The Beauty of Data Visualization Group Discussion

Briana Duran, Lee Galbraith, Brenda Pedioncelli, Vanessa Sisneros

1.We liked the simplicity that he expressed in many ways, for example using/collecting something as available as facebook posts and the importance of using vivid colors.

2. As a teacher: The thought arose to use more colors for visual stimulation, to think out of the box as to what to display to our students (not just numbers). We had the idea to use children's interests to find certain trends (example from the video: fears). We know that children are more likely to remember things they actually see as a pose to things they only hear.
As a learner: We now feel that it is not as intimidating to collect and display data for projects. Science doesn't have to be so serious. We know the importance of visual stimulation to take information in ourselves.

3. When he used shapes to represent America v. other countries sizes/statistics, that stood out to us. The  Columbine example also stood out: America's fear of violent video games increased around April every year in rememberance. We liked how he showed that data can be displayed as a map. The  Balloon Race App: his example of "live data", how he can update information as he discovers more, anyone can access it and customize what it is they are searching for. We agreed that seeing the perspective instead of hearing it is much more effective.

4. We agree that our graphs (line and bar) could have been more effective if we used a candle-shaped design of some sort, or anything else more creative than the basic graph templates. Putting our own personalities into visual presentations is of course more time consuming. Using Prezi made the presentations more appealing to watch because everyone's were different v. only a verbal presentation (example: lecture classes where the teachers don't use any visuals).