BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO GETTING PUBLIC DATA INTO THE CLASSROOMPRESENTED OCTOBER 17, 2015 SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC TEACHER CONFERENCEWASHINGTON DC

Shawn Handran, Ph.D.

About me 10 years in academic research

Montana State BS, Washington Univ. in St. Louis PhD, Harvard Medical School post-doc

7 years in biotechnology Genomics, bioinformatics, HT screening & imaging

4 years in Non-Profit sector Foundation/fundraising database research

4th year of teaching at FCS AP Biology, AP Statistics, Biotechnology

Getting public data into the classroom

Stimulate intrinsic interest Keep barriers to entry low Get to a good comfort level Gradual release

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Getting Public Data into the Classroom

STEP 1:STIMULATE INTRINSIC INTEREST

Stimulate intrinsic interest Teachers often mandate the

parameters Too much control stifles creativity

Give students ownership Ownership drives interest level and

engagement Provide guidance

Yes, some parameters are still required!

Some recurring themes Music Sports Whatever example you just showed in

class

Getting Public Data into the Classroom

STEP 2:KEEP BARRIERS TO ENTRY LOW

Keep barriers to entry low Datasets

Ease of access Dataset format

Data analysis Cost Ease of use

Dataset barriers to entry Ease of access

HTML tables Downloadable files Copy and paste Query database/forms PDF

Diffi

culty

Dataset barriers to entry Dataset format

HTML use Import HTML Table function Text format (csv, tab) or Excel (xls, xlsx) Query forms Simple database files (e.g., Access) Complex database files

Diffi

culty

Keep Barriers to Entry Low

TUTORIAL 1: IMPORT HTML TABLE INTO GOOGLE SHEETS

MLB 2014 AL team summary stats Baseball-

Reference.com http://goo.gl/5RU0Gt

Import HTML Table template Google Sheets https://

goo.gl/PTv7vl

Import HTML Table

Import HTML Table

Two functions of data analysis Data handling Data visualization

Most programs do both but some not well

You’ll often use multiple programs

Data analysis: cost vs. ease of use

R Stata SAS

OpenOffice StatCrunchGoogleSheets NumbersGapminder

JMPExcelPublisher

MinitabFathom*

Free $$$

Har

dEa

sy

Tableau PublicSPSS

Illustrator

Tableau

*discontinued

Spreadsheet/graphing programs Advantages

Free or close to free (except Excel) Good selection of canned graphs

Disadvantages Challenging for students to learn Requires a lot of wizard-level hacking/tweaking

Winners: Google Sheets, MS Excel

Statistical programs Advantages

Handles large datasets faster and better than Excel Designed for statistical analysis Handles variables seamlessly More graph options and better graph editing tools than Excel About the same learning curve as Excel for simple functions

Disadvantages Moderate to high cost, even with academic pricing More sophisticated graphs or analyses require mad skills Poor graphic export options

Winners: JMP, Minitab

Minitab

StatCrunch

Dataset size: 286K

Graphic design programs Advantages

Perfect control over every graphic element Final output looks stunning and is scalable

Disadvantages Zero data handling and analysis capability Huge learning curve Expensive

Winner: Adobe Illustrator Runner up: Microsoft Publisher (poor man’s Illustrator)

Tableau Public Advantages

Free including 10GB online storage Handles humongous datasets Interactive with mouse-over information Easy to use for simple datasets and graphs

Disadvantages Everything you create is public Data handling is limited and removing variables can

be tedious (but not always)

Keep Barriers to Entry Low

TUTORIAL 2:TABLEAU PUBLIC

Tableau Public Sign up and download desktop/mobile

apphttps://public.tableau.com/s/

Upload a data file Start tinkering!

WHO Mortality by Cause & Age World Health

Organization https://goo.gl/pYTHS4

Dataset size: 5.5K

Getting Public Data into the Classroom

STEP 3:GET TO A GOOD COMFORT LEVEL

Get to a good comfort level Getting started: Survey of public datasets Getting help: Learn from data experts Getting acquainted: Make new friends

Disclaimer: these lists are by no means exhaustive!

Getting started: public datasets Data.gov (186,000+ data sets)

http://www.data.gov/

Big Machine Learning (BigML) blog posthttp://blog.bigml.com/list-of-public-data-sources-fit-for-machine-learning/

Getting started: public datasets Gapminder Offline software (free)

http://www.gapminder.org/downloads/ Pre-loaded data! Cake walk easy to use! Dynamic and awesome looking!

Getting started: public datasets HTML tables

http://www.baseball-reference.com/ http://www.billboard.com/archive/charts http://apps.who.int/gho/data/?

theme=home

Getting started: public datasets Download files (text, Excel)

http://www.seanlahman.com/baseball-archive/statistics

http://www.gapminder.org/data/ https://data.cdc.gov/browse

Getting started: public datasets Copy and Paste

https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/ (easy)http://espn.go.com/mlb/statistics (tedious)

Getting help: Learn from data experts David McCandliss

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ Andy Kirk http

://www.visualisingdata.com/blog/ Hans Rosling http

://www.gapminder.org/videos/ Edward Tufte http

://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/

Getting acquainted: make friends Here at this conference On social media networks

You’ll have better luck on LinkedIn and G+

Don’t be afraid to reach out

Getting Public Data into the Classroom

STEP 4:GRADUAL RELEASE

Gradual release Model

Don’t just show it—demo it live Encourage

Preferably in-class computer time/activities Release and nudge

More nudginghigher quality of final product

Student Project: Billboard Top100 Student level: 12 (AP Statistics)

International student Public sources:

Billboard Top 100, Radio, Digital 2014http://www.billboard.com/archive/charts/2014

Moderate amount of nudging Mostly for language and cultural help

Student Project: MLB Hitting Stats Student level: 12 (AP Statistics)

Local student Public source:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/statistics Low amount of nudging

Student had an excellent grasp on statistical analysis

Less nudging, less complexity

Batting Average On Base Percentage0.000

0.050

0.100

0.150

0.200

0.250

0.300

0.350

0.400

Home Away

Away

Home

0.480.450.420.390.360.330.300.270.240.21Data

Home vs. Away On Base Percentage

MLB 2013 Home vs. Away Statistics

Dataset size: 808

Tableau possibilities… I recreated the same

dataset in ~2 hours of work on Tableau Public and visualized 11K data points

https://goo.gl/ffreyb

Dataset size: 11K

Student Project: Nearest Stars Student level: 8 (Energy Science) Public sources:

Nearby Stars Observatory http://nbso.org List of Nearest Stars Wikipedia Stellar Database http://stellar-database.com Hubble Space Telescope http://hubblesite.org

Extensive nudging full disclosure: my daughter’s project

Dataset size: 528

Sirius star system image fromHubble Space Telescope

Re-envisioned in Tableau Same dataset

recreated on Tableau in ~1 hour

https://goo.gl/tR0Wvl

Getting Public Data into the Classroom

WRAPPING UP

Getting public data into the classroom Get the students interested in something

important to them (not to you) Keep the barriers to entry low

GapMinder, Google Sheets, Excel, Tableau Get yourself trained and prepared

You don’t need to be an expert! Model it for them, then let them do it

Contact and links LinkedIn:

www.linkedin.com/in/shawnhandran