Hans Rosling's awesome visual statistics on the Gapminder site just got more accessible for everyone. The most requested feature on their web site was a desktop version for those times when you don't have the web or can't rely on it - like in a classroom, or for a presentation. Well, they've just released a desktop version which is just brilliant - probably even easier to use than the web version.
Here's a quick map looking at CO2 emissions since 1820 - interesting graph to track by the way.
The easy to use help file looks like this
If you haven't seen Gapminder, you should. It is a great discussion starter for mathematics, statistics, philosophy, geography, social sciences, science ...
And if you haven't seen Hans' TED talks - they too are just incredible. Here's his 2007 talk I've referred to before ..
Chartle can deliver a wide range of charts which you can then embed in your website.
Here is an example of the type of chart that Hans Rosling has made famous in his analysis of UN data on his awesome gapminder web site. This simple data set looks at 4 sets of English and Maths scores over 4 years for 3students. The dynamic way the data points move make this type of visualisation quite useful.
I'm thinking of using this to do my annual analysis of achievement data for students over time - so hope that I can find an easy Excel import option. Looks to be a useful tool.
Thanks to a heads up by Andrew, I had my Year 8 students download the free version of Livebrush today.
Now, I'm no graphics person, at least from a design perspective, but what captured my attention from the Livebrush site was a couple of their sample files. I know I've always wanted to have an idea of how to so some of this stuff - just lack the motivation to actually do it! Once I showed them to the students, well, in less than 30 minutes there were plenty of "ooohs" and "aaahhhs".
But there were also the "how do I do this?", "Where are the colours?" and the usual response from me "no idea" (which is true), "but you find out and create a short Jing cast to let others know." Within minutes huge learning of several new tools (Jing is still new to this class, as is the notion of an e-portfolio which they are creating using Google Sites).
The power of digital technologies to ignite learning experiences with students, and the occasional old teacher too!, never ceases to amaze me. We are so lucky to live and work in education in these times - we owe it to students to keep pushing the boundaries.
