
On paper, it is as easy as sketching ideas on the back of an envelope, on a napkin, in a notebook. As a computer-based, web-based, mechanism ‘Frameworks’ is small and simple, and easy to use with minimal barriers – technical and cognitive – and a minimal learning curve. ‘Frameworks’ provides for the close coupling of thinking and the representation of thinking.
‘Frameworks’ provides a simple ‘Core Spinal Model’ for the elaboration of thinking, and a ‘Meta Model’ for a framed and constrained step-by-step construction of models of thinking and understanding. These are in the form of simple graphical depictions elaborated around a simple object-oriented spinal model of Focus and Context, and Instance, where Context is the determinant of meaning.
‘Frameworks’ is problem-led and addresses the needs identified for ordinary people with a particular focus on the next generation of children as they will become confronted with information chaos, information anarchy, disinformation and opinion masquerading as fact. They will become confronted with a wealth of stuff created by others, much of it flawed.
We are becoming swamped and overwhelmed in the Digital World; effectively gadget-led consumers of digital stuff, becoming targets, corralled and trapped in bubbles of belief and opinion. So many of us demand instant gratification, entertainment, the best deals, and are satisfied with the headlines. But many of us are also frustrated and alienated by big software and the wealth of sophisticated tools enjoyed by tech-savvy professionals. We need – our children need – to engage in the world of informatics and creative personal computing – beyond consumption – and with the simplest of tools.
Daniel Levitin in his Book, “The Organised Mind” highlighted that “It is crucial that each of us takes the responsibility for verifying the information we encounter, testing it and evaluating it – this is the skill we must teach the next generation of the citizens of the world, the capability to think clearly, completely, critically and creatively”.
The next generation of children need to be educated about ‘the 21st Century digital world of big information’.
Beyond skills and engagement with gadgets like smartphones and tablets, the next generation needs to be educated about “information” and “informatics”; educated about thinking and analysis, about communication and sharing, and about working in small teams. Hitting the ground running, with capabilities and skills in structured thinking, they can then visualise, communicate and share ‘big pictures’- high-level views capturing the essence in these models as interfaces to their thinking.
Children working with teachers is a good place to start. Independent thinking, working with others, discussing and sharing their thinking and understanding, reaching consensus and evolving better models is the aim.
The greater context for ‘Frameworks’ is representation, communication and the sharing of thinking and understanding, views and perspectives.
Ideas around ‘Frameworks’ originate in the pioneering work of such as Engelbart, Kay, Piaget, Papert, Bruner and Shneiderman – the counterculture “personal computing” of the 1970s and computing machines organised into networks for the development of the human intellect; constructivism and constructionism in learning; the object-oriented paradigm; and the graphical user interface enabling direct manipulation of objects by “users”. In ‘Frameworks’, the technical view of “users” is replaced with the view of “Thinkers becoming Modellers”.
‘Frameworks’ has been discussed and reviewed by creative thinkers and practitioners in a variety of domains including neuroscience, communication, computing science, education, design and psychotherapy.
In the first instance, ‘Frameworks’ is focused on Foundational Education: children need to understand complexity as soon as possible and ‘Frameworks’ provides a mechanism to achieve this. Children must become aware and begin thinking about complexity in a world where scale and complexity in systems and domains must be reduced to manageable proportions. Children will need to be educated and equipped with literacies in the domains of information and informatics, and capabilities and skills in simple analysis, modelling, communication and sharing. ‘Frameworks’ is a good place to start.
In the design domain, ‘Frameworks’ provides for the articulation of ideas within a bounded and constrained space; for the collaborative evolution of ideas helping to define the focus and then the context of an exercise.
As a visual and spatial method, ‘Frameworks’ brings a different perspective to design, and could be used alongside other methodologies such as “Design Thinking” or “Systems Thinking”.
‘Frameworks’ provides a way to address the need for independent, structured thinking – strategies for thinking straight and for clarity, strategies for reducing scale and complexity and for the organisation and for the communication and sharing of key information. Simple models of thinking and understanding become a new paradigm for the “graphical user interface”.
Sub-Set of Key Images
This sub-set of images is the thread of the narrative of ‘Frameworks’. From perplexed and overwhelmed to mastering simple structured thinking and employing ‘Frameworks’ as a methodology and tool for the representation of individual, independent* thinking and understanding in the form od simple graphical models.
*independent thinking and, when members of a small team working together, share their thinking in order to agree a “consensus model”
The narrative is a “Villain!” which is information chaos and disinformation, alternative realities, alternative truth and deception – and the “Hero”! which is suggested to be ‘Frameworks’.
See: https://magicbrowser.co.uk/frameworks-animation-1/
The first image is a starting point. “Its all too much and too disorganised. I cant make sense of it all.”
This is a sculpture made by Zaki Ward – depicting a reaction to the problems in the 21st-century digital world?
This is an image of a bronze sculpture ‘The Thinker’, by Auguste Rodin – which I include here to represent the Focus of ‘Frameworks’ which is ‘Thinking’ – where ‘Frameworks’ is a methodology and tool providing a way for independent “Structured Thinking” and for the modelling of thinking and understanding, modelling for thinking, communication and sharing.
These are images sketched out on paper in a notebook during the process of thinking about, designing, and developing the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology and ideas about reducing scale and complexity. Subsequently, these sketches were reconstructed using the ‘Java NED’ tool – as computer-based Thinking Models.
This is a “Thinking Model” constructed with ‘JavaNED’ depicting a ‘Frameworks’ Model and a Thinker.
It suggests the idea of ‘Frameworks’ as a simple methodology and a simple easy-to-use tool – for the simple analysis and management of complexity – reducing scale and complexity to manageable proportions.
“Thinking Models” can be graphical alternatives to textual narrative – as a montage or composite – as a representation of thinking about …….
This image depicts the ‘Frameworks’ Meta Model as created with the ‘JavaNED’ tool in the process of developing the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology.
‘Frameworks’ has been distilled down to the Core Spinal Model situated in the Thinking & Modelling Space of the ‘Frameworks’ Meta Model.
The ‘Frameworks’ Methodology sets out 3 levels of modelling: Novice, Intermediate and Advanced. For (new, novice) Thinkers-who- would-be-Modellers.
“ThinkerModellers” rather than “users”.
Thinker-Modellers can engage with the Entry-Level, Novice, modelling option, which is *constrained* to up to 41 Objects/Information Nodes: Nodes at each level providing for decomposition to up to 3 sub-nodes, and in addition to the default Focus and Context at Levels 1 and 2 – up to an additional 3 Levels of Hierarchy. Beyond the Novice option – the Intermediate and Advanced options provide for more degrees of modelling.
This image (another Thinking Model, constructed with the earlier prototype tool ‘JavaNED’) depicts the main sequence of the IMP Evolutionary Series of Information Modelling Tools – the genesis of ‘Frameworks’ – up to the Current ‘Frameworks’ Tool Prototype(s).
This Thinking Model depicts the technical strategies of the Evolutionary Series. Highlighting “User Centred” Iterative Prototyping i.e. design, code, test, evaluate feedback, enhance code and test etc. Highlighting the strategy of Type’ C’ Projects as iterated by Akan Kay & Vishal Sikka at CHI 2016 i.e. speculative (“Blue Skies”, “Blue Plane”), small, few participants, short duration and inexpensive.
This image is a screenshot from the ‘CLCV Project’ 1993/4 (Government of Pakistan, Agriculture Research Council, funded by the Asian Development Bank).
It is the Main CLCV Project Portal. It is the “CLCV Browser”. Designed as an interface – a GUI graphical user interface – as a “portal” providing access to the CLCV Project.
Simple. Visual. Interesting. The interface to 73 subprojects in 11 research and academic centres. The CLCV Browser as a URL to the internet, to the Project Website (tomorrow) to the CDROM (today)(1995)(In Pakistan).
In this project, I worked with the ‘CLCV Project’ Manager and a group of individual subproject managers at various academic and government research institutes around Pakistan.
The aim of the CLCV Project was to capture and archive the 27 subprojects in 9 institutions around Pakistan – and designing a simple GUI to the CLCV Project as a Browser to the archive – distributed as an HTML1 Document on CDROM which could be later uploaded to a WWW Website when the internet WWW would come to Pakistan. From analogue – paper documents in filing cabinets (which would be lost after a few years!) – to digital archive in a format ready for the WWW.
I employed the “core spinal model” of Focus (The CLCV Project), Context (The Agricultural Enterprise in Pakistan), and the subtypes of the CLCV Project (there were some 18 subprojects) which I arranged into 7 Categories.
As I had previously first employed the idea of the “core spinal model” in the ‘STILE’ Browser in 1991. I employed it as a device for the organisation of the very large CLCV project as it was distributed across Pakistan in a number and variety of centres – universities and laboratories – with a variety of subprojects including Virology, Integrated Pest Management and Technology Transfer & Education (which included my subproject – to develop a computer-based mechanism or the organisation, evolution and archiving of the project (beyond paper, folders and filing cabinets).
To produce a simple graphical browser as a Home Page for what was an archiving application for the CLCV Project constructed using the new HTML1 standard. This was before email was available to the PARC/NARC agricultural research council and before the WWW and Web Browsers were launched. Using the HTML1 standard for coding and displaying documents enabled me to distribute the CLCV Browser and the project archive on CDROM – ready to be simply uploaded to the WWW when it became available.
This is a screenshot from the IMPFW prototype (1996) which was designed and coded to operate on the Microsoft Windows platform. It was a ‘concept demonstrator’. It provided an automated construction experience – constructing simple hierarchical models around the core spinal model of Focus, Context and Instances.
Note: the Simple Minimal 5 Button Menu.
This image depicts the metaphor of the Blank Canvas, the Tabula Rasa.
I have employed this image to convey the idea of a “Blank Canvas” (Tabula Rasa) as a metaphor – for the [potential] “Thinking & Modelling Space”. The Cowboy is poised to construct a drawing/painting – a representation of his thinking.
With the kind permission of Glen Baxter, Copyright www.glenbaxter.com
In the development of the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology – I moved from the idea of an infinite unframed canvas to modelling which was “Framed & Constrained”. The idea being to reduce scale and complexity and the representation of thinking and understanding into a framed and contained “Thinking & Modelling Space”, and to constrain modelling to a minimal number of objects to capture the essence.
The Blank Canvas is a cognitive challenge to the thinker/creator! The ‘Frameworks’ Methodology takes us from the Blank Canvas (the Workspace Shell of the ‘JavaNED’ prototype tool) – which is unbounded – to the Framed & Constrained “Thinking & Modelling Space” of ‘Frameworks’ as represented in the ‘Frameworks’ Meta Model/’Frameworks’ Tool.
This image – another ‘Thinking Model” constructed with the early prototype tool ‘JavaNED’ – depicts key elements from ‘Frameworks’: the Core Spinal Model (and the hierarchies of Context, Focus and Instances and Super Ordinate, Ordinate and Subordinate); highlighting CONTEXT as the determinate of meaning; a simple DAG directed acyclic graph; and Levels of Decomposition (following simple analysis and structural representation).
The Levels of Hierarchy in the Thinking & Modelling Space encapsulated in the ‘Frameworks’ Meta Model; and the DAG directed acyclic graph (which ‘Frameworks’ Models employ to represent the deconstruction of elements into parts and categories), illustrating a hierarchy of nodes in a tree-like array.
This image depicts the ‘Frameworks’ Meta Model with the FOCUS node highlighted. It is a static representation composed of the key elements (Objects in this Object-Oriented Design): Frame; Thinking & Modelling Space; Core Spinal Model (Focus, Context and Instances Nodes); and the Stuff Box and the Elaborate Button as Frame devices.
As the Thinker-Modeller engages in the process of logging on to the Tool, they are presented with the Meta Model (ghosted out) – with the highlighted Focus Node indicating to the Thinker-who-would-become-Modeller that they should select Focus Node to become linked to the Tool. The First Step in modelling is the specification and naming of their FOCUS.
This is the Prototype Tool Version 3 – a screenshot of a model in progress of construction: with the Focus as Colour and with the Context as Vision – with Elaboration in progress: depicting the (maximum allowed in the Novice Modelling Level) three children/subtypes/instances at Level Three of the Model. To be specified and named by the Thinker Modeller.
As the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology evolved: the Thinking & Modelling Space was transferred to the Tool and the Saved Model copied back to the Meta Model for display (designated The Display Space).
This extension of the SAVE process will be implemented in Prototype Tool Version 4
This image depicts a Thinking Model – constructed with ‘JavaNED’ – illustrating some of the key features of the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology and an example elaborated model – where Penguin is the Focus, Climate Change is the Context.
In a categorisation of Penguins: 3 aspects of Penguins are depicted and varieties (subtypes) of the category Location are depicted, and one subtype of South American penguins is depicted.
NB This a Thinking Model representing thinking and understanding and as such is a GOOD MODEL (not necessarily a “correct” or “comprehensive” model).
This image depicts and summarises the exercise of computer-based modelling – employing the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology. In this image, two alternative elaborations are depicted. The exercise started with Thinking (The Thinker). The Thinker (Thinking) is where it starts. The Keith Haring cartoon highlights the computer-based exercise.
Thanks to the Keith Haring Foundation.
This image – another “Thinking Model” created with ‘JavaNED’ to depict the ‘Frameworks’ Methodology – shows the early ‘JavaNED’ prototype tool and the early ideas for the construction of a Framed Meta Model: composed of the Frame, the Thinking & Modelling Space, the Core Spinal Model, and the Stuff Box and Elaborate Button, integral to the Frame. From thinking to engaging with the Meta Model. From the static ghosted-out Meta Model to the Meta Model with Focus highlighted. The first modelling step is the naming of the Focus of your thinking. The second step is the naming of the Context. The third step is the naming of an Instance (a variety of your Focus) progressing to the further elaboration of Instances of your Focus as varieties. This modelling is according to the constraint rules at this Entry-Level Modelling for Novices.
This sequence of images – as illustration of the Methodology – was created during the the design and development of the Methodology, and coding of the Tool. The ’Frameworks’ Tool is being coded to realise the Methodology. The Tool includes the Thinking & Modelling Space. When a Model is Saved – the Model is passed back to the Meta Model for Display.