Visualization as a Knowledge Transfer

Abstract

This overview inspects visualization tools and applications enabling visualization of data, information, and knowledge. The background is provided first about visualizing information in a pictorial yet abstract rather than illustrative way. Further text discusses visual metaphors as a basic structure in metaphorical language of visualization. Selected methods and tools are introduced, and the ways visualization transfers knowledge and mediates between the user and the physical world, supporting cognitive ways of learning and teaching. Nature derived metaphors serve as bio-inspired, interdisciplinary models. The importance of visual and technological literacy is discussed, along with a need of teaching visualization methods as an important part of the current educational strategies. Concluding remarks examine how metaphorical visualization may support learning and teaching, and why visual and technological literacy should be taught and trained since early childhood.