Beautiful Evidence

A few months ago I became very interested in the graphical representation of data. Over the last few years I've heard people mention "death by PowerPoint" and seen lots of lampoons and even a comedy show on bad PowerPoint.

I began to take notice of the well thought out charts found in many magazines and newspapers. Time Magazine, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal have incredibly informative graphs and charts that really communicate the information well. In researching some of the creators of these I found Edward Tuft, renowned information representation expert who is seen as the quintessential thinker in information design and visual literacy.

A recent story on NPR on how confused people are about climate change was very disturbing. They pointed out how a firestorm of "Global Warming is a hoax" rhetoric heated up because of the snow storms that are hitting states across America, many like Alabama who rarely see snow have experienced it 5 times in one year (unheard of!) Amidst all of this people are saying how can there be global warming with all this snow. A social scientist was speaking on how hard it is for people to concentrate on counter intuitive information (like heat is involved in the creation of snow).

The story pointed out of scientist must learn to effectively communicate the public on the facts in a very people friendly manner.

I wanted share with how people are taking very complex ideas and making them very easily understood.

Prezi - A departure from Powerpoint

One of my favorite podcast's is the Teacher's Podcast. I was listening to it recently and heard the hosts talk about Prezi. It's a new way to present information in visual manner that takes Powerpoint to the next level. Just take a look. This runs totally counter to some of the negative points that Tuft makes about Powerpoint. Tell me what you think.

Web 2.0 in the classroom on Prezi

http://prezi.com/obqzirjhtf-q/web-20-in-the-classroom/