Sam's Blog

Let's talk about what variables you plan on tracking. What should we track as a class? This discussion can be painful or not... So be respectful and listen more than you talk. Also, let's talk about your other ideas, and what works vs what doesn't. Steal each others' ideas liberally. If it sounds like something good to track, do it. Homework: Make a copy of  this google doc  and make sure the share settings are "Anyone with link can view" Fill it in with 5 charts you like and answer all questions Get a link to your doc and copy it as a comment to this blog post Where does one look for charts? The Pew Research Center  is a source for information that will make you smarter and better able to make convincing arguments (try the  interactives !) The  Dadaviz  site has some gems Information is Beautiful  has the prettiest graphs Flowing Data  has lots of interactive visualizations Dear Data  has amazing, hand-drawn charts, and is a really cool

I love you guys to death, but I am going to start this class without computers because you just hone in for the links to get work done (which I LOVE) but it means that it is hard to communicate information, and a big part of today is talking as a group. The Feltron Project Do you know what it is? Look back about 40 posts to "Feltron Intro", and always, www.feltron.com We need data... so we will do a "quantified self" project and collect information about ourselves. What type of data? ANYTHING! Number of steps per day Number of poops per day time on screens what you ate what you listened to books read tweets tweeted instagram pictures liked cups of tea drank websites you visited take a picture of everyone you meet your location (if possible) track every flight that goes over you (or your house) ...so much more! You will pick six variables to track: four personal ones, and one that the whole class agrees on. I want this to be EASY. I h

Ahhhhhhh! Check it out: this message is being pulled from a Google sheet and inserted here, will like five lines of JavaScript (give it a second to load if you don't see it yet): So, just another example of how amazing Google Sheets, and the internet in general is. (Feel free to ignore this explanation... but if you're curious,  here is the sheet  it is being pulled from, and you can hit  CTRL+SHIFT+C  to go to the "Inspect Element" screen, and look for a Script tag , which tells the page how to do stuff (in this case, pull information from a Google Sheet). It uses  Sheetsu ). Today Todo We survey the class to find each person's Name Height Age Foot size in inches (no need to measure, just use  this chart ) Everyone makes a Google Sheet where a ROW represents a student, and COLUMNS represent attributes of the student (their name, height, age, and foot size). Make two new rows at the end, for MEAN STUDENT and MEDIAN STUDENT. The value of each

I'm tired and this is really funny Anyway. Today you are going to learn about  SPREADSHEETS! YAY! "What are spreadsheets?" you ask? Behold! ...it's a grid of boxes, called "cells". "But wait!" you naively protest, "that isn't exciting or interesting!" Ok, I grant you it may not be exciting, but it is interesting. Spreadsheets are oddly powerful. They changed the face of commerce since their widespread adoption in the 1980s (there's a good podcast about that that we can listen to sometime if we have extra time) Spreadsheets count as a programming language, and are the most widely-used one. The vast majority (>90%) of companies use spreadsheets. And finally: They do all the work for you! Can you imagine how much you have to add, subtract, multiply, divide, calculate means, etc when you are running a business? You pay for things, you sell things, but the price of things change. What will the thin

Histograms? That sounds hard... Actually, everything we are going to talk about today is easy. Histograms are a frequency table, that is, the height represents how frequently  that value appeared. For example: Apparently, the most common height for a Black Cherry tree in this study was between 75-80 ft. Let's get some data about the class: maybe "when do you wake up?," "how tall are you?," and/or anything else interesting. Now we'll chunk the data - divide it into bins. In the cherry tree example, the bins are "trees of height 60-65 feet, 65-70 feet,... etc" As a side note, when I say 60-65 and 65-70 are separate bins, what do I mean? Where does 65 go? Alright, let's pick one of the measurements, put them in order from smallest to greatest, and find a few things: The minimum (the smallest value) The maximum (the largest value) The median (median is the one in the middle) The upper quartile (the number between the med

Here is the plan: Sign up for Khan Academy if you do not have an account or can't get into it Go to  khanacademy.org/coaches There, in the "Add a coach" field, enter the class code V6ZGZG In a new tab, go to Tuva Labs Click "Sign Up" in the upper-right The class code is qs0i7  You are now signed up for the accounts you need! Hopefully I was able to guide everyone through that. Now, you are gonna be SUPER CHILL for Liz as she keeps an eye on you. Classwork Go to this Tuva Labs dataset Play with the chart to answer the following questions: Loading... Homework Log in to Khan Academy and do the following exercises: Constructing Scatter Plots and Making Good Scatter Plots

Well, everyone did their first and second assignment! Good. You also did them right away. That is interesting... See, first trimester, here is what happened with the second assignment: I think it bodes well that none of you procrastinated. One thing worth mentioning is that this was a “ Donut chart .” It is a type of  pie chart , it just has a hole cut out of the center. I use donut charts over pie charts every time because I think they look better - but you might not. But I am right. Please, show me you get what's going on by  filling out this form  (you will be filling it out a lot, so don't lose this link (it will be on the blog, right here)). Moving on, here is another chart [ source ]. This type of chart is called a  horizontal bar chart . Discuss: What is caffeine? What is this chart telling you? Do you like the way it looks? Then:  fill out the form again!  Really, every time you see a chart, fill out the form. Next up, here we have a chart that looks v

Last trimester, Rocky convinced me to start every class with a gif, so here is today's: That is Poppy, my daughter. You will see many gifs of her. She was only 1 month old in this gif, now she is almost 5 months. Today in class 1. "What's wrong with these charts?" Round-table discussion 2. "Sam Info" Check out this info graphic . I have been collecting data about myself for my own Feltron project. Then answer these two questions: Homework Make sure a PARENT fills out the following: If you are done and there is time in class, why don't you look at the original Feltron projects ? Also, always feel free to check out Free Code Camp when you are done. It is one of the best projects on the internet, and I think it is a glimpse into the future of education.

Hi! I'm Sam! I'm teaching your math class this trimester. What class is that? Well, the long-winded name I came up with is Math as Communication: Data Visualization, Statistics, and Probability What does that mean?  By the end of the trimester, you will be able to: Effectively read graphs Understand large data sets by using measures of central tendency Communicate likelihood using probability Interpret and communicate data sets by producing interesting and clear graphs and other data visualizations How will you learn this? Well, you will Have homework almost every night Work effectively in class so homework can be minimal Take a few quizzes Do a project called the Feltron Here are two example Feltrons: BUT WHY??? It's really easy to communicate opinions. You just say what you feel. You don't have to think, and you don't worry about being wrong. Watch this:  Drake is the worst rapper of all time. Justin Bieber isn't