Monday, May 10, 2010

More Data Visualization - Period 3

You have done such a good job working with visualizing data. And, then, I saw that the folks at Google had developed their own tool.

So, this week, I want you to play with it and then write a two-paragraph reflection on what you did, what you learned, and what you think might make it even better.

You can work with the tool here:
Google Public Data Explorer

This work is due by Friday, May 14th.

24 comments:

fredysnitchelburger said...

I did many things on this web site. I played with the data and found out that when you click on a color it will flash out where the color and # of something out. I also found out that if you click play the data will move. I also clicked on a key and it showed you what data was what color.


I learned that when you click on the video it will show the population going down. I also learned that united states has the most population out of every country on the data
chart. I also learned that brazil has the second most population on the chart.


I don’t think that they should change anything. The only thing I can think of is to add more country/states to the population chart. I would also make it do more cool things.

gigitygigitygigitygo1234 said...

I first picked a category, like the IBM data set site. Then I picked, minimum wage in Europe. Then I started to visualize, the different ways it let you, like a line graph, bar graph, and a Google earth sample of each county and its data. I learned the wages of the workers in Europe, in Euros. But they did allow you to change things, like in this case the currency from U.S. dollars to Europe dollars.

Well it was not as good as IBM’s data sets. But this site did have some advantages to it. Like the ways that you could visualize it into. I mentioned those ways before. This site is just starting out, I assume. But after all, for beginners it was pretty well done.

flaming wombat said...

Since there were very few things to look at I looked at most of them. Most of them were about America and Europe, only two or three were about the world and that made me think that either Google can’t find enough information on the rest of the world or they don’t care. From this experience learned that although Rhode Island is the smallest state it is not the least populated, the much bigger Wyoming is. I also learned how complex Google visualizations are because you could make thousands visualizations out of one data set with all of the options they give you.

I didn’t really like this site because it was too complicated, there were very little choices to choose from and no one could submit data tables. Altogether it is not user friendly. I think that Many Eyes fills this gap or at least bridges it. Another thing that I don’t like is that when you look at the bubble graph you see a straight diagonal line of bubbles arranged from smallest to largest. I would prefer a less orderly presentation. Oh Google Public data explorer why couldn’t you be more like your brother many eyes?

danchoper gaoga said...

In the data set that I looked at was the Unemployment rate's in the U.S from January 1990 to February 2010. The Unemployment rate went up in the past years. This means that the number of people getting jobs is going down. When you press the play button it shows you the number of people getting their jobs taken away in the past years. This is very interesting because this means there will be more people with no jobs! This is a huge problem!

I did not like this website because there was not a lot of choices to choose from. When they get more choices I will take another look at it. There where only topics that adults could under stand mostly about. I really could not understand what most of them meant. They where kind of hard to really understand a lot about them.

mannylautner:) said...

The first one that I looked at was about cancer cases in the U.S.. There were several different graphs to look at, but my personal favorite was the second bubble chart(there were two. I liked the last one). I learned that there are a lot of cancer cases in California(142,550)! I especially like the way that this graph was displayed was because it was very easy to read and to understand. Also because It was really easy to see the difference between other states in the U.S..

The second graph that I looked at was about unemployment in the U.S.. Once again, there were several graphs to look at, but my favorite this time was a bar graph. I really liked the bar graph because for this topic there were big differences, and when I saw the graph without really reading it, I could already tell that there were VERY DIFFERENT unemployment numbers in different places! Especially in California! (again!) In California there were 2,327,414 people who are unemployed.! That was very different than at the end of the graph were they showed North Dakota, which only had 17,236 people!


I liked this new site, although there weren't too many choices to choose from, but I though the way that they displayed the data itself was what made it interesting for me!

Katy Perry said...

When I first arrived to the Google visualization homepage, I came upon a very interesting bubble chart, labeled "Fertility rate, total (births per women)". The chart caught my eye for two reasons, one being the title and the other being the bright futuristic layout that appeared on my screen. I could relate the website with two other cool places I have checked out, the many eyes visualizations and the New York Times Visualizations, because of the the way the bubble chart looked and how it was set up so you could slide a button through past years by pressing play. This fascinated me and got me wondering what other cool stuff lay hidden in the new Google web creation. Because, like they say, "curiosity killed the cat", I couldn't help but click on datasets in the left hand corner and then choose European Minimum Wage as a visualization. This set consisted of a map of Europe, where bubbles marked each country and the yearly minimum wage a worker is paid. After exploring that, I decided to check out cancer cases in U.S. to figure out what the disease does exactly and how it effects regular Americans. In this chart there were many lines that showed each state's cancer cases that were reported yearly. After that I stumbled upon Retails Sales Volume, which lead me to a line graph of types of businesses like food and auto insurance. Overall, I was very impressed with the datasets and how cool and factually they really were.

Not only did they look amazing, but they were also jammed with really cool numbers and facts about different topics. For example, the Birth rates graph really surprised me, but at the same time gave me a little bit of a reality check. In Sub-Saharan Africa and places like Nigeria, Liberia and South Africa, the birth rates are higher, but the age that the average person lives to is less than an American. For instance, in Nigeria 151,212,254 babies are born a year, but most only live to 48 years of age. In the United States, 304,060,000 babies are born, but live to around 80 years of age. What I really enjoyed about this chart was how you could move a button that would show over the course of years how many babies were born. When I pressed the play button to show me a slide show, you could see the bubbles starting at the beginning of the chart (meaning the babies lived only until their 30s or so) and then moved slowly over the course of 48 years getting closer and closer until the babies lived until around their 80s.

I am aware that this site is pretty new, so I applaud the fact that they were able to make it so advanced as it is. However, I would have liked to have seen more choices, like in the many eyes one where it had pages of visuals instead of only one page. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the level of quality it was done at. Unlike the other websites, the graphs were professionally done, making them clearer and more neater. Just like in the many eyes website, I enjoyed how you could view the data in different ways, it really mad a big impact on the viewer and made them more aware of how many graphs can be used to display data.

Diablo666 said...

What I did was I picked out a data set that looked interesting. I decided to examine the minimum wages of different parts of Europe. I decided to go with a line graph format because the bubble and bar graphs weren't as colorful and telling as the line graph format. I looked at individual sections of Europe by themselves, then pitted them against each other in a battle of monetary dominance. The results were indeed mind-blowing.
I learned that Bulgaria's minimum wage was just about 156 U.S. dollars in euros, and that's yearly. Surprisingly, the highest minimum wage in Europe is from Luxembourg. From 1998 to 2008, it has maintained the highest minimum wage in all of Europe. That converted to U.S. dollars is 2,130.31. What might make the system better would be more data sets on a broader variety of topics.

input said...

My visualization was minimum wage in Europe from January 1999 to July 2009. From my visualization I learned Luxembourg has had the highest minimum wage in Europe from January 1999 to July 2009. I don’t know why but if anyone knows pleases tell me. It was also a moving graph, if you pushed a button the graph would show change over time. It also was fun to see the bars grow and shrink.

This visualization tool is much easier to use then Many Eyes. It seems as if it was made for middle school students. However, it would be better if there were more Datasets; then again this is a new site. It would also be helpful if there were more graph options. I guess it will get better with time.

Input out!

teddy bear said...

http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=cdldfhfilcloo_&ctype=c&strail=false&nselm=s&met_y=base_value&hl=en&dl=en#ctype=c&strail=false&nselm=s&met_y=base_value&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&ifdim=district:county:37&hl=en&dl=en
I like this website more than the many eyes because I was easier to understand, but the thing that I didn’t like about it was that there were not a lot of choices to pick from. I choose a bar graph about the education in the San Diego. The thing that I thought was cool about this what that if you hit the play button it likes showed a little move of how the info changed. I learned that there academic’s increased of the years and is much higher that it was in 2000. But something that I didn’t like was the labeling on the sides were unclear to me, the same with the many eyes website.

yolanda figgle said...

I found this site very cool, right away i started looking around after 30 seconds it seamed i look at all the choices though , (tear tear) that disappointed me but the data sets popped out there were so many options first you could pick between a map, line graph, bar graph, or bubble graph my favorite was the line graph then you could pick a type like employment, labor force, unemployment, and unemployment rate. then you can pick to compare by Age, Gender, or Location. then there where more options like age group (16-17, 18-19,20-24 ... all the way to 75+) or location for one data set (unemployment in the us) you could view state, cites/towns, counties, or metropolitan areas so i could even look at (westchester or cortland, croton is not on the list) you can also play some of the data to see change over time, like in january the average unemployment in america was 9.8% in February of 1990 it was 5.8% thats a 3% jump in 20 years! back then the highest rate for the 50 sates was 9.33% thats less then the average the highest now is 14.6!

I did not like the navigation on this site i found it confusing and on the data set page there was only around 10 different options and the other options were hidden within the site to find more you have to dig deep and i mean like really deep like center of the earth deep. in my mind google would have tons of data sets its a huge part of our lives if you don't know something you... google it if you google the word 'word' you have 'About 628,000,000 results (0.27 seconds)' and thats just for a simple word so i am disappointed even if this is a new site there should be a little more of that extra punch.

Y.F.
<3

Sciencediva7 said...

I did the unemployment rate of America. First I checked New York's unemployment rate=9.3%. I checked the most populated states next. I thought it would be good to know New York's unemployment rate, because New York has had a bad unemployment rate. California=13.2%, Texas=8.6%, and Florida=12.2%. I knew that New York's economy was bad, but it has gotten better. California's always had bad economy, but I didn't know that Florida was runner up.

I thought it could be better to show a pie chart for 2010. It would show the most states with the worst unemployment rate. Also, there would be the most states with the least unemployment rate. They could explain why each state would have that unemployment rate. Then, I can learn more about what's going on with our economy.

eatsleepswim said...

I explored a lot of the data charts/ data chart categories such as: population of U.S, cancer cases in the U.S, and unemployment rate in the U.S. I liked seeing what different charts are in each category. I also liked to play with the program a little bit because I found out a lot about it like that you could change the chart in to different forms. Another thing I found out was about that in the bubble map that whenever you would put your mouse over a bubble it would show the percentage and how big it was compared to the biggest bubble. I learned that the highest rate of unemployment is in Puerto Rico and is 15.8% I also learned that California is the most populated state in the country at 36,961,664 people. Another thing I learned that the most cancer cases were found in main at 610 people.
One thing I think they could have made things better is that I don’t think there’s a search button for topics and I wish that it was easier to find if there is one. Another thing I think they could do is to get more charts for the data set. A third thing I thought they could have done better is made the page more pizazie and more interesting. A fourth thing I think that they could change is that they could make some of the symbols more clear because I couldn’t really understand what they were.

eatsleepswim said...

I explored a lot of the data charts/ data chart categories such as: population of U.S, cancer cases in the U.S, and unemployment rate in the U.S. I liked seeing what different charts are in each category. I also liked to play with the program a little bit because I found out a lot about it like that you could change the chart in to different forms. Another thing I found out was about that in the bubble map that whenever you would put your mouse over a bubble it would show the percentage and how big it was compared to the biggest bubble. I learned that the highest rate of unemployment is in Puerto Rico and is 15.8% I also learned that California is the most populated state in the country at 36,961,664 people. Another thing I learned that the most cancer cases were found in main at 610 people.

One thing I think they could have made things better is that I don’t think there’s a search button for topics and I wish that it was easier to find if there is one. Another thing I think they could do is to get more charts for the data set. A third thing I thought they could have done better is made the page more pizazie and more interesting. A fourth thing I think that they could change is that they could make some of the symbols more clear because I couldn’t really understand what they were.


sorry forgot to indent

eatsleepswim said...

I explored a lot of the data charts/ data chart categories such as: population of U.S, cancer cases in the U.S, and unemployment rate in the U.S. I liked seeing what different charts are in each category. I also liked to play with the program a little bit because I found out a lot about it like that you could change the chart in to different forms. Another thing I found out was about that in the bubble map that whenever you would put your mouse over a bubble it would show the percentage and how big it was compared to the biggest bubble. I learned that the highest rate of unemployment is in Puerto Rico and is 15.8% I also learned that California is the most populated state in the country at 36,961,664 people. Another thing I learned that the most cancer cases were found in main at 610 people.



One thing I think they could have made things better is that I don’t think there’s a search button for topics and I wish that it was easier to find if there is one. Another thing I think they could do is to get more charts for the data set. A third thing I thought they could have done better is made the page more pizazie and more interesting. A fourth thing I think that they could change is that they could make some of the symbols more clear because I couldn’t really understand what they were.


sorry forgot to indent be4

Jimbojones446 said...

I did a line graph about unemployment in the European Union monthly from 1983 to 2010. I learned that many people were losing their jobs monthly like in Germany in March of 2005 4,639,000 people had no job at all. I felt like many numbers of people from different countries lost their jobs or had no jobs at all. What I found weird is that higher numbers of unemployment were happening in the more known places like United Kingdom and Germany. I think this is because more people live there and that means there are fewer jobs to go around.

I think it could be made better if I changed the type of graph like if it was a picto graph or a bar graph I think it could be better seen. Also if the type of places I chose from could change, like if it could be seen the unemployment of the world I wanted to see the different countries compare results.

Amu Spade said...

I had a fun time looking at the data. What I liked was that you could view the data in different types of graphs (line and bar graphs, maps, bubbles, etc). There weren't many choices, or maybe that's because I'm horrible with electronics. My favorite data set was "Education Statistics in California". I made it so it was in bar graph form and had all the schools in San Diego. I liked how I could slide this bar at the bottom, which changed the year. They had years from 2003-2009. In 2003, 2004 and 2005, they had the worst grades. But in 2008-9, they had much higher grades.

I thought the site was cool because it had a very... Different, kinds of data. They had data on education, employment, government, debt, etc. What I didn't like was that there wasn't a lot of data to mess around with. Also, the topics were very limited to things like business.

scaramouche9 said...

I looked at a line graph showing the United States population since roughly 1982. I noticed that as time progresses, populations grow at a steady rate. there is nothing TO drastic and it just increases steadily. I guess it would be kind of weird if it just skyrocketed ‘overnight’ ( I have not the slightest idea how that could even happen)
I really did not like this site. I think that they did not have very much information to choose from. and even what they DID have was rather boring. I like the other site a lot more. I really hope we can use IBM next time J. I like being able to pick and choose and Google does not allow you to do that.

Pengu97 said...

I was okay with this data finder. I mainly played around with bar graphs, since most of the data I looked at was comparing. I really like looking at data like population, unemployment and things like that. The main thing I enjoyed about looking at stuff like that was that they are things that are always changing, so it was cool to watch the bars grow and shrink as time went by. One thing I didn’t like was that it didn’t have a search bar. If I could change one thing it would be to add a search bar or data on penguins (They might actually have some, but I wouldn’t know because I can’t search for it!!!)

I learned a few things (like how Bulgaria has the smallest minimum wage in Europe, how California has the largest population in the U.S. by more they 10 million, etc.) Most of this info didn’t have anything that might be important to a 7th grader (not that I thought there would be). The most important thing would probably be the unemployment in the U.S. The place with the biggest drop in California. We (New York) are in 4th.

GotLax18 said...

I mostly used a bar graph because I was looking at comparisons like population of the U.S. ,Unemployment in Europe, and Unemployment in the U.S.. At first it was hard to figure out how every thing worked. One thing is that they had a play button witch had the graph grow as time pasted. Another thing is they had an arrow next to the title witch let you change what gender, age, and scale.

I learned some things like how Wyoming has the smallest population and California has the biggest population. Another thing is in Unemployment in Europe almost every month it got higher or lower.

soccerlovr said...

I explored a lot of different data sets and found this one the most interesting Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the U.S. I found this one really interesting for a couple of reasons. I wasn't surprised to see that New York and California had the most people with Sexually Transmitted Diseases, what I was surprised about what the almost every other state was completely flat. The only other states that really had a slant was Texas, Georgia and Flordia. Other then California and New York. What I learned is that overall the U.S has about 1,603,046 people with Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

What I would add to it to make it better is really hard to think of. One thing that could make it even more interesting is maybe having each town in the state and see how many people have Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the town. Then you can see where all of New York or Texas's Sexually Transmitted Diseased people are coming from. Overall I thought this information was the most interesting I had seen all year! I LOVED IT!!

soccerlovr said...

I explored a lot of different data sets and found this one the most interesting Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the U.S. I found this one really interesting for a couple of reasons. I wasn't surprised to see that New York and California had the most people with Sexually Transmitted Diseases, what I was surprised about what the almost every other state was completely flat. The only other states that really had a slant was Texas, Georgia and Flordia. Other then California and New York. What I learned is that overall the U.S has about 1,603,046 people with Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

What I would add to it to make it better is really hard to think of. One thing that could make it even more interesting is maybe having each town in the state and see how many people have Sexually Transmitted Diseases in the town. Then you can see where all of New York or Texas's Sexually Transmitted Diseased people are coming from. Overall I thought this information was the most interesting I had seen all year! I LOVED IT!!

soccerlovr said...

sorry i posted it twice! it was an accident!

Mr. Asiankid said...

I spent most of my time trying to find Croton-on-Hudson, trying to find the population of it. Then when I eventually found it I realized they didn't show towns' populations. I would only change one thing. I would add a search bar (unless that first page is all that google has).

I learned a few things from looking at this data. One thing is that Wyoming has the smallest population. Another thing I learned is that in all of the U.S. in the year of 2005 there were about 1,338,119 people who had cancer. The last thing I learned is that it is very hard to find a small town like Croton-on-Hudson on a map of the world with no location searching bar!!!

curl the sheep said...

When I got to the Google data page the first thing I did was look through the links on the page to see if I could find anything interesting. The data set I looked at was about deaths in the United States. I liked it because I could pick an age group and a cause of death. I also liked it because instead of showing change over time in a line graph the chart I looked at was a bubble chart. There was a play button at the bottom of the page that would basically animate the data, it made the bubbles move to show the change over time. I learned that from the years 2001 to 2006 the death count in Nebraska, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Indiana, Alabama and a few more states the death count barely changed at all.

If I could change anything it would probably be the way the x and y axis were labeled. You could choose one of two labels and depending on which you picked the data would change a lot. In my data set the two labels you could choose from seemed almost the same but changed the data depending on which one you picked.

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