Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

  • 25 Jul

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    Propublica and The Opportunity Gap

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    This is somewhat similar to a post I did on mining education data back in February—clearly, the topic is a real interest of mine.

    Propublica, with its story package titled, “The Opportunity Gap,” has taken data on public school districts fairly similar to that offered by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, but the nonprofit news organization made a conscious effort to make the data more social:

    Sharing — the Facebook aspect of the app — is a big part of the behavior ProPublica’s news apps team wanted to encourage for its users…One small-but-key feature: With that integration, users who are signed into Facebook can generate an individual URL for each cluster of data they dig up — the Cambridge [MA]-versus-Medfield-versus-Lawrence comparison, say — to make sharing and referencing the data almost seamless. The resulting page has a “share on Facebook” button along with a note: “Use this hashtag to share your insights on Twitter: #myschoolyourschool.”

    Since last time I was a bit nepotistic in picking my own high school, this time I looked at data from schools close to where my family currently lives—Dallas, Texas.

    W.T. White high school would be our local public school. The percentage of students who receive free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of poverty, is 68 percent—well below the average of  86 percent for Dallas Independent School District as a whole (side note: seriously? Eighty-six percent? And this is the state that voted to cut $4 billion from the education budget).

    If you look at the custom link I created, comparing nearby schools, there is one surprising data point: Highland Park high school, a mere seven miles and 15-minute drive away, has zero kids on free or reduced-price lunch. More kids, though, at W.T. White take advanced math. I would love to find out why—perhaps a Jaime Escalante (of Stand and Deliver fame) is at work?

    In order to paint the full picture of Dallas high schools, you would need to include private school data. I’ve yet to find a database for that. A goal for the future, to be sure.

  • 13 Apr

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    Data Wrangler

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    If this works anything like it does in the promotional video, it’s one of the coolest tools I’ve ever seen.

    Data Wrangler is the brain child of a few geniuses at the Stanford Visualization Group, which specializes in, well, organizing data. What I love about the looks of this is that the interface seems extremely intuitive. Too often when you try to use a tool designed to make your life easier, you end so frustrated that you waste more time than you would have originally. Check out the video for yourself.

    Wrangler Demo Video from Stanford Visualization Group on Vimeo.

  • 31 Mar

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    Using Data Mining to Dig up Dirt

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    I’m in a few classes this semester for which I read several academic articles each week from fields ranging from behavioral economics to anthropology. More often than not, I’m frustrated by their lack of practicality and ability to be applied for the real world*. The silver lining to my blood pressure-raising annoyance, though, is that I now appreciate the fact that journalism works with real people on concrete issues astronomically more than I did previously. And technology is helping us do this job more effectively every day.

    One great example that I recently came across is this pothole mapping tool/smart phone application from the Des Moines Register. Think about it: how frustrating is it to ram your car into a crater-sized pothole that you didn’t see until it was too late? The smart phone app allows Iowans to turn their frustration into collective knowledge instantly.

    Potholes are color coded according to their severity, and recently filled holes are marked as well.

    More than just providing practical information, the Des Moines potholes map keeps the local government accountable. It also gives credit when credit is due—potholes filled within the past week show up in gray on the map.

    Newspapers need to find ways to become indispensable to their target audience. Providing practical information that you can act upon is a great first step.

    *For example, this sentence is from Paulo Freire’s book Pedagogy of the Oppressed on problem posing education, his solution for how to educate the lower classes: “It epitomizes the special characteristic of consciousness: being conscious of, not only as intent on objects but as turned in upon itself in a Jasperian ‘split’—consciouness as consciousness of consciousness” (79). Yes, I stopped reading halfway through, too.