Saturday, April 01, 2017

Early Data Visualization

The explosive increase in computing power in the last half of the last century changed the course of the mighty river of mathematics.

Discrete methods of solution came to supersede analog ones as "on-off" digital notions replaced the continuous. Analytical techniques and number-crunching overtook the elegant formality of logical solutions and symbol manipulation, lending to the latter a strangely passé and almost quaint air.

Yesterday, calculus and algebra were king and queen. Today, its statistics and data science.

Students will likely continue to study the traditional arithmetic-algebra-trig-calculus sequence we've all been used to, at least for a another decade or two.

Nevertheless, stats and datasci are coming up awfully fast in the rear view mirror, and it's just a matter of time before we watch them zoom by.

What does this mean for modern day parent-teachers?

Teach your child to enjoy measurement, recording data, and making pretty graphs!

Families can track chores done using points hand-recorded on a refrigerator door chart in bar-graph form. Weather data taken from a home weather station can be tabulated and line graphs generated. Personal goals can be set and progress memorialized using large presentation pad graph paper for all so see.

Finding ways to make creating, recording, analyzing, and visualizing data fun and rewarding will go a long way toward developing "data sense" in your growing children.

Start as soon as they can count and "color inside the lines."

Large format graph paper:

1" Grid Tablet 24 x 32 Inches

Quadrille Paper Grid Pad 17 x 22 Inches

Canson Foundation Series Quadrille Graph Paper Pad 11 x 17 Inches

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