Data Immersion

What do the numbers mean, man?

In several different conversations lately, I have begun speaking by simply stating that I am not a numbers guy. They never meant much to me. That's not an indictment of myself by any means, but by this point in my life, I understand my limitations and do my best to push past them. Sometimes, however, I find that the pictures the numbers create are fascinating.

This post, as some of you might think, stems from the data analysis we have been doing with our staff of first marking period grade distributions, and it does; you can't spend as much time as I have looking at this data without wondering about it. However, watching Ron Eglash connect fractal geometry and indigenous populations worldwide also made me realize the important of visualizing numbers and data.

What we've been looking at is not who did what, but rather what the distributions tell us as we move forward. This is such a small sample, one marking period, to make any informed decisions about what the numbers mean in terms of instruction or assessment. However, with several marking periods of data, we will be able to really begin to answer these type questions:

• Are the distributions what you thought they would be?
• What does the whole grade average tell you about the grade distribution?
• How might grade distribution inform you regarding strategies used for future instruction?
• Identify similarities and differences. What are some reasons why there are similarities? Differences?
• If two classes are significantly different, why is that?
• If two teachers teach the same units, what accounts for the differences in grade distribution?

What are we really after?

The end result? We are aiming for reflection. We want teachers to be able to look at this empirical data and couple it with the anecdotal data they collect through interaction with students and content and be able to really flesh out what caused success or failure. Once they are doing this, how empowered they become!

Taking this from my perspective, it wasn't until I really began taking a look at the numbers of who was attending my workshops last year (70% from the middle school, only 30% from the high school) that I realized where my focus had to shift. The numbers helped me see the direction I needed to go in, rather than staying where I was comfortable and successful.

So now I play with numbers too, and it might not hurt as much as I thought.


Technorati Tags: data, visualization, education, patrickhiggins

Using Data to Initiate Change

I know this might sound simple to some of you, but I have recently started trying to visualize some of the data that pertains to what I do here.





In a nutshell, what these pictures do for me is provide a measuring stick to judge against for next year. Also, when I really begin to analyze what I need to do for next year and plan to build consensus, these numbers tell me where to start, and who to build on.

There is some hope for me...

I posted this on my Tech Dossier site the other day to show how the new teacher's took to some of the Web 2.0 technologies that they saw. I was really trying to build on the word of mouth popularity I was hearing from people in the building--the new teachers liked what they had seen and been able to do.



So, in analyzing this graph, I can see that the most easily adaptable technology was del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. More people planned on using it, and they did not require additional professional development on it. Conversely, videoconferencing proved to be the least adaptable after the workshop, and the teachers voted that they needed more professional development before they were comfortable using it. That will shape a lot of what I do with the new teachers next year. It also shows me that there is interest in things like wikis and blogs, but the learning curve appears to be a little on the high side, and that is OK. That is why we have professional development classes and it's also why when teachers add technologies like that, I work closely with them until they are comfortable.

We met with our technology committee today to discuss a few things to wrap up the year and plan for the summer maintenance on all of the machines in the district (we are switching over from an antiquated network to a brand-spanking new one). Also on the agenda for today was a discussion of the training needed for our teachers who are piloting our tablet PC rollout this coming fall. Now, I make it sound like it is a huge plan based solely on the fact that we want to start putting laptops in the hands of teachers, and at heart (well, my heart) it is, but in actuality it is being done because we are entering a three-year construction schedule for our high school. The teachers who are moving to a portable classroom are being issued a tablet PC and a wireless Epson projector in lieu of all of the machines they will lose in their rooms.

Always glass half-full, I look at this situation as a turning point for our district; if this group of 30 or so teachers can find success with these machines, rolling them out to the rest of the staff, and ideally the entire high school, will be that much easier due to the initial buy-in. But in recent weeks, we have been regaled with stories of poor planning and implementation programs causing egregious wasting of taxpayer dollars on technology that was doomed to fail. So, my selfish agenda at the tech committee meeting today was to get a feel for what the high school teachers on the committee saw in the way of training needed for those going to the tablets.

What I got was a great list of ideas, all based on the level of proficiency with the technology. Some of the teachers moving to the tablets are at a point where using a laptop in front of the students is not something they would feel comfortable with. Others will take the machine, plug in and just go like they have always had it. My idea is to do two things: for those that need extra training, start with basic uses and applications to give them success, aiming for an in-class usage percentage of about 50%. With the other group of teachers, I have loftier goals:

So you have been issued a new tablet PC and you are teaching in a modular classroom this year--what now? The machine you have at your fingertips has the ability to change the way you approach your classroom, much more so than a regular laptop. Sitting in front you is a traveling interactive whiteboard, a mobile production studio, and the biggest productivity streamliner you have ever encountered.

I want to show them ways to actually make that portable classroom more technologically advanced then the room they came from.

If you have any ideas in this regard, please feel free to pass them along.

Image Credits: "Cuneiform Tablet," allanimal on Flickr, "Tablet PC," Calixto el octavo satélite de Júpìter on Flickr

Data Visualization

I am not a numbers guy, not by any means. So much so that when someone asks a math question (even simple addition) in a meeting, I just look around the room and wait for the numbers to magically appear out of someone else's mouth. You can imagine my surprise then, when after reading Greg Farr's post on Leadertalk yesterday, I have been consumed with trying to get my district's data to play nicely within a widget-type application.

Patterns, I can recognize. Numbers mean nothing to me, and haven't since poaching tutoring sessions off of Raj back in calculus class in 1993. However, placed within a visual context, I can make sense of things and they begin to become real for me. For example, tell me a student is absent today and it means no more than any other day, but show me average student attendance plotted against some other variable, like night-time sporting events, and the numbers translate into habits.

Farr's idea of making public the school's essential data so that it is alive and "in your face" for lack of a better word, takes transparency to a whole new level. Instead of an intuition that teachers may have about the number of students in the hallways, real data tells them what the attendance numbers are, and better yet, if it is in the form of a widget that lives on their desktop, it is unavoidable. When data comes to you, it means something different than if you only go looking for it when you need it.

The second step of getting this data to the staff would be making it look all pretty and dance for them. Need twenty minutes of well-spent time? Watch this:







Gapminder is an unbelievable idea, and this truly makes patterns visible, and as Rosling says early on, fights misconception rather than ignorance. Right now, I am searching for some way, with my meager hack skills, to take our data from our SIS, and visually represent it for our staff (looking into using Many Eyes and Swivel). I love this idea, and I will settle for low-tech if I have to for now. Taking that representation to our desktops will be the final frontier. Imagine that, all of this from someone who ducks and covers when math is in the air.