iSchool research assistant professor works for DoodleBook, a platform that uses cartoons for scientific learning
Eddie Natal | Staff Photographer
Jun Wang came up with the idea for DoodleBook when he was introduced to Felice Frankel, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They both want to help people actually understand information and not just memorize it.
Jun Wang, research assistant professor in the School of Information Studies, has taken his passion for education to the internet. Wang works with DoodleBook.org, a platform that encourages scientific learning through cartoons. As principal investigator for the site, he oversees the topics addressed on DoodleBook and the illustrators who make the concepts come to life.
DoodleBook strives to make science accessible and understandable both inside the classroom and out. The comics featured on the site turn otherwise abstract concepts into concrete examples. Wang describes it as something akin to storytelling, viewing science-based comics and cartoons as separate from animations and videos.
“For a video, it’s like a lecture. You listen to a lecture, and the teacher dictates the space, controls the speed, the whole content,” Wang said. “But when you are reading a comic, you decide the pace.”
Not only is DoodleBook being used in classrooms, but it has found applications in hospitals as well. Recently, the team at DoodleBook introduced their comics to medical professionals, opening up discussions in topics such as pain relief and vaccinations.
Wang said he sees the website as a social responsibility to spread scientific knowledge in an easily-consumable form. He also regards the application of comics in the classroom as invaluable due to their transparency.
The conception of DoodleBook came about when Wang met Felice Frankel, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Frankel is the Principal Investigator for “Picturing to Learn,” a similar program which involves students from Harvard University, MIT and Duke University, among other colleges.
Wang and Frankel decided to collaborate, ultimately launching DoodleBook with the intent to spread scientific knowledge to both students and the general public in a way that facilitated understanding rather than simple memorization.
He sees the comics as puzzles of pictures and words whose separate parts must be combined. This task that uses more brainpower than reciting words from a textbook.
“You can copy from a textbook without understanding,” Wang said. “But if you are asked to draw, you have to understand it.”
Published on March 1, 2016 at 12:01 am
