Category: DataViz Team 2014

A12: Redesigning Seminar

Posted on Author Shaina Lo

Last semester I took Methods into Environmental Science and worked along the Park River in Hartford, CT on water quality. Mary Pelletier, who runs the Park River Watershed spoke in our class and discussed about our watershed and what her job consisted of. I also took the course Analyzing Schools with Professor Rachel Leventhal-Weiner in the Fall where I was introduced to the different forms of education systems especially in and around the Hartford community. With the combination of these two classes as well as an interest in taking GIS (Geographical Information Systems) I found the course and internship Data Visualization very appealing.

I think starting the semester off already knowing some things, such as who one’s community partner is, what area one wanted to work in, etc. was important to figure out before the class actually began. It was nice having already spoken with Mary even if it was mainly over the phone to establish that initial relationship prior getting down to business. I do agree that since this course was offered for the first time in this way, at times I did feel confused and distracted as Jack was writing the book along the way. I had never heard of GitHub before, and I also never realized how much one could do with a Google Drive. But I also never experienced any huge issues where I was not able to get my questions answered or solved either through Jack, Veronica or by consulting the Data Visualization ebook online.

When choosing between the different curricular models listed, I would recommend option 2. My reasons for this is because I do believe keeping this course as it is makes sense. As long as we sharpen it up a bit — and now that the book is written — students in the future will not feel as though the course is being written as it is being taught. I like the idea of a 0.5 credit class because we are learning a lot of material that I personally will be utilizing in the future. Adding the 0.5 internship with the class credit is great as well. This gives students the opportunity to partner and pair up with a community organization, but students do not feel like the whole point of the class is doing what the community partner wants. I feel as though options one and three might create even greater confusion for future students. Establishing that relationship with Mary early on definitely helped me shape my project idea. I think that meeting and pairing up with a community partner half way through the semester might just make things more chaotic as students may feel awkward or uncomfortable working so closely to someone in such a short amount of time.

The culmination of the final projects and the presentations at the Community Learning event on Wednesday was a perfect way to end the course. I know community learning was not stressed as much throughout the course. But I truly believe a class such as this one is imperative for students to participate in some time throughout their Trinity career. One question, I think Jack asked Veronica, Marissa, and me, was why we thought community learning was important especially incorporating it into an internship like Data Visualization. We all had great responses; but I replied that students usually do assignments for classes because we finish it for a grade in the end. When we work on a community learning initiative, we learn the importance of professional work where everyone will see the things we have done publicly. It’s important to remember that when we work on a community learning project we are involving more than just ourselves.

Data Viz Redesign

Posted on Author Raymond Li

Personally, I have found this class to be very helpful in furthering my understanding of data and visualizing data. Before this class, I had the notion that data was just numbers that was used to show certain statistics, but I never thought about using data as a way of telling a story, or at least how to effectively tell a story with data.

Our class structure, the 0.5 credit seminar had its pros and cons. One of the things I liked about this structure was the time. The class itself wasn’t a huge time commitment, but at the same time, I was able to learn and get feedback from my own work and other student’s works. This was very helpful in terms of allowing me to think about my visualization and how I could make them better. Also, because it was only one hour a week, I was able to put more of my time into my internship which also allowed me to learn the insides and outs about research. On Wednesdays I would give an update on my work at research meetings at the Injury Prevention Center, which allowed me to further explain my project. However, because we didn’t have as much classroom time, I felt like we didn’t have enough time actually learning how to make visualizations. Although we used Google Charts and Google Fusion, I was expecting a variety of different programs or applications to make visualization, but it difficult in an hour long class.

The 3 week course, I feel like would be a little too hectic especially when paired with a community organization or internship. During the middle of the semester when the 3 week course would usually happen, I feel like a lot of students would be turned off by it since the middle of the semester is usually a busy time of the year.

I liked the third option the best since it allows for more variety of different ways to visualize data, but also allows for students to implement their learned skills with community organizations, although they won’t be spending as much time with them like an internship.

One suggestion that I think may work is having a semester long class that is partnered with one organization and using data from that organization for visualizations. During this class, coding and other methods of visualizations can be taught. Then during the next semester, students could take a follow-up class much like the one structure now and be paired with an organization for an internship. This way, students will already have experience with coding, but also have the opportunity to have an internship. Although this requires a lot of time, I feel like this would be a great way for students to obtain a skill and use that skill in the real world.

 

Redesigning the Seminar

Posted on Author Marissa Block

First off, I think that a data visualization seminar is an incredibly important and relevant course, and it is worth continuing, especially when considering the shift of print journalism to online media. Since there is so much value in data visualization, I think it would be more effective to expand the seminar rather than shrink it into a 3-week module in an existing course. As a fan of the visualizations produced by The Economist and the New York Times, I began the seminar too ambitiously, and thought I would be able to produce similar visualizations. My lack of coding knowledge was definitely a source of frustration. Thus, from my personal experience, I think that option 3, expanding the course with more content and coding, is the best method of redesigning the seminar. This would enable the students to already have a set of tools to create visualizations before working with a community partner. I felt in the first few weeks of the seminar that I couldn’t really begin a fruitful relationship with my community partner because I had very limited data viz skills at the time.

Though, community partners should definitely remain a component of the course, because it offers a real world opportunity to put the skills you have learned to work. At the same time, more emphasis on coding might seem daunting to non-techie people. However, it is probably better to struggle through class with others than struggle alone. Therefore, it might also be beneficial to pair up students and have them work together with a community partner. Finally, I think that the talk from Alvin Chang was helpful in that it enabled me to take a step back from the more technical aspects of data viz, and remember what is the objective or the issue is that I am trying to address through my visualization, and how can I tell an effective story with it.

Assignment 12: Redesigning Seminar

Posted on Author Minh Anh Nguyen

Considering the pros and cons of each of the three options for the course structure, I think that the last option, which is to expand the course into a larger one-credit course, is the best option if the instructor is to redesign this course. Even though with the current structure, students have a chance to work with the community partners throughout the whole semester, and have a lot of time to get to know them as well as their data visualization goals well, the class only meets for one hour per week, which somewhat limits the amount of material that can be covered. Moreover, since students started working with community partners from the beginning of the semester and did not have any prior knowledge about data visualization, for most of them, the first half of the semester was mostly about analyzing data and talking with community partners about prioritizing ideas. Although these are all very important factors in the process of creating data visualizations, they are not the main focuses of the course. I think students could have spent much more time on the main focus of the course, which is data visualization, if they already have sufficient knowledge on visualizing data by the time they start working with their community partners.

If the course is expanded into an one-credit course and divided into two parts, with more data visualization content and coding instruction during the first half, and students working on community partner projects during the second half, I think both the students and community partners will make use of their time much more efficiently. Students start their work with their partners after already being introduced to the concepts and techniques of data visualization, so they would have much better and clearer ideas when discussing with their partners on how to achieve their goals with the data visualization tools. Moreover, with more data visualization contents and coding instructions introduced, this course is also a great option for students who are interested in the course material to fulfill the Numerical & Symbolic reasoning requirement. The only downside I see in this structure is that since the time students and community partners have to work together is shortened, they must find ways to make the best use of it. Therefore, it might help a lot if before working with the students, community partners have already prioritized their goals and ideas, had the data ready to use, and done some preliminary analysis if possible.

The first option, which is to insert data visualization as a 3-week module into a topical seminar, does not sound like an appealing option for me. Even though it is very helpful for students who take a topical seminar and want to gain additional knowledge on data visualization, I think to be able to effectively use data visualization tools, a 3-week period is too short to introduce all of the materials necessary. Incorporating data visualization materials into a topical seminar is a great option to get some introduction on data visualization, but a more focused, intensive course like in the third option should be offered as well for students who want to go more in-depth into this subject.

Redesigning Seminar

Posted on Author Ben Peterson

Discussing how this seminar could be better built is tough, as I feel the way which it was taught this semester was extremely productive and successful. This being said, I feel redesigning it to be taught the final way suggested in this prompt, with half a semester of coding, and half a semester of working with community partners, could be a positive change.

In the way this seminar was taught, it had its students learning tools as they went along, and not  always having the skills to utilize every tool to the fullest extent. I feel this could be easily remedied by giving some basics on javascript code, html code, and the wide variety of options to visualize data, prior to actually working on application of these skills. Additionally, once this first task is completed, the second half of the seminar would be solely work-based, which I think would allow for strong relationships with community partners, and better emulate a highly-focused work environment.

I believe the seminar worked extremely well with the way which it was taught this past semester, however, I feel getting deeper into the code the first quarter, and working solely on implementing it the second quarter, could be a better option.