Cathie Howe

Manager, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

NSW Department of Education and Macquarie University

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

The Importance of Story

The shortest distance between truth and ahuman being is story

Anthony deMello, One Minute Wisdom

Stories connect us all, always has, always willJeff Gomez, Transmedia Storytelling Master Class

Stories spark emotionPeople use stories to make sense of things

People learn from storiesThe Power of Storytelling, http://www.thestorytellers.com/the-power-of-storytelling

Storytelling and visual expression are integral parts of human culture …

Segel, E & Heer, J. (2010) Narrative Visualisation: Telling Stories with Data

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

The Importance of Data

“The capacity to generate and store data has reached dizzying proportions. What lies within the data represents the chance for this generation to solve its most pressing problems – from disease to climate change to health care and customer understanding.”

Gurjeet Singh (2015) Understanding the ‘shape’ of Data to Shape our World

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Story + Data

“melding the skills of computer science, statistics, artistic design and storytelling”

Show me: new ways of visualising data sourced from The Economist http://www.economist.com/node/15557455

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Telling Stories with Data

• Narrative is the way we simplify and make sense of a complexworld

• It supplies context, insight, interpretation—all the things that make data meaningful.

• You’re attempting to persuade, inspire trust, and lead change.

• Stories that incorporate data and analytics are more convincingthan those based on anecdotes or personal experience.

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

The Power of Story + Data:World Vision Example

The Future of Storytelling

Stories are meaningful when they are memorable, impactful and personal.

Sourced from You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-PAzrpqUQ

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Data and the NSW Syllabuses

MathematicsD

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Free

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Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Data and the NSW Syllabuses

Science

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Data and the NSW Syllabuses

History

Example Key inquiry questions:What stories do other people tell about the past?How can stories of the past be told and shared?How do we describe the sequence of time?

“If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”- Rudyard Kipling

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

An Example: First Fleet Data Set on Scootle

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Convert First Fleet Data Set to Google Sheets

Download spreadsheet, then upload and covert to a Google Doc.

Share with Students

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Pivot Tables

• Pivot tables can be an example of two-way tables. It’s a tool that can extract significance from a large data set.

• Data summarisation tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets

• Allows you to interpret data in different ways

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Pivot Tables and the First Fleet Data Set

Working with two variables in this example – gender and ship

Examine the relationships between the two variables

Can you find a story in this data?

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Visual Data Analysis – telling the story of data (Infographic)

“Visual data analysis blends highly advanced computational methods with sophisticated graphicsengines to tap the extraordinary ability of humans to see patterns and structure in even the most complex visual presentations.”

2015 Interim Horizon Report K-12

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Scaffold for Telling Data Stories

1. Define Audience

2. Create Hypotheses

3. Sketch

4. Get Data

5. Explore Data

6. Tell the Story

http://online-behavior.com/analytics/stories

Daniel Waisberg is an Analytics Advocate at Google and the Founder of Online Behavior

“Data analysis isn’t about graphics and visualizations; it’s about telling a story”

“Analysis doesn't have to be long and complex.”

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/tell-meaningful-stories-with-data.html

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Practices for telling great stories with data

Whitepaper, “5 best practices for telling great stories with data. Tableau Softwarehttps://www.tableau.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/whitepaper_best-practices_telling_great_stories.pdf

Sourced from Flickr by US Department of Agriculture: The cost of raising a child

Think of Your Analysis as a Story1. Find the story first – explore the data2. Determine what you want people to do

as a result3. Write out the “story board” for your

audience

Be authentic – your story will flow• Make it personal, make it emotional• Start with a metaphor or anecdote• Develop with data - authenticity is

rooted in facts and facts are rooted in data

• Supplement hard data with qualitative data

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Practices for telling great stories with data

Be Visual – think of yourself as a film editor• Use pictures and graphs

• Design your graphs and charts for instant readability but allow for layers of meaning as the graph is studied

Make it easier for your audience and you• Telling a story should be simple and direct. Recall and action

will be that much stronger

• Stick to 2-3 key issues and how they relate to your audience

• No hoop jumping

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Stories you can tell with Data

Time

• A reporting story about the past

• An explanatory story about the present

• A prediction story about the future

Focus

• What story

• Why story

• How to address the issue story

Frequency of lightning

http://dupress.com/articles/data-driven-storytelling/

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Locating Data

Collect your own data.

Access the vast number of public data sets.

• Sea surface information data sets• Weather Observations data sets• Terrestrial protected areas under Australian Government jurisdiction• Frog Atlas for South Australia• The First Fleet• Climate data

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Sourcing Data Sets

Access the vast number of public data sets. Here just a few examples:

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

What is an Infographic?

Infographics are graphicvisual representations of information or data that can present complex information quickly and clearly.

Data analysis isn‘t about graphics and visualizations; it‘s about telling a story.

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Student Designed Infographic using Piktochart

Sourced from: http://catlintucker.com/2013/11/student-designed-infographics-process-products/

Image sourced from http://magurtis.blogspot.com.au/

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Free tools for Creating Infographics & Charts

easely Piktochart

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Free tools for Creating Infographics & Charts

infogr.am VENNGAGE visually

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

WFP: Country Donors and Recipients

http://cdn.wfp.org/data/globe/

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

CYBERTHREAT REAL – TIME MAP

https://cybermap.kaspersky.com/

Cathie Howe, Macquarie ICT Innovations Centre

Hans Rosling’s Yardstick of Wealth

Hans Rosling is famous for presenting public data about the world with the most elegant and innovative infographic technology, all to tell a gripping story of the world's past, present and future development.

catherine.howe@det.nsw.edu.au

http://au.linkedin.com/in/cathiehowe

@cathie_h

@macict

www.macict.edu.au

Macquarie ICT Innovations CentreBuilding C5B, Macquarie UniversityNSW, 2109Ph | 02 9850 4310 | macictsupport@det.nsw.edu.au

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