Week 12: Data Visualization

Hi everyone and welcome to our OER on Data Visualization (https://juliopalacios3.wixsite.com/etec522). The goal of this OER is to provide you with a general understanding on how data visualization reflects how we interact with not only information, but with the world around us. Furthering this point, we will like to examine the impact data visualization has had on the education sector, its relevance in a wider collective of fields and industries as well as a general forecast of where Data Visualization will continue to excel.

Here is a synopsis of the learning activities that you will have the opportunity to engage in throughout this OER.

Visualizing Data – IceBreaker Survey

Discussion Question (Padlet located in What is Data Visualization?)

Do you currently use any sort of data visualization at your workplace? If so, how is data visualization utilized?

Discussion Prompt (Padlet located in Why use Data Visualization?)

Share the visualization you found as well as a brief explanation as to why this method of data visualization spoke to you.

Put Your Data Literacy To The Test – (Quiz located on the Benefits and Limitations Page)

Please reflect on your results within the ETEC522 Launch Pad.

We welcome you to participate in our Ice Breaker activity, posted discussion prompts and quizzes. The Ice Breaker activity is anonymous, but we encourage you to include your name when participating in a discussion.

We are looking forward to discussing Data Visualization with you!

Data Visualization Team – Julio, Rachel, Vijaya


( Average Rating: 4.5 )

44 responses to “Week 12: Data Visualization”

  1. JamieTooze

    Hi Rachel,

    I wasn’t able to find the link to your OER.

    Jamie


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Jamie,

      Sorry about that and you can access our site here: https://juliopalacios3.wixsite.com/etec522.


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  2. julio palacios

    You can access our OER from the link below.
    https://bit.ly/2UUADlW


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  3. JamieTooze

    Hello Team Data Visualization,

    Congratulations on producing such a great OER, especially at such a busy time. I think this topic might be the area where I was the most familiar but I learned so much.
    Your work was fascinating, well-written, well-structured, well-paced and informative. I found your use of Wix impressive and very effective, especially the way incorporated the Google forms survey as an icebreaker. It was very visually appealing and well…it broke the ice! But I am sorry I think I padded the dog lover’s data with an extra entry.

    I enjoyed learning about the sensory appeal of visualizations and found myself falling down a rabbit whole with the sample visualizations you provided. The note on design principles for visualizations (appropriate accurate, and actionable) will be useful, and I think I will apply it to some of my own work in the future, so thanks for that as well. I especially liked the article on avoiding bias in data visualization. I want that poster for my wall. Overall, you’ve created a very engaging OER. The only >small< question I had for your team is how do you see VR, AR and MR changing the future of data visualization? Hans Rosling's video was from 2010, and it was a great attempt, but I wonder if there is a more recent example of 3D immersive visualizations. I found this one venture start-up – it looks promising. "Virtualytics" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnkUbUJd_kU


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    1. JamieTooze

      Oh I almost forgot – my data literacy “personality profile” was “Data Dreamer,” but I suspect I am more of a data sleepwalker after seeing what is possible. Thanks that was fun!


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    2. julio palacios

      Hi Jamie. Thank you for taking the time to review and interact with our OER. You pose a very interesting question regarding immersive 3D Visualizations. There is an interesting relationship between VR/AR/MR and data visualization. If we broaden our definition of what is visualized data, one could categorize all three of those technologies as digital visualization tools. What excites me about the prospect of using immersive technologies to visualize data will be the ability to redefine interaction. If we examine how the touch screen has provided us with a wealth of haptic interactions (touch, tap, pinch, long press, swipe, etc.) I think immersive technologies will further our haptic interactions by empowering them, making them more intuitive and positioning them as data analysis tools.

      Beyond Virtualytics, I think the following initiatives are interesting and worth tracking:

      Data Fusion by 3Data
      https://3data.io/

      IBM’s initiative to experiment with a methods of summarizing and then visualizing high dimensional data using Immersive Insights.
      https://medium.com/inside-machine-learning/visualizing-high-dimensional-data-in-augmented-reality-2150a7e62d5b

      Or even this research paper that evaluates the use of an Head Mounted Display-based Immersive Analytics approach to exploring multidimensional data. Admittedly I have yet to read this study, but the topic fascinates me.
      https://aviz.fr/~bbach/immersive2017/papers/IA_2736-paper.pdf


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  4. Alice Shin

    Julio, Rachel, and Vijaya, thanks for this OER!

    Great info and your use of a variety of visuals to illustrate Data Visualization. I thought the ice-breaker activity, in particular, was a relevant, clever and well-crafted way to demonstrate data visualization. The Data Literacy quiz was illuminating with regards to terminology and identifying attitudes toward data, but some of the quiz questions were confusing, for ex. a question was open-ended, but the responses to choose from were yes/no (or vice-versa?), or phrasing was awkward, but I’m assuming you did not write these questions or determine the results?

    Identifying a type of data visualization was also an interesting task in that it caused me to see a wide variety of formats I hadn’t seen before- which I know was the purpose of the exercise – but I was happy to find a visualization that wasn’t a graph or chart with a gazillion colours that still resonated with me.

    One thing to note was the organization of the headings/topic/ tabs and I suggest the following (although revising at this point might not be realistic):

    – change ‘Home’ to ‘Introduction’ and include the opening blurb, the team, and the Ice-Breaker
    – combine ‘What is Data Visualization’ with ‘Data Vis in Education’ (would also free up more white space)
    – ‘Why Data Visualization’ a main tab as opposed to a sub-heading
    – ‘Current Landscape’ & ‘Forecasting’ a main heading as opposed to ‘More’
    – ‘References’ tab or keep ‘More’ to capture other supplemental information

    If I clicked through the OER, the links move you forward but I found if I had to go back, I had to click on a few tabs to find the section I wanted to get back to. In the end I obviously could find my way around the OER, but I feel the headings and organization could be more clear.

    Overall, I learned a lot about the importance and use of data viz, as well as my personal data aptitude and preference for a type of visualization.


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    1. Alice Shin

      I also took a screen shot of all the resources you provided saving me a lot of time on research so thanks for that as well!


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    2. julio palacios

      Hi Alice. Thanks for the thorough review and informative input. We will definitely take into consideration the suggestions you made in regards to the structure of our OER. I think you made a good point about navigation not being intuitive.


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  5. johannes dirk wielenga

    Hey Julio, Rachel, and Vijaya, thanks for your great OER. After taking the quiz it appears that I am a Data Knight (not quite a Data Aristocrat, it would seem)!

    You have a lot of great curated content in the OER and I certainly learned some things, and I think I deepened my relationship with Data today!
    In terms of the overall site – it flows well, and I like how much of the written content is corralled into boxes, though I do think that there is a lack of uniformity from page to page. As well, just as a personal opinion, I found the most commonly used font size to be a little small. I do really like the amount of actual graphs, charts, and other forms of Data Visualization that you have included in your OER (like the great icebreaker!) that really drove home the point throughout the learning scenario.
    Overall, great work, thanks again!


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    1. Vijaya Jammi

      Hi Johannes,
      Thanks for engaging with our OER, and for your feedback. We note with great appreciation, your suggestions for increasing the font size and bringing in more uniformity in layout on pages. Thanks again!


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  6. RyanSilverthorne

    Hello Rachel, Julio and Vijaya,

    I thought the visuals in the site were quite effective and the questions/tasks were very relevant and helpful.

    In particular, I thought it was a cool idea to have everyone search for a data visualization that spoke to them.

    Data visualizations are incredibly useful in the classroom. Information can be packaged in so many different ways, but we all know that what works for one does not necessarily work for the other. It takes me back to school in shop class many years ago. I remember the first time the teacher explained electricity (volts, amps, watts) I was lost. When someone explained it to me using a plumbing analogy it clicked in an instant. This literally was a simple matter of visualization as I could see it in my head and it made perfect sense.

    I feel like you made good use genially as a tool to convey meaning, as well as Padlet. I also liked that you summarized the benefits and limitations of data visualizations so succinctly.

    Overall I am impressed with what I have seen so far.


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    1. RyanSilverthorne

      I should also note that according to the quiz I am a “data dreamer.” I think this is fairly accurate as I do use it a lot but certainly want to become better at utilizing it.


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    2. Rachel

      Hi Ryan,

      Thanks for engaging with our OER! You brought up a good point on how information can be packaged in different ways and if there’s anything we learn from this course, it is personalization is possible and needed in education. Perhaps by having more tools available to transfer raw (and sometimes dry) data into visualizations that are meaningful seamlessly will encourage more people utilize what data visualization has to offer.


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  7. allan carmichael

    It seems I’m a data knight. Perhaps that’s why I was drawn to the Big Data and Learning Analytics Opportunity Venture, and it goes with the territory (or should) as a science teacher, I suppose. I liked your overall design and your use of dynamic visualizations in the web design itself. What I appreciated most was that you avoided the unnecessary static infographics that have become so common in education today; I really don’t want to see another 1/4 page, circular-arrows with random shapes graphic purporting to show relationships between only three or four ideas. The worst offenders are Ministry of Education documents (I’m thinking the recent curriculum documents) and anything purported to be professional development driven by staff at the district level–its like a requirement to justify their jobs, or attempts to make boring slide decks “better”. Pretty graphics that don’t contain or communicate or tell the story of the data or the information are simply distracting. For me, they have become visual cues of what to IGNORE.

    Your team, however, has done an excellent job in showcasing how good, quality visualizations can tell the story in a compelling, interactive and engaging way. I especially liked the video by Hans Rosling’s 200 Years graphs of life expectancy vs wealth…watching the China bubble, the biggest population, bounce around the bottom left for so long, then rise rapidly in life expectancy (but not wealth) after 1950–but watch for the plummet from 1958 to 1961, corresponding to the “three years of great famine”. You might miss it at full speed! That one visualization is full of so many stories.


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    1. allan carmichael

      Hmm…I did insert a note within “less than” and “greater than” symbols before “The worst offenders are…” and “visual cues of what to IGNORE” that stated “begin rant” and “end rant”, but that was stripped out of the posting.


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      1. Vijaya Jammi

        Thanks Allan, for your detailed feedback. You prove a valid point that ‘quality visualizations tell compelling stories than static infographics’ We certainly agree that the degree of aesthetic treatment applied for illustrations often turn infographics drab and less interactive. We are glad you found Hans Rosling’s video impressive, that was an amazing demonstration of data visualization. As for the missing of symbols you typed above, I guess it is the Word press proving to be smart…that sounds strange though. Thanks again Allan!


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  8. Jessica Daicos

    Thanks team! Loved this week’s OER. The timing was great (just enough to get valuable content without feeling tedious) and the participation sections felt valuable and at a professional level (I got something out of them and didn’t feel like I was being babysat with busy work).

    Very small suggestion: your ice breaker question asks a bit of a leading question about animals, in that it assumes everyone is an animal person. Just given that this is an OER about data, and you touch briefly on bias, I would be especially careful about the framing of your questions. That’s actually one area I would have been curious for you to go a bit more in depth with. As data can be used to persuade, I think it would have been cool to give an example of how the same data can be presented in different ways. Instead of just listing benefits and limitations, I think simple examples or a short quiz would be more impactful.

    Loved the content. Loved the formatting. Two thumbs up from me!


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Jessica,

      I laughed when I saw your comment on the feeling of being babysat with busy work so thank you for that.

      This is a great point you brought up with bias and as now we live in a society when fake news is the trending word, it is worth further examination of how we present information. Algorithm bias is also something that came to my mind and technology ethics is more important than ever.

      Thanks again for your feedback and the insight!


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  9. Jessica Daicos

    Ooh, just came across an ebook about data visualisation for K-12 schools. This link sends you straight to the PDF:

    https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1947933/Resources/Data-Visualization-for-K12-Schools.pdf?__hssc=76411082.3.1606360169112&__hstc=76411082.dbe21dabbafd6a5790b21bea9c9f31ab.1606350855565.1606350855565.1606360169112.2&__hsfp=1199962459&hsCtaTracking=9460a742-a211-4017-9cfc-e9ac7465fbf7%7Cb60b9899-d98a-4e50-b003-6bb78a7f2d6d

    The only thing to be mindful of (speaking of bias) is that this report is compiled by OnCourse, a for-profit company that sells tech and analytics tools to schools. However, they do use and reference a number of external statistic, including a report by the Gates Foundation called Teachers Know Best: Making Data Work for Teachers and Students. It is also excellent, though it focuses more on data than visualisation. You can view the PDF at this link:

    http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/download/?Num=2335&filename=TeachersKnowBest-MakingDataWork.compressed.pdf


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  10. tara davis

    Your OER demonstrates a solid understanding of data visualization (the what, the why, the benefits, the limitations, the market, and the implications on the education system). The information you’ve laid out reveals a depth of analysis and the organization of the OER is logical to the extent that it flows for the reader from one topic to the next. 

I was particularly struck by the benefits and limitations sections as I could relate to many of the listed points.

    As a teacher, I’ve witnessed first-hand how data visualization helps with early intervention strategies and allows for educators to identify at-risk students early in the term. 

I have also seen how data visualization is probably the strongest tool my principal uses to engage teachers in the decision-making process. Instead of showing teachers a bunch of statistics and numbers that don’t necessarily make any more sense of the discussion, my principal uses data visualization to showcase the results of school surveys to reveal how students feel at school (do they feel safe, cared for, and do they feel like they belong?). Seeing the results of the data visualization spoke louder than reading all of the surveys could have. It was the most time-effective way to interpret the results of the survey and kick-started the problem-solving discussion. By going through this experience, I understood the quote by Hans Rosling featured your team’s OER: “Most of us need to listen to the music to understand how beautiful it is. But often that’s how we present statistics: we just show the notes, we don’t play the music.” Data visualization made it easier to study any pattern or outlier in the social-emotional survey data from our school.

    This experience also made me understand how easy it could be to represent incorrect information when using the incorrect label or scale. Because the data was so clear to look at, few teachers questioned the value of the data and instead took it for face-value.

    In addition, I found the links to the education-centric data visualization dashboards, infographic builders, and data visualization dashboards to be particularly helpful as I create data visualizations for my venture pitch. It is very helpful to have these resources right at our fingertips in the perfect moment. 
Thank you again for creating such an extensive and thorough OER for this timely topic. I know I will refer to this OER many times in the future and I appreciate the careful thought you put into the project.


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    1. julio palacios

      Hi Tara. Thank you for taking the time to carefully review our OER. You outlined some effective and practical uses for data visualization. It’s fascinating how effective of a tool it is in communicating information. We’ve used it to demonstrate student engagement with our learning resources within our makerspaces. Are there any data visualization or infographic-related assignments in your learner’s curriculum?

      I think you’re right about the importance of communicating correct data. I’ve lead a data visualization assignment with my class and I found it interesting how information could sometimes be so easily misconceived or misrepresented. Although those mistakes weren’t done purposely, it goes to show that we need to be careful when translating data into visualized form.


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  11. raafa abdulla

    Thank you very much Julio, Rachel, Vijaya!. It was very interesting to go over your OER. It is very organized and well designed. I like how you wrote a summary of the topics and the activities. I didn’t expect that you will organize our data from the ice breaker in a nice visualized format. For the quiz, it shows that I am a Data Dreamer but I dont agree with their description. I usually works well with data and most of the time, I dont need extra explanation to read and use the data. I think they try to market their services :).
    But overall all, I like how you incorporated so many tools in the OER to make it informative, engaging and easy to follow.


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Raafa,

      Thanks for visiting our OER and I’m glad you like it! A few colleagues here have also mentioned that the quiz was a fun way to encourage users to learn more about data literacy and the result doesn’t necessarily reflect one’s true competency in the area. You’re probably right on catching that hint of conflict of interests there ; )
      It’s great to hear you already feel comfortable working wit data and are your colleagues share the same level of knowledge? I find it can be challenging to manage expectation when everyone has a different preference or understanding about the use of data.


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  12. AmandaKong

    Hi Week 12

    I liked the flow in your OER on Data Visualization. I am naturally drawn to colors and images so I enjoy the visual summaries. For instance; available resources that support data visualization were interesting and thought-provoking. The data literacy project was intriguing as I self-reflected on my own professional experiences with data. The quiz was worth attempting and I am inspired to learn more.

    However, I do think there can be more uniformity when going through the website. The fonts could be slightly larger, and perhaps,  have a theme in the color scheme.  The visuals selected were great! In your research, do you have any recommended resources for visuals relating to Biology? As a teacher, I am constantly trying to engage students with more visual and expressive data to help their learning process.  

    Side note: I am an animal person so I liked the ice breaker. Good job!


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Amanda,

      Thank you for taking the time to review our website and for providing feedback! In terms of recommended resources for visuals, the closest website I encountered was created by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/data/classroom-ready) and it provides many interesting ways to examine data collected by NOAA. Perhaps not something you were looking for but it has resources for learners at different age range too.


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      1. AmandaKong

        Thanks, Rachel.

        Teaching Great Lake Science sounds awesome, guided inquiry lessons are something I am very passionate about. I can always adapt these kinds of lessons to my students.


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        1. AmandaKong

          Just FYI, I had issues saving some of padlet comments that I made earlier this week, so I copied and pasted while adding more today. Another constructive feedback would be to number the discussion postings and activities so we know that we completed all of them.

          Overall, still a great job! I am going to use some of the posted data visualizations in my classes. T


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  13. Laura Ulrich

    Hi Team!
    Your OER was a joy to go through. The icebreaker was fun, the visuals colourful and charming, and the writing concise (which I greatly appreciate as I’m trying to finish off my A3!). It was also very informative and your discussion questions were on point!

    Also, I’m a Data Knight! I did the survey twice as I was unsure about the wording on some responses… The second round I got was a Data Dreamer, which, like Raafa stated above, did not match. Absolutely love that the quiz gives you a learning pathway at the end… I’m saving my DK one for later (and possibly use it as a model for directing my Personalized Learners).


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Laura,

      Thank you for visiting our OER and we’re happy to hear you enjoyed it! I made a comment on the graph you shared on Padlet at the What is Data Visualization section and in case my comment doesn’t show up correctly, I’m posting here too. I almost feel that people are afraid (I admit I’m one of them) of data or even look at data visualization because their minds instantly associate it with something either dry or more academic/industry focused. Your example actually shows that data visualization is something people can used in daily lives!


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  14. Rachel

    Hi all,
    Here is the link to “Ten Simple Rules for Better Figures” (https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003833) and it provides a great summary of what we have discussed in our data visualization limitation page. Enjoy!


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  15. Michael Saretzky

    Hi Team!
    Great job! I enjoyed the layout of the OER. This was another OER that as I got deeper and deeper into it I came to realize that I use it quite often.


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    1. Vijaya Jammi

      Thanks, Michael! Glad you enjoyed our OER. I do agree that data visualization is magical and we involuntarily get drawn into it, for its power of unfolding information beautifully. I remember a quote, ‘data visualization harnesses the power of our subconscious mind’ and yes it is effective.


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  16. adrian wheeler

    Hi Week 12:

    I’m very impressed with your OER. The design is bright, stylish and easy to read. I really enjoyed your interactive elements and was most impressed by the icebreaker activity. The integration with data studio was seamless and you even took the time to match the visual style. Very well done. I think my only real criticism is the navigation bar itself. It isn’t the most intuitive when revising specific pages.


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    1. adrian wheeler

      I also forgot to mention my quiz results. I am apparently a “Data Knight”. I do think Data visualization is a super important skill, though regrettably, one without much application in my current job.


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    2. Vijaya Jammi

      Thanks Adrian! Glad you found our OER interesting and engaging. We note that you found the navigation bar not very effective for revising specific pages. We agree there is scope to design it in a better way and make it easier to sift through the pages for specific information. Thanks again. Appreciate your comment.


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  17. ryan valley

    Hi Julio, Rachel, Vijaya,

    I really enjoyed this OER, you have done an exceptional job. I really appreciate how you built such a clear interactive example in as an opening activity. I love data visualization so I might be (definitely) biased positively toward your OER… The David McCandless video is also one of my favourite Ted Talks so I am glad you included it, I think it was one of the things that first got me interested in data visualization. Your content was really well put together and thoughtfully curated. I got Data Knight on the test.

    I have a couple of pieces of constructive feedback. One is just from the design standpoint, some of the text boxes might benefit from having some more padding since the content goes right to the edge which makes them look a bit crowded and less readable! Second I am not sure if the genially graphic title “How Data Visualization Impacts Different Stakeholders in Education” was working for me? I noticed it had a button in the top right to show interactive elements but that did not seem to do anything, and then I tried clicking around but it did not seem to change anything in the graphic.

    Thanks for the well made and thoughtful OER!


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    1. Rachel

      Hi Ryan,

      Thanks for your feedback and we will take into consideration of the text boxes to make them easier to read. As for the Genially graphic, thanks for pointing that out as I can see why it’s confusing. Unfortunately there’s no interactive function in that chart and I have since moved the button on the top right to avoid future confusion – thank you!


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  18. ben zaporozan

    Julio, Rachel, Vijaya,

    Your data visualization work is succinct and relevant and has a nice cadence. Using Google Data Studio for the initial survey visualizations was a nice touch. I use Data Studio, Tableau, and Smartsheets at work for various dashboards and visualizations depending on the type of data and the audience, and probably would not have attempted to use any of those options had it not been for Hans Rosling’s influential work with visualizations about global healthcare. You mentioned Hans and many of the popular and influential tools and how data can be used to help tell a story or how misuse can lead to misunderstandings.

    The scope of the OER is nicely contained around the design elements of visualizations, even including remarks about accessibility. At first, I wondered why you hadn’t touched on the various methods for data preparation and the cleansing methods used with larger data sets before visualizations can be used correctly to influence opinions, but you do mention pitfalls and the need for greater data literacy and that is probably the right amount of information. I think your point about the use of AI as an interpretive tool for use of data in education is an interesting one. First, while many universities use an LMS and have staff with knowledge about administration and learning analytics, I think there are many steps involved with data collection that prevent the future of AI use in education from arriving faster than it could even with current technology. Human-developed machine learning methods and monitoring and the ethics of data use with/without informed students and with/without mandated teacher interventions when students are proven to be struggling are some of the areas that are not clearly and equally understood by institutions, educators, and learners. There are definitely huge advantages to using technology to measure learning, identify problems, recommend remediation, and to provide overall institutional administrative health status.

    It looks like you would have enjoyed creating this OER. If you did and if you have not yet had the opportunity to work through Leah Macfadyen’s MET course on Learning Analytics, I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. It is challenging and very robust and you will leave it with a deep understanding of the current state of learning analytics in education. If you are looking for further research on data use in education, https://www.solaresearch.org/ is a great place to start.

    Here are a couple of papers about visual analytics that might interest you, even though they are not recent papers:
    J. Thomas and K. Cook. Illuminating the Path: Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics. IEEE-Press, 2005. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236993632_Illuminating_the_Path_An_RD_Agenda_for_Visual_Analytics

    D. A. Keim, F. Mansmann, J. Schneidewind, J. Thomas and H. Ziegler.
    Visual Analytics: Scope and Challenges. Visual Data Mining: Theory, Techniques and Tools for Visual Analytics, Springer, 2008.
    https://bib.dbvis.de/uploadedFiles/55.pdf


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  19. Neal Donegani

    Hi Week 12,
    Thanks for a visually stunning OER; perhaps par for the course for a project on data visualization. I found that data visualization is almost a mix of learning analytics and infographics. This reminded me of our OER, personalized learning, in that it is kind of difficult to pin down as a specific market; however, you did do a good job of differentiating. I enjoyed the icebreaker. I’ve got to admit, and perhaps it shows from my data literacy as a “Data Knight: someone who is eager to further their skills in data science, algorithms and statistical analysis”, but I really like seeing the output from that simple icebreaker.
    You have a good section on where the data visualization market is going with respect to education. I especially like how you phrased, “[f]or an AI based learning system, data analytics is the backbone and data visualization is it’s voice.” I feel that it is only time before AI is part of the classroom especially in personalized learning; so your quote above really strikes a chord. To really understand the what and the why of the AI, and how it is driving learning, I think that it is important for we humans to see the data; and data visualization will definitely be that voice that you predict.
    The language data visualization tool was neat. I teach French, and computer programming at the middle school level and often talk about how English is a mash-up of many languages. So to see some of that come to life in the language data visualization was fulfilling.
    Can colour be confusing for some? This was a question that I wrote down because colour is so important for data visualization; however, you helped clear this up in the article on “Accessibility Considerations In Data Visualization Design” (Keenblog, 2019). This does remind me of the colour coding in Scratch, the block-based programming language; perhaps it should incorporate patterns as well in the blocks for the sake of accessibility.
    I did interact with your OER earlier on in the week, so I am sorry that I’m giving you feedback so late. If there were two main critiques that I’d give you, one is that I find that the web page main headings are inconsistent. That is, there are no real headings on pages such as “Canvasing the Current Landscape”, but there are for it’s sister page “Forecasting” (shows up in a yellow banner). Another suggestion is to have a succinct conclusion. I find that I want a little more of a wrap up.
    Overall, an engaging OER. Thank you very much for the tour of data visualization.
    Sincerely,
    Neal


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  20. sarka kubelikova

    A very easy to follow and navigate OER, Great work!

    I have to agree that visualizing of data and how it is presented has a huge impact on audience engagment, I think that need to “dress up” data is becoming stronger as the information we are bombarded with daily is becoming busier and flashier and old line graph just doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.

    However I am not sure as you did your research if you came across incorrectly visualized data. Having a background in mathematics I have always had a fairly good number senses and have found that many companies are now wrongfully visualizing data for the reader. Such as bar graphs or pie charts giving a larger visual portion than the data suggests. This happens more than we would like to think and works to manipulate the reader visually. It is a sneaky marketing strategy.

    So even though data visualization has the benefit of making data more easily represented we still need to teach students to analyze it and make sense, which can often be forgotten with all of the exciting graphics.

    I also found it interesting the North Americans are more into data visualization, yet from personal experience I watch a lot of news reports from Europe and find them more data heavy in general, but lacking the graphics to go with it. This is just a vary narrow scope of my personal observations and it would be interesting to analyze this cultural difference further to see if any trends emerged.

    Thanks for a great presentation!!


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  21. Yannick Wong

    Hi the Week 12 team,

    Congratulations on an excellent OER. The visuals were amazing (quite apt for a group on data visualization). Everything feels very modern and streamlined, and you made good use of many tools to engage your peers, explain ideas, and provide examples. I especially like the ice-breaking activity, which you used skillfully to demonstrate the advantages of data visualization.

    P.S. I did take the data literacy test, and I’m apparently a “Data Knight”. It provides quite a lot of useful resources to further one’s skills, so that’s quite interesting!


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  22. Erica Hargreave

    Hello Julio, Rachel and Vijaya,

    I very much enjoyed how you laid everything out in this week’s OER. It was visually well designed and pleasing to the eye, not overwhelming one while at the same time being packed full of information.

    While I hope we never get too tied up in numbers and data, that we forget the individual, I do see the value in analyzing data, understanding it, interpreting it into a story, and using data visualizations to help tell that story.

    Great work.

    ~ Erica


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  23. Tamara

    Very impressive OER and I will quote what our colleague Jamie said, “especially given this past crazy week!”

    Great, informative, and well organized! Good balance of text, images, videos, and interactive éléments. I also really enjoyed the activities/ discussions you set up for us to do 🙂 It was a good balance, not too much or too little…just right!

    I loved the genially games! I had yet to try all the different versions that site offers, so thank you for showing me those options. I will be using some of those versions in my class soon!

    My favourite activity was having to go out and find my own example of data visualization. I spent so much time browsing those reddit links you shared, as I was so intrigued by all the cool, interesting data I kept finding. As someone with little experience using data visualization in my job or day to day life, it was great to see so many different examples 🙂

    This site below “Information is Beautiful” was by far my favorite one shared:
    https://informationisbeautiful.net/beautifulnews/
    Inspiring and uplifting news at a glance. I subscribe to the Dailygood.org to get my fix of good news, but I find myself never having enough time to read the articles. With this site, it is more convenient and takes less time for me to absorb the good news from around the world 🙂

    Thank you for your fabulous OER; I learned a lot.

    ~Tamara


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