Felt like cartooning the other day and completed a few. Let cartoon week begin!
Cartoon Week: External Evaluation
Friday Diversion: The child-driven education
I was home alone last night, my wife and daughter are off visiting family. To pass the time I ended up watching a string of TED talks. All were solid, but this one by Sugata Mitra was my favorite. Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education — the best teachers […]
Undervalued experience
From the ages of 16 to 23 I was firmly entrenched in the service industry. I’ve worked the Roy Rogers fast food drive-thru, called out blue light specials at Kmart, and served tables at Fridays. But you won’t find any of those jobs on my resume. This isn’t because I don’t value the jobs, I […]
Web is not all about saving money
In the past couple of years my wife and I have been slowly greening our lives. We traded in one of our cars and bought a scooter for my daily commute. We also joined a CSA and frequent the nearby farmers’ market to try and keep our food local. One of these decisions saves […]
Presentation Idea: You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?
Ok, so next time you are giving a presentation that is too boring, lengthy, or complex just turn to the audience and say, “You Just Don’t Get It, Do You?” Then make your point. Easy as pie*. It works for screenwriters (see below), why not academics? I mean, what’s the alternative, trying to figure out […]
Friday Diversion: Shanty Town Cinderellas
The web provides a showcase for short documentaries, which is great for all of us. Shanty Town Cinderellas is a nice one, did you take your prom for granted? Here is the vimeo description: For young people in the run-down suburbs of Cape Town, the graduation ball is a real dance of freedom, proof that […]
Poop
I had trouble coming up with the brainpower necessary to write a nice data viz post this morning. So instead, I watched this video from the infographic-friendly Gates foundation and thought I would share. An example of how to approach a taboo subject with an animated web video.
Geographer approach to data visualization: Geocommons
I think we sometimes take maps for granted. Think of all the very specific elements that make maps work; points representing cities, imaginary lines separating countries, latitude, longitude, and countless others. At some point these did not exist. These visualizations have been in our lives long before the existence of computers. Today, with the combination […]
Programmer approach to data visualization: Processing and Ben Fry
When it comes to innovative data visualization, web programmers are leading the charge. The coolest visuals are often produced by those with a knack for code. Maybe someday that will be me…I’ll just jot it down on ye olde priorities list… Programmers are superstars of cooperation. There are so many open source tools and communities […]
The design approach to data visualization: Visual.ly
Last week we saw the launch of visual.ly, an online space to explore, share, and (one day) create data visualizations. I’m a big fan of attempts to explain complex concepts through visualization. I’m also very comfortable with complex datasets, of course there are many who are not. Data visualization makes data approachable. Data visualization is […]
Friday Diversion: Story of Stuff
Ok, so this video is ancient in internet years. It was released all the way back in December of 2007 and, according to the site, it’s been viewed over 12 million times. If you have not seen the video, watch, it’s a great example of using simple animation to help tell a story. You can […]