Firstly, a big thank-you to everyone who commented on the previous posting here on local data sources. Aside from the comments, I’ve been given loads of really useful pointers via email and Twitter, some of which I’ll acknowledge here, and some will come in subsequent posts.
But here’s an overarching question to start with: If we’re planning to ask school pupils to find data, tidy it up and find new ways to visualise it, it’s obviously useful to ask; Who this is intended to benefit? I think that answering this question can, in itself, tell us a lot about how participation works. It can help us understanding the negotiation that is needed to get the right sort of broadly-based participation that democratic processes need.
We may have reasons that we want people to engage, but we only get access to their cognitive surplus if we can incentivise people (in this case, school pupils) to play along.
In the next few posts, I’ll be signposting useful data. But why would school pupils manipulate and visualise it in the first place?
The obvious beneficiaries could be the pupils themselves. Are we asking them to pull together information that is practically useful to them or that tells them something that benefits them? It could be something that they learn from or that has some utility for them, or something where the collection and preparation of the data is particularly rewarding?
A number of my respondents here and elsewhere have been saying that this is an opportunity to promote coding for kids and / or to get some useful tools built that could have a practical use for somebody. Simon Burall pointed me to the Code Academy site that provides an addictive step-by-step introduction and to Emma Mulqueeny’s work at The Guardian, including links to the new Coding For Kids wiki. Alternatively, there’s the fairly self-explanatory Apps for Good project.
We’re talking about visualisation here, so there are plenty of educational opportunities around maths or design/technology.
Or would we get away with asking for a more selfless contribution? Are we appealing to a civic and democratic sensibility by asking them to “tell us something interesting and useful that we don’t know using information that is freely / easily available”? Essentially, providing unsolicited social research to the local council and other bodies? I suppose they’d learn something about citizenship and sociology from that, but…
Perhaps we’re asking them to do something voluntary? There are 850 active local voluntary sector bodies in the London Borough of Barnet, many of whom don’t have the resources to do research, publicise their work effectively or get their work more effectively on the map – avoiding duplication of effort and maximising take-up or funding opportunities. Could school pupils help their local voluntary sector somehow by crunching data?
Alternatively, we could be asking them to provide information. They could develop an app of some sort, or – more simply – gather information in a spreadsheet (mobile smartphone + Google Docs forms anyone?) One suggestion that came my way was something around personal safety matched to geographical locations. Noel Hatch suggested ideas around behaviour change – even looking at information from their own social networks.
Simon Burall (again!) pointed me to this deciphermydata site from Gallomanor – a really nice project to crowdsource information about flu from schools. The pupils learn a lot around collecting and using data, and scientists learn a lot about instances of flu in schools.
We could be asking pupils to manually gather local geographical data, information about services or local features, information about education provision or….
That paragraph could go on for a long time. I can think of lots of things that seem good ideas to buy viagra online me, but I’d be really interested to hear the much better ideas that everyone else has.
This sounds like really interesting work and something I’d love to be involved with.
I’d definitely go down the route of getting students to look at data that is directly useful to them. I think the learning and engagement that comes out of this is likely to be much deeper than something where the inputs/outputs are less relevant. Creating this link between ‘what is happening in my school’ -> data collection -> data analysis -> ‘improved outcomes in my school’ allows young people to learn the value of data and evidence-based practice, rather than just seeing it as another (irrelevant) maths ‘game’.
We have a lot of school councils wanting to do surveys, to inform their work and I always try to encourage them to think about other types of data as well. I’d love to be able to give them better tools with which to do this.
IMHO the key is finding activities that meet the needs of all involved. You’ve got to deliver an experience that helps the teacher deliver the curriculum. With DecipherMyData we identified that science teachers found teaching about data difficult. The lack of relevance was a problem for getting students to care. We’re also solving a problem for the team at UCL. It’s a win-win.
It’s still early days on the project so subscribe to the RSS feed here: http://flu.deciphermydata.org.uk/category/project-news/ and follow us on our journey.
My concern with linking to the citizenship curriculum is that it still is not a core subject and it therefore does not get the attention some of us would like.
Really good to hear about DeciphermyData project and shows that you need to start from personal motivations – in this case the teacher and the pupils being into using data as part of their science class.
What we found when working with community groups on how they could help each other (albeit not on data) is that even within those groups, people have different motivations (http://bit.ly/sucPSb) and needs (http://bit.ly/oY0Lnp) and with college students too (compare simplicity of http://bit.ly/tHTogO with the kookiness of http://bit.ly/pzDNjC).
School pupils could ask why do you want us to do i. something we don’t want to do or ii. don’t have to do? So what types of school pupils would want to use data (DeciphermyData shows that science students might be up for it) and in what courses do they need to use data (…science again, but maths too and if you’re talking about visualisation, geography).
However when we first worked with students, we deliberately involved not just design students but people studying humanities, arts, business, etc so we could really focus on social outcomes of the prototype but also integrate the fact that innovation often comes from confronting different perspectives.
I think giving them the ask “tell us something interesting and useful that we don’t know using information that is freely / easily available”? could work as a way of getting students to want to challenge you
From a point of view of improving local authority research, if it’s information they can provide about themselves and their peers based on the above question, then you’re into the realms of peer research, user-generated data and other trendy topics!
Actually i have to agree with the first point that Noel said, people visualise differently and are motivated differently. When Abrreviation 999 (http://bit.ly/tHTogO) first came to my head it wasnt the first thing i though of it was visualising of a way that could make my life and other peoples lives easier.
The point being is that College students and school pupils are motivated to think of things in different way, some are sparker by friends speaking out loud and then suddenly jump into action, some need time to think and others are motivated by a certain bit of work.
When i started to speak to people and spread the word out about Abbreviation 999 it was intended to spark more interest and also other ideas that could build upon that idea.
However point being is that many young people today are interested in technology and how they can play games, but sooner or later there will be a time when people will be playing games but no new games have come out. Why? Quite simply put, people prefer to play games then to think and spark about creating a game and coming up with ideas.
In the future authority research will need to increase the methods of getting that visualised brain of people out and getting people to think of something new.
When i spoke to people, questions built around knowledge made me think further on how i could build upon that app, but also help me think of new ideas. I think user-generated data helps you gauge at which point you are at, and also you weigh up the points that may make a difference to the idea.
However this is not just by telling people go to a site fill in this survey for about 15 mins. Nowadays people want it to be fast, they don’t want to spend 15mins filling out a survey.
I guess as a point of view i would think it would exciting to be in this type of work.