https://blog.databasic.io About Our Tools and Activities for Learning to Work with Data Wed, 08 Feb 2017 22:27:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://blog.databasic.io/2016/12/29/designing-tools-for-learners-not-users/ Thu, 29 Dec 2016 18:24:03 +0000 http://databasic.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=174 We (Catherine and Rahul) just co-authored an article in the Journal of Community Informatics called Design Principles, Tools and Activities for Data Literacy Learners. In it, we make the case that most tools that help people work with data prioritize flashy visualizations and outputs rather than helping to scaffold a learning process. This ends up making the process of data analysis like a black box (especially for people from non-technical backgrounds). We pose the question – what … Continue reading →]]> https://blog.databasic.io/2016/07/12/big-data-and-development-at-mit-media-lab/ Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:34:44 +0000 http://databasic.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=152 We conducted a workshop as part of the Data-Pop Alliance’s Global Professional Training Program on Big Data and Development at the MIT Media Lab. Data-Pop’s program focuses on building capacity for working with data for global professionals who are involved in development work and policymaking. You can read more about their approach here. In attendance were around 30 folks from universities, the civil sector, and government from a variety of countries, including Colombia, Senegal, France … Continue reading →]]> https://blog.databasic.io/2016/05/04/our-round-up-of-databasic-workshops-and-demos-from-spring-2016/ Wed, 04 May 2016 21:27:09 +0000 http://databasic.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=129 This has been an eventful spring for Databasic! After launching in January to great success we have been traveling to classes, conferences and workshops to help different groups of people learn about working with data. Catherine led four workshops for graduate and undergraduate Journalism students at Emerson College. Journalism students learned how to work with qualitative and quantitative datasets from open data portals and start telling stories. Rahul led a workshop for his Data Storytelling Studio … Continue reading →]]> https://blog.databasic.io/2015/11/25/databasics-first-workshop/ Wed, 25 Nov 2015 17:42:55 +0000 http://databasic.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=65 On November 8th, 2015, we ran our first pilot workshop of the DataBasic suite of tools at the MIT Media Lab. We hosted around 10-12 people, mostly trusted friends who we could rely on to be honest but kind about the inevitable bugs and shortcomings of the tools at this early stage. For this event, we first outlined our high-level design goal: Design tools that support data literacy learners, not just folks who already know what they … Continue reading →]]> https://blog.databasic.io/2015/11/25/databasics-guiding-principles/ Wed, 25 Nov 2015 17:21:15 +0000 http://databasic.wordpress.brownbag.me/?p=62 These are the design principles that we used to build DataBasic. They come from our paper Designing Tools and Activities for Data Literacy Learners. In order to support learners (rather than users who already know what they are doing), we say that tools should be: Focused Centered around one user activity Doesn’t have too many options Newbies can do something meaningful quickly Guided Has sample data baked in Can be run from home page Clear, … Continue reading →]]>