1. Information is Beautiful
VITTA Conference 2010
Session 2320
Margaret Lawson

2. About Me
Teaching since 1994
IT/Humanitiesbackground
Contributing authors to Information Technology Unit 1 and 2 Cengage
Data Visualisation Chapter 5
3. What am I talking about?
2011 Unit 2 study design, Area of Study 1
Defining Data Visualisation
Study design requirements
What do we mean by big databases
How can we teach this to our kids?
Possible Project ideas
4. A better experience through good designgoincase.com
5. The love affair
1999 http://www.peacockmaps.com/
6. Atlas of Cyberspace:http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/cybergeography//atlas/atlas.html

An old web site

Feb 2004
Artistic
Conceptual
Geographical Maps
7. Obsession with analytics
8. What is Data Visualisation
boring data -> compelling visualisation
Example:
List of late students
Visualisation = greater meaning
9. Background
Edward Tufte (http://www.edwardtufte.com/)
Statistician
expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams
10. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/nymag
11. Understanding the Study Design
Data Visualisation
Knowledge
Types
Purpose
Suitability
Needs of Users
Evaluating
Skills
Create effective data visualisation
12. 13. http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
14. 15. Types
Your data is meant for action
Juice Analyticshttp://www.juiceanalytics.com/chartchooser/
Comparing data
Distribution of data
Relationships between two data sets
Composition of data
16. Chart Chooser
17. Purpose
Comparing data
Where is the web traffic coming from? Australia or USA -> Pie Chart
Distribution of data
When are people accessing the web site? Morning or night? -> Column Chart
Relationships between two data sets
Hits on the blog vs. Sales on online store
-> Scatter Chart
Composition of data
How does the data change over time?
18. The Whitburn Project
120 years of chart history in the US
Spreadsheet of 37,000 songs and 112 columns of raw data
Relationship between song durationand length of stay in chart
http://waxy.org/2008/05/the_whitburn_project/
19. 20. 21 Mb file available through text book web site
21. Compare frequency of word use using wordle.net
22. Suitability
Choose appropriate data for visualisation
Students access big databases, understand what the data is telling them and then choose what they need to use.
23. Sites you should visit
Australian Bureau of statistics
http://www.abs.gov.au/
OECD
http://www.oecd.org/
Google Public Data
http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
24. Implementing the Outcome
Problem to be solved
Kids accessing authentic data from large data repositories
Local vs. global problems
Presenting key aspects of the data in a visual form back to the client/user
Suitability of data chosen
Suitability of Data visualisation chosen
25. Possible examples
Students have to visualise data to aid in decision making
Sponsorship of Child
Which country is in need of your money?
Where should the soccer world cup go?
Which country would benefit economically by the decision?
26. Example from the book
Your school has sponsored a child in Sudan
needs to choose another sponsor child
Produce a series of data visualisations that would assist them with their decision.
Identify three potential sponsorship children
Use big databases (http://data.worldbank.org/) to choose suitable information about Health and Education
Perhaps compare with Australian data
Present a compelling presentation
27. Tools for Data visualisation
MS Excel
Simple charts
Many Eyes http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/
Google charthttp://code.google.com/apis/chart/docs/gallery/chart_gall.html
28. 29. Research
7 things you should know about Data visualisationhttp://www.educause.edu/ELI/7ThingsYouShouldKnowAboutDataV/162091
16 Awesome Data visualisation toolshttp://mashable.com/2007/05/15/16-awesome-data-visualization-tools/
40 essential tools to visualise data
http://flowingdata.com/2008/10/20/40-essential-tools-and-resources-to-visualize-data/
Open Flash Charthttp://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/
28 rich Data Visualisation Toolshttp://insideria.com/2009/12/28-rich-data-visualization-too.html
30. Contact me
Margaret Lawson
mlawson@stmichaels.vic.edu.auSt. Michaels Grammar School(on leave throughout 2011)
margaret.lawson@konstantkaos.net