Week 4: begin experimenting with ‘learning’ data

“Rachel Kalmar’s datapunk quantified self sensor array 1, Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, California, USA” by gruntzooki is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The core focus of this week is to continue to engage with the block 1 readings. However, we encourage you to also begin experimenting with collecting and visualising some data, with a view to producing your final data visualisation for this block.

While the readings provide us with some theoretical perspectives through which to understand the notion(s) of ‘learning’ with data, it is important to begin to contextualise our understandings through practice. Our ‘practice’ in this course is making our own data visualisations, by which we mean engaging in a range of decisions about: what activities to record; what kind of significance they might have for ‘learning’; how we might represent such activities with data; and how we might present that data in a visual form that conveys meaning. All of these stages present an opportunity to contextualise the readings through the ‘practice’ of data visualisation.

Given that you will need to complete and upload your data visualisation for this block next week, this week is a good time to start exploring and experimenting with your own data collection and visualisation, and share your working ideas in your blog.

Your key tasks this week will be to:

  • Continue reading the core and secondary literature for this block
  • Start experimenting with some data visualisation and share your ideas in your blog
  • View and comment on the work of your peers