TLT 470 - TQ#7

When I sat down to work with Gapminder, the first thing I did was download the PDF tutorial. I was surprised that it was only one page. Even the easiest of programs tend to inundate the user with information. Although short, the documentation was sufficient, and easy to understand. The basic overview also forces the user to go through the application and explore the different types of data that can be viewed. This forces the learner to think deeper about how they can apply the tool to figure out which elements may or may not be correlated.

Being a techie, I immediately wanted to see what kind of effect computers had on civilization over time. I was surprised that the US was not first on record, but sky rocketed and surpassed all of the other countries over time. I tried a few variables out to see if they had any impact on such growth. When adding income growth per person, there seemed to be no correlation. Next I tried variables such as Internet use, cell phone owners, and broadband users. Although some of the data did not go back that far in time, nothing seemed to show any substantial reasons for this increase. Variables such as urban growth showed a bit of a "hockey stick" appearance as Dr. Rosling referred to it in his presentation, but there were no significant findings based on the recorded data.

Next I decided to look at computer use and growth from an educational perspective. There was also no substantial correlation between computer use and youth literacy rates, 4th grade math achievement, or 8th grade math achievement. These results can often be construed to mean that the use of computers do not facilitate learning, but I still go back to the idea that computer and technology use can be beneficial, but only if implemented correctly. This data only shows us that based on the resulting data, there is definitely a need to focus on integrating technology more effectively into education to help improve the learning experience.

Overall, I think this tool is an extremely useful way to provide students with a means to gather information to apply to various assignments and projects. For older learners, I think it allows the students to focus more time and effort on the intended assignments. I often found it quite frustrating in my own experiences to spend more time trying to find out information and statistics about a topic, than actually completing the assigned task. For younger students, this tool may be better suited as a teacher lead tool to discuss topics in a classroom setting. The graphical representations help younger learners visually associate different variables and piece together how they relate.