TQ#7 Gapminder: “If Serious People Use the Internet the Internet Will Get Serious Content”

According to Dr. Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the quality of one’s output and depth of thought deteriorates as one attends to ever more tasks. Claudia Koonz, professor of history at Duke University, encourages her students to “disconnect” from technology. She thinks students today have an aversion for complexity that is directly related to multitasking with technology. “It’s as if they have too many windows open on their hard drive,” she says. “In order to have a taste for sifting through different layers of truth, you have to stay with a topic and pursue it deeply, rather than go across the surface with your tool bar.” Today, students are sorters of the superficial, which results in mediocre learning versus mastery learning. How can a student be truly immersed in social studies research while listening to an AC/DC song on iTunes between checking email, while IMing multiple friends? The situation is further exacerbated when one looks at the depth of online content and the value of online content as opposed to reading peer-reviewed journal articles and studies and (God forbid) a genuine published book related to the social studies topic of interest. (Time, March 27, 2006) Even though I consider myself an enthusiastic early adopter of all kinds of technological tools to enhance performance, I often worry that digitally available information and resources are almost always considered credible by most students. In addition, I worry about the lack of content depth even if the digital information is, in fact, credible. I believe that all of the factors listed above are creating a digital “Cliffs Notes” generation who feel that two or three bullet points related to just about any topic is acceptable. That being said, I often find myself to be the lone skeptic – waiting to assess the real return of any technological teaching or learning application before advocating its use.

That being said, I rarely see any software application that “sells” me instantaneously, I was absolutely blown away by Hans Rosling’s Gapminders data mining application. Wow! Dr. Rosling has actually developed a truly transformational tool that helps students think about thinking. Gapminders can help learners overcome their preconceived ideas and encourages digging deeper into the data once the “gap” between their prior understandings and new information has been identified (truly a constructivist learning environment that creates new understandings). There are limitations in using the tool. For example, in the first image at the top of the posting, I was disappointed that information was limited to the years 1995-2006 when I tried to compare the GDP of countries to 8th grade math achievement – so even with this wonderful tool data depth will drive practical application.

I preferred working with the deeper data bases like when I compared electrical power consumption (kWh per capita) to total income (GDP). Between 1960 and 2005 it is interesting to me that India and China seem to be accelerating (faster) up and to the right (more power use = more total income) as compared to a more gradual up and to the right trend for the US. It left me wondering about the new “space” race for cheaper/cleaner energy solutions. Is the US at a disadvantage in having to restructure an entrenched 20th century energy infrastructure versus China and India who may be able to transition faster to 21rst century energy solutions like solar, geothermal, wind, Etc.? I found myself wanting more and deeper data to fill the “gap” in my knowledge. I found that increasing power consumption per capita was associated with:

• Increasing health expenditures per capita
• Increased adult literary rates
• More patent applications
• Increase income per person
• Greater total CO2 emissions
• Increased life expectancy
• Decreased average number of children per woman
• Decreasing infant mortality rates

For me, Gapminder gives the student who is wired for surfing the ability to do so within a constrained environment that encourages sifting through different layers and staying with complex topics and pursuing them more deeply. This tool could truly be a catalyst for mastery learning, specifically around the content areas that contain the widest and deepest databases. I see only upside – no down side in the use of this exciting tool. Kudos to Dr. Rosling on his accomplishment thus far with Gapminder and best wishes for his continued “liberation” of data to continue enhancing the capabilities of this transformational learning application.