This learn node provides arctic exploration history, especially of the heroic age from the 1840s through early 1900s. The learn node is in the form of a Google knol that is the work of Professor Russell Potter of Rhode Island College. Topics include Norsemen, early explorers Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson, John Ross, William Edward Parry, and John Franklin, for whom a search when he did not return from an encampment with relics and graves. Descriptions of the explorations that followed in later years feature Elisha Kent Kane, Charles Francis Hall, Adolphus Washington Freely, Roald Amundsen, and the Robert Peary adventurers.

This fascinating Google knol can be called a learn node because it provides links to excellent related nodes that are webpages in the open internet. The knol thus forms a small cluster in which a great deal can be learned about arctic explanation and from which further internet exploration of the subject can be launched.

The center node takes you to the work of Timothy Wei, professor and acting dean of Rensselaer’s School of Engineering, to see how he has solved Gray’s Paradox using his new state-of-the-art water flow diagnostic technology — Digital Particle Image Velocimetry DPIV — that measures the force a dolphin generates with its tail. Other nodes are about DPIV, how the US Navy trains dolphins (a retired Navy dolphin stars in the Rensselear video), general dolphin information (from the San Diego Zoo), and open courseware from Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine on marine mammal medicine including care of dolphins, who are cetaceans.

This image includes a synapse drawing from the Sanger Institute. I have inverted the colors in the drawing because they are striking, and have added a learn node drawing for comparison. The Sanger team studying “Genes to Cognition” observes on the page where the drawing is placed:

The synapse the junction between nerve cells is the most important component of the nervous system. It not only transmits electrical information between neurons, but also is responsible for converting the electrical signals into biochemical changes of long term memory.

Without being “spooky” about assuming what is true for the brain is true for the Net – it is fair to say that it is worth a careful look to see what can be done with Net nodes to improved the quality of learning online. In this blog, I will continue to attempt to create learn nodes that apply network laws, search engine optimization techniques, and a few things we learn from synapses. Educators and experts who use what they know about a subject to create and strengthen Net nodes are doing something very important.

More in early July, when I return from talking about this subject at Microlearning2008.