Welcome!

Isn't it telling that we have adopted the word "viral" to describe the spread of media posts? It connotes infection, danger, and a need for inoculation while at the same time, many of us (including me on this site) hope that the content we disseminate will do just that—spread exponentially. The ongoing conversations that will take place on this page are intended to strengthen our information savvy and our capacities for nurturing information literacy in the members of our learning communities. I invite you to join the conversations and engage with me and each other to these ends.

Jacquelyn Whiting
Instructional Coach and Technology Integrator, Connecticut

Fun and Learning with Data Visualization
by Jacquelyn Whiting

Do you sometimes find data overwhelming? I do. I sometimes feel a certain level of ineptitude when it comes to crunching data in a way that tells a valuable story. If you have not seen data tell a story, check out any of the TED Talks by Hans Rosling—and the organization he founded: Gapminder to see how engaging, informative, and curiosity-inspiring such stories can be.

Even if spreadsheets make you cringe, this post will, quite literally, help you see data in an entirely new way. And if you are a fan of modern art, a doodler, or sketchnoter, if you appreciate the potency of a good infographic, this post combines all of those things in a unique form of correspondence. Read More >>

Video

Strategies for Developing Data Literacy [21:57]

Jacquelyn Whiting speaks with author and data literacy expert Susan Smith to discuss the pervasive role data has in our lives and the lives of students; in particular, Susan offers insights into how we can help students consider visual data more carefully and objectively.

Article

A Conversation with Parlay Founder Bobby MacDonald

Jacquelyn Whiting sits down with Bobby MacDonald, founder of the educational application Parlay Ideas, to discuss the benefits of explicitly teaching discussion skills to students and how data can be used in service of students' metacognition.

Article

Adding Friction. How Can I Teach Students to Think of Numbers as Evidence Rather than Answers?

Students usually include population figures in state or country reports but operate on the naïve belief that such statistical data is accurate. Since they believe that an authoritative answer exists, they see no reason to seek and compare multiple sources of data

Article

Technology Connections. Data Tools for Librarians and Peer Educators

Heather Moorefield-Lang shares infographic and data presentation tools, useful for when you're creating instructional materials or presenting data-based plans or results to your community at large.

Article

Nudging toward Inquiry. Dancing with Data

Data can be interpreted in many ways. Kristin Fontichiaro offers tips for teaching data literacy and how to help students interpret data during the research process.

Feature

Students' Graphs Promote Reading

Whitney Husid shares how she approached teachers for a project to create graphs based on library statistics. Students would get real-life, hands-on experience with graphing, and the graphs could also be used to demonstrate progress toward reading goals and to communicate with the school community.

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Photos, Maps, and More: Graphic Inquiry and Primary Sources in the School Library

Whether students are analyzing political cartoons or tracking troop movements on a Revolutionary War era map, visually rich primary sources can play an important role throughout the inquiry process.

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Using Student Infographics Projects in Your School Library Program

Infographics created by educators as visuals can serve as models for effective communication, and infographics assigned as student projects can engage and motivate even the most reluctant students.

"Do you know of publicly available data sets that can be combined/mixed with others, so students can build their own new ones; for instance, looking at what states authors live in, combined with their population, college grades, etc."

- Carla Bosco

"Thank you, Carla, for your inquiry. I am so glad you have underscored the value of public data sets -- what a great way for each student to wrestle with topics that are personally meaningful. Here are my recommendations to get you started:

Gapminder
FiveThirtyEight
NASA
NOAA
WHO
Pew Research Center
Google's Index of Public Data
Google Trends
US Government Data
Statista Database

Please check back in and let us know what your students are discovering!"

- Jackie