{"id":103,"date":"2016-02-18T14:06:32","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T14:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-digital\/?p=103"},"modified":"2016-02-18T14:26:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-18T14:26:45","slug":"data-visualization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/hist-digital\/2016\/02\/18\/data-visualization\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Visualization"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Reconstruction<\/a>There are many different ways to visualize or present data in a history project, but digital tools enable an even wider and more creative array of such visualizations than in the past. \u00a0Most notably, word clouds (or graphic representation of word frequency within text) offers a powerful way to represent patterns in historical documents. \u00a0There are many free tools online to help generate word clouds, but two of the most popular (especially with educators) are Wordle<\/a> and Tagxedo<\/a>. \u00a0There is also a new promising suite of free services from DataBasic<\/a>. Google also offers a fascinating text visualization tool called the Ngram Viewer<\/a> that generates charts rather than clouds, depicting word usage across published and digitized texts.<\/p>\n

Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Generate word clouds or data visualizations\u00a0that illustrates something teachable about a historical text. \u00a0Capture a screenshot of the visualization (or embed it if possible) and then include it in a short blog post which\u00a0explains how you created the image and why you think it represents a “teachable” resource.<\/p>\n

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Some models and ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Word clouds usually work best as comparisons. \u00a0Try to brainstorm up some ideas for comparing two historical texts via word clouds. \u00a0Here are some examples from the House Divided Project<\/a>. \u00a0If you want to see how some K-12 educators have tinkered with the idea of “teachable” word clouds, check out this link<\/a>. \u00a0By the way, not everybody likes word clouds. \u00a0Check out\u00a0this provocative blog post<\/a>\u00a0from a software programmer at the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>who hates the way some journalists overuse clouds, and try to avoid the stuff that drives him crazy.<\/li>\n
  2. You can make comparisons within texts as well. \u00a0For example, consider creating word clouds from different chapters in\u00a0The Education of Henry Adams\u00a0<\/em>and see if they suggest an evolution in his thinking or reveal different impacts on his lifetime “education” from various events in his life, such as his residence in England during the Civil War, or life in Washington during the “Gilded Age.”<\/li>\n
  3. Don’t forget to use screen shots to capture the image. \u00a0Then crop the image to improve the presentation. And make sure to save them in a file format (like jpg or png) that can be uploaded as an image into your blog post (use the “Add Media” button). \u00a0If you don’t know how to make screen shots using your computer, then just Google it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Video Tutorials<\/strong><\/p>\n