Hans Rosling on the World Population

Those of you who read these pages will know that I am a fan of Hans Rosling and GapMinder. His graphical analysis tools are cool.

So - here's his recent TED talk on the impact of Religion on Babies born ... watch for the simple explanation at the very end which uses some very simple technology to explain his view that the world population will peak at a certain level.

Enjoy - it's 13 minutes of enjoyment of maths, social science and thinking.



And by the way - the graphing engine that Rosling uses is either the same or similar as the graphing option in Google Apps spreadsheet - so if you haven't tried it yourself yet on some of your own data, then head to the Motion Chart option in Google's spreadsheet.

Infographics by Visual.ly

Infographics interest me - for a number of reasons. I'm basically a visual learner is probably the main one, but I'm also a closet mathematician so always look for a way to present data in visually attractive ways.

A long time ago I registered for visual.ly and heard nothing until my email this morning reminded me they were there and are now "open for business". Well, kind of - they have a couple of options only at the moment taking your stats from Twitter and Facebook. I took the opportunity to see just what the "you are what you tweet" option gave - and the result is below.  What I look forward to is the tools becoming readily available to build infographics like the ones they have here.

200 Years that Changed the World - Gapminder for Teachers

Anyone reading this blog regularly will know I'm a Hans Rosling fan. His Gapminder website and accompanying desktop version are powerful tools for making sense of world data.

His latest newsletter highlights Gapminder for Teachers.

Two things struck me about the information on the teachers' page - the first was that there is a very cool 3 minute look at the 200 years that changed the world - a look at how the world has changed in terms of per capita income and life expectancy. This video shows just how powerful the software is. You can watch the video here.



The second thing that struck me was that there are now teacher guides for using this data with students.

So, again, if you are a teacher looking for some inspirational material to help get students thinking about some of the important issues facing the planet - you could do a lot worse than head over to Gapminder and use the wonderful tools that Rosling has contributed.

Another inspiring TED talk - visualizing data with David McCandless

Making sense out of data is an art. Hans Rosling has shown this very graphically event times with his wonderful bubble charts. And now we have David McCandless, a UK journalist turned data analyst, bringing clarity to a wealth of data sets. And of course, if there is one thing that the Internet has brought us over recent times, it's a wealth of data.

So enjoy McCandless' talk - he's got some great examples to share, and enjoy the data right at the end about that volcano that shut down Europe in the middle of the year.



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Hans Rosling on Population Growth and Raising Livng Standards to check it.

I've referred to Hans Rosling several times before - his graphical view of complex data is just so compelling. So enjoy his latest 10 minute presentation from a TED talk in Cannes. "The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth." This stuff is important.

Chartle - Great online charts

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.

Awesome 3D Visualisation Tools

I had the pleasure today to spend a few hours with Brenda Fisk at nextspace looking at the new version 6 of Right Hemisphere's 3D visualisation software. In particular we looked in detail at the free DeepView Viewer product and the very impressive Deep Exploration Creator product. In particular, both were their new version 6 offerings. To be fair, I had spent a little time with the previous version, 5.7, but v6 is just awesome. Version 6 offers HDR (high dynamic range imaging) which offers unbelievable photographic realism, especially where lighting is a bit of an issue. I'll cover the Crreator product in more detail once I download the new version and can produce some HDR samples.

But the free DeepView Viewer also offers incredible functionality - on a wide range of image formats. I like the fact that it reads Sketchup files as we use this with many of our students. But what it can do with these files is just amazing. You can measure distances and angles, you can cross section, produce orthographic projections, line drawings and a whole hjost more. You can "pull apart" a 3D image created anywhere and label vaious parts - you can also comment on parts of the diagram and share these comments with others. There is another cool function - it embeds into MS Office products so that you can use the 3D viewer for any model that you have included in a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file - very, very cool.

The following images are from a standard house file grabbed from the Google 3D warehouse and opened within DeepView.

You can "pull apart" the model and look at how it was assembled in the first place.

You've got options to measure parts of the image.

DeepView is certainly a fantastic bit of code, very easy to use and affords some very cool functionality for students and teachers - in fact anyone wanting to visualise in 3D.

Seriously cool. Try it. Soon.

TED India Live - See Hans Rosling and Pranav Mistry live!!!

Now - this should be very cool for anyone interested in data visualisation and the power of technology to increase learning opportunities. In my inbox from the great people at TED this morning

Dear TEDsters -
We're thrilled to announce that Day 1 of TEDIndia and the closing session on Day 3 will be webcast live, to the world, for free. The webcast is hosted by the Times of India, TEDIndia's online media partner.
On Thursday, the first day of the webcast, you can watch at ted.indiatimes.com (note that this page is not yet live).
Read more about the TEDIndia speaker program.
Webcast schedule (all times are India Standard Time , GMT+5:30):
Thursday, November 5
Session 1: Fast Forward -- 11am-12:45pm
Session 2: Not Business as Usual -- 2:15pm-4pm
Session 3: Wonder. Wonders. -- 4:45pm-6:30pm
Saturday, November 7
Session 9: Within You, Without You -- 11am-12:45pm
Want to watch the stream on your television screen? Download instructions for connecting your television to a Mac or a PC.

So, why am I excited about this? Two immediate reasons -the first is:
Hans Rosling is presenting in the first session. I have mentioned his awesome GapMinder web site and talks before. The opportunity to see him present his latest live just seems like any mathematicians or social scientists dream come true. His session is set to go at 11am Thursday 5th in Mysore India - so by my calculation this is 6.30pm Thursday evening NZ time.

The second is Pranav Mistry - Pranav is a student at MIT and is the brains behind a project that goes under the name Sixth Sense. If you haven't seen Pattie Mae's TED presentation earlier in the year then make sure you have a look at the video below - it'll give you an insight into the work.



Pranav's session is due for kick off around 12.15am Friday morning - so might be a bit of an ask - but if you're a night owl ...

And there are a host of other peple delivering inspirational talks too - you never know - you just might find something useful.

You can watch these at this site http://ted.indiatimes.com/ - it is not live yet.

Enjoy!

Data Visualisation, Authentic Learning, and Why the Web is so Cool.

Two years ago I had no idea who Hans Rosling was. Then I happened upon his first TED talk where he floored me with the way that his software gave a powerful visual meaning to the wealth of data that was, at that stage, locked away in the archives of the United Nations. 


Hans' first TED talk was inspiring - as is his second.

Now that all of the UN data is available, you have an incredibly powerful tool to work with students of all ages when considering many of todays major issues. All available at Hans' web site http://www.gapminder.org/

What is really cool about the software is that it tracks data over time and plays as an animation. There are much more powerful and important data sets than the one I have used here - I chose education (Yr 8 Maths grades) and compare against a technology indicator of internet users per 100 people. Now of course, there was no web before 1995, so that's where this data starts. The two images show starting and end points.

So, if you are looking for statistics with impact and real meaning, or are looking for a discussion starter for a Religious Studies or Social Studies or Geography or Business or anything lesson, then use Gapminder - and use the talks from Rosling - truly inspirational, all due to the power of the web and the awesome story telling tools it provides.