ICT teacher handbook/Data representation and processing

ICT teacher handbook
What is the nature of ICT	Data representation and processing	Communicating with graphics

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Level 1

Level 2
Level 3

Chapter Objectives

Understanding how to read data in various formats and representations and analyze
Understanding methods of data organizing, analysis and representation
Processing and representing data in textual, image and numeric formats with spreadsheets, concept maps and text editor
Understanding the power of data visualization and how data can be used to hide or reveal information
Developing a critical perspective on data and its ownership

Digital learning resources

Handout for Basic Digital Literacy
Handout for Tux Typing
Handout for Tux Paint
Handout for Freeplane
Handout for Firefox
Handout for LibreOffice Writer
Handout for LibreOffice Calc

Additional Resources

Transaction notes for activities

Typically, an activity will have a 'teacher demonstration' or a 'teacher-led' activity, which will be followed by 'student-led activities'. Students will be encouraged to 'self-learn' as well, by exploring applications and resources on their own, beyond what is expected of them for any activity.

Secondly, each theme of the textbook and the associated activities have been designed keeping in mind the possibilities for peer learning. Not all students will work with all data files; so the teacher should allow for an organized sharing/ presentation time for students to learn from each others' work. This can be done at the end of each activity or at the end of each level. This is left to the teacher to decide.

Level 1 -> 11 weeks

The first level requires eleven weeks of 3 periods each: 1 period is for teacher demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students.

A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.

Title	Reading	No of weeks (3 periods each)	Teacher demonstration periods	Student activity periods
About data representation	Reading included
Data can tell stories		2	2	4
How to make data meaningful		3	3	6
Concept map and text document		6	6	12

Data tell stories

Data sets have to be prepared for each computer/ group of students. A data folder must be created on each computer and the data sets copied.
Copy the data folder on the student computers. For each data set, make a set of questions for the students to answer after a study of the graph. After the students complete the analysis, encourage them to express the summary of the analysis in the form of a mind map. The following questions can be given to the students for discussion
1. What data elements are captured?
2. Does the data give you exact numbers or only relative estimation?
3. What can you conclude from the data?
4. What are the advantages in each kind of representation (maps, graphs, satellite images etc)? When do you think is each method suited?
5. What further information on the topic would you like to find out?
The data sets can be drawn so as to represent different subjects.
Encourage students to create a concept map expressing their understanding after looking at the data.
You can digitize these concept maps, by photographing them and saving the image of the concept map along with the data. Explain to the students that there are two ways of creating digital outputs. One method is directly creating the desired output using a digital tool or application. The second method is to take photographs of an output and using the image as a digital output. The difference will be in the extent of editing that is possible to do. An image of a concept map can only be edited like a photo, using an image editor. A digital concept map can be edited to change the actual content of the concept map itself.

Organizing data to make meaning

This lesson can be used to talk about data elements and allow students to develop multiple perspectives of looking at data. Also, the focus will be here on learning to organize and as long as students have a logical basis for the organizing they have chosen, it is adequate. There need not be a single correct method of organizing the data.
If any permissions for conducting surveys, going out of school is needed, they have to be taken.
Let students collect the data and make their notes. Encourage them to discuss how the raw data has come and how we have to identify data elements for capturing
Take photographs of raw data and tabulated data
Take photographs of their notes - documented either as a concept map or a written text.
The intention of this activity is to prepare students to look at data analysis and not so much focus on a digital output. Where students are able to also create the digital outputs, including in creating tables and populating the data, they should.

Concept map and text document

Students must understand that text is another form of data and text can be organized in different ways using different tools. They should understand the appropriate application to use for each requirement.
- When text is entered digitally, it can be edited easily.
- Text can be copied, pasted and formatted differently. Some features like copy-paste are available across most applications whereas some features of formatting are specific to some applications.
- A "plain text" editor like gedit allows simple entry of text, copying, cutting and pasting of text and is linear. It is purely text and no images can be added.
- But most text editors have more features. A text editor like LibreOffice Writer allows text to be entered, formatted and presented in different ways and designed for printing. The text document also can add links to other files or resources on the computer or the internet. It is the most advanced tool available for creating textual outputs.
- The concept map allows text to be represented and connected in a graphic way. A concept map also can add links to other files or resources on the computer or the internet. Nodes can be copied, pasted. Text in the nodes can be copied or pasted.
- In addition to this, presentation software, such as LibreOffice Impress is also available which allows combining text and images as well as embedding of videos to make a multimedia presentation.
You could draw their attention to the different kinds of formats these different applications present and also explain to them about the cumulative nature of the portfolio which can combine multiple formats.
Explain the use of a concept map to clarify one's thinking, make connections between the concepts. Encourage the students to use a concept map to explore the topic further, even beyond what the data contains; this can be useful to introduce the idea of secondary data later on. In concept map creation, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
1. Opening the Freeplane application (in this course, Freeplane is used as a free and open application for concept mapping)
2. Inserting nodes and child nodes
3. Typing in the nodes - English and Telugu
4. Linking nodes
5. Linking an existing image/text file to a concept map - for example, the actual data they collected can be linked, the hand-drawn and digitized concept map can be linked)
6. Adding notes to any node to give additional details
7. Saving the concept map
8. Exporting as image
9. Exploring as text document
To get familiarized with keyboard input of text, you can introduce students to text typing in a plain text editor (gedit), where they type an existing, available text, in English and in Telugu. Once they are comfortable with basic typing, they can open LibreOffice Writer and start creating a text document on the basis of the data they have taken up for analysis in the prior chapter. In text editing, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
1. Open LibreOffice Writer
2. Demonstrate how to create a new document
3. Typing in English and Telugu
4. Simple formatting
  1. making text bold
  2. making text italicized
  3. underlining text
  4. changing font size and color
5. Creating listing of items in a document with numbers and bullets
Discuss with students the advantages of different kinds of data representation and show how formats can be combined (by inserting a mind map as an image)

Level 2 -> 8 weeks

The second level requires eight weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below. This is indicative, the teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.

Title	Reading	No of weeks (3 periods each)	Teacher demonstration periods	Student activity periods
About data representation	Reading included
Columns and rows		4	4	8
Numbers and patterns		4	4	8

The teacher is encouraged to adjust the periods between activities and also between demonstration and hands on activity as needed.

Columns and rows!

This activity requires 4 sets of periods and the objective is to introduce students to using spreadsheet software for data input.
In the initial activities the focus will be on entering data and representing data graphically. Data visualization is very powerful and students will benefit from these skills. Students can work with data sets given as well as data sets they have collected in the previous activity on How to make data meaningful.
Some of the learning points to emphasize are:
1. How to view data
2. What questions can be asked
3. What further connections can be made are to emphasized in this
4. Data with multiple variables - for example, crop production by year is a single variable, crop production by type of crop and year is multiple variables
5. Doing simple numeric manipulations on the data to make new interpretations
The first two examples have been chosen to illustrate how to use a spreadsheet. In spreadsheet session, the students can be introduced to the following (this is an indicative list, teacher can extend it based on the class)
1. Opening LibreOffice Calc and demonstrating how to create a new spreadsheet
2. Entering data in a spreadsheet - typing in Telugu and English
3. Wrapping the text inside a cell
4. Increasing and reducing the column sizes for fitting in the data (in wrap text mode)
5. Sorting (alphabetically or numerically) the data
6. Simple formatting in a spreadsheet - coloring of cells, making bold, cell borders
7. Entering simple formulae in a spreadsheet to calculate data; some of the formula to be calculated include total, percentage, minimum, maximum
8. Drawing charts - bar graphs and pie charts - in a spreadsheet
9. Copying the table of data entered and inserting into a text document
10. Inserting the graphs and charts entered into a text document
Students can continue to work on the text document they created in the previous activity on ICT student textbook/Making a text document.
Data is related to us; and we contribute to the data. To bring this idea more strongly, the map of India with fluorosis distribution is given as an example. The focus of this example is to talk about how we can collect data about ourselves and how analysing can help decision making.

Number patterns

This activity requires 4 sets of periods and the objective is to introduce students to using spreadsheet software for exploring patterns in numbers
The session can focus on the following:
1. Features of a spreadsheet like dragging, dropping, auto-fill
2. Using different formulae - like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division to create patterns and solve/ decode patterns
3. Create a numeric pattern based on verbal descriptions of a problem
You can also use spreadsheets to introduce the basics of algebra like generalization.

Level 3 -> 5 weeks

The third level requires five weeks of 3 periods each. 1 period is for demonstration and discussion; two periods for hands-on work by students. A suggested break-up of activity-wise periods is given below.

Title	Reading	No of weeks (3 periods each)	Teacher demonstration periods	Student activity periods
About data representation	Reading included
Spreadsheet for data analysis		3	3	6
Making a multi-page text document		2	2	4