Where does all the data come from - follow up

I am learning in my dinner conversations that it is helpful to have some actual data on the topics we are discussing.  Following up on our conversation the other night I was sent the following link to a video which gives an excellent overview of big data and why so much of the world's info has been created in the last two years.  Worth watching even if you aren't going to talk about it over dinner...

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/11/big-data-0

Florida Casinos - the kids make the call

Last night I tried a different approach to our conversation.  I wanted the kids to focus on what questions to ask rather than hypothesizing (which has been the focus of most of our previous conversations).  To that end, I posed the following question:

"The State of Florida is trying to decide whether to allow casinos to open in the State.  You are now a member of the Florida State Legislature - what do you want to know in order to decide how to cast your vote?"

The two older kids immediately jumped in with questions - "how much money would it make?", "where do they want to put the casinos?", "is there any other way to gamble in Florida?".  Jamie (the 7 year old) looked at me with a blank stare.  So I asked him if he knew what a legislature was.  He didn't, so I asked his sister to explain. She did a great job of explaining, pointing out that the legislators were the people elected by the voters to make the laws in the state.

Armed with that information, Jamie jumped in with some questions of his own: "who will get all the money?", "is it dangerous?" and "how many people will work at the casinos?".

We continued down this path hitting on questions that covered impacts on revenues, taxes, jobs, crime and even the state's image as a family friendly state.  Overall, they did a good job hitting the key questions.  Unfortunately, I was not prepared with the answers to their questions so we didn't get to the next level where they would have to ask follow up questions and weigh the answers to determine their vote.  Thus, I think this is an interesting approach to a conversation but next time I try it I will be more prepared.

Where does all the data come from?

Tonight we discussed an amazing statistic I saw on Wikipedia.  My goal was to have a conversation where the kids would have to create hypotheses as to why the statistic might or might not be true.  This worked on their logical thinking, creativity and judgement of data skills.

According to this post (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data) 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years.  I told this to the kids and asked them how is this possible?

The discussion started with Olivia laying out a hypothesis - "there is a lot of new technology that must be generating data" she said.  We stumbled around this for a few minutes and I realized we needed to define what data was in order to figure out why so much of it has been created in the last two years.  So I asked the question - "give me some examples of data".

Nicholas said - "quantitative measurements like the temperature."

Olivia added - "qualitative data".  I asked what she meant. "Descriptions of things like the wick of the candle is white."  After a bit more discussion we generalized qualitative data to include both text and pictures.

Jamie then said - "well if data includes pictures - how about photographs?"

The list building continued for a few minutes and included things like machine generated information, internet search data, e-commerce data (what you clicked on), and cell phone texts.

Once we had a pretty good list I reverted back to the original question.  "How could it be possible that 90% of the world's data has been generated in the last few years."  It was incredible to see how once they had a better understanding of what was included in data, their ability to come up with legitimate hypotheses rose dramatically.

Olivia - people are generating huge amounts of data on Facebook and other social media sites when they post photos and other things.

Jamie - people are using their cell phones to take lots of pictures (and after some prompting) and send lots of texts.

Nicholas - the use of the internet for e-commerce has exploded and they capture every click you make.  On this one I pushed - "but e-commerce has been around for a long time".  He thought about it and said - "but so many more people have access to the internet now through their smart phones so the usage must be a lot higher"

The discussion also covered the fact that the cloud has made it much cheaper and easier to store information so that we can keep more of it and duplicate it for back up.

Unbelievable.  They even thought of things i hadn't!  I would have loved to turn the conversation in the direction of trying to estimate if the 90% statistic seemed reasonable, but alas it was time for homework and bed.  Never the less, in 15 minutes we had tested the validity of the Wikipedia statement by thinking through what it really meant (what is data?), coming up with a basic hypothesis (technology is creating it) and then generating specific examples that allowed us to judge the statistic to be potentially reasonable (social media, smart phones, increased access, the cloud etc.).  Repeat that 1000 times and we'll have some pretty good critical thinkers.

Jan 6 & 7 - What exactly are 21st century skills

No family dinners this Friday and Saturday so I thought I'd share some thoughts from "The Global Achievement Gap" by Tony Wagner which I think is one of the great books about today's education challenges.  If you are interested in reforming education or just understanding what skills your kids are going to need to succeed in college and the workplace, I strongly recommend reading this book.

Wagner lays our seven survival skills that he believes are the key to today's workplace as well as for lifelong learning and active citizenship:

1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination

In theory, our schools should be the place that our kids learn these skills.  Unfortunately, feedback from colleges and employers suggest that they are falling short.  As parents, our job is to figure out how to supplement what they are learning in school in a way that these skills will emerge.  The good news is that the best way to learn many of these skills is through project based learning and many of the FUN extra curricular activities that our kids already engage in.  All it takes is some active thinking about how these activities are being conducted.  More ideas on this later.

Jan 5 - Closing the Straits of Hormuz

Tonight we discussed Iran's threat to close the Straits of Hormuz.

I started by showing a map of the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz.  http://www.insideofiran.org/en/images/stories/march11/womrights/Strait_of_Hormuz_map.jpg

After reviewing the countries that surrounded the Persian Gulf, I asked the kids what these countries had a lot of - they quickly arrived at OIL.  We then talked about who bought the oil from the Persian Gulf - the United States, Europe, China etc. and how the oil got from the Persian Gulf countries to these customers (by boat).

We then looked at a second map showing the route of the oil out of the Persian Gulf: http://www.sitesatlas.com/Maps/Maps/MEast-pol.gif which showed that all the oil tankers had to pass through the Straits of Hormuz.

I then talked about today's headlines - how Europe announced they were no longer going to buy Iranian oil as a result of Iran's failure to stop its nuclear program and Iran responded by threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz.  As my kids summed it up "so Iran said, if you wont buy our oil were not going to let you buy anyone else's oil either."

This led to a discussion of what sanctions were (penalties), and ultimately to the question of the evening - "if you were president Obama, what would you do?"

The kids came up with a variety of responses.  Jamie, the 7 year old, advocated bombing the Iranian fleet so the ships could get through.  Olivia thought we should get china to make a deal with Iran and Nicholas wondered if perhaps there was another route the oil could take.  This last idea invoked several interesting ideas - trucks to the other side of the straights, submarine tankers or even airplane transports.  In the end though, they realized that you couldn't really carry enough oil that way.

Net, net, the kids learned a bit about oil politics, diplomacy and the threat of war in the middle east.  Not a bad accompaniment to ribs and collard greens.

Jan 4 - High Speed Rail

Tonight's chat-n-chew was prompted by a note in the NY Times about how a panel in California had recommended that California reject $3.5BB in Federal aid to help build a high speed rail system between Los Angeles and San Francisco. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/us/california-panel-advises-against-rail-project.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=ca%20high%20speed%20rail%20&st=cse

I started by telling the kids about the benefits of high speed rail: reduced travel time, job creation, less traffic congestion, reduced oil dependence, lower environmental impact etc.  I then asked the question "why do you think the California commission would tell the state to reject the $3.5 BB of free money?"

My goal was to have the kids hypothesize about why a state would turn down free money.  This is what they came up with:

• The trains would go too fast and people would get sick (from my 7 year old)
• Not enough people would ride the train because the first phase was only from Bakersfield to Chowchilla
• California cant afford its share ($2.5BB for phase 1) given how in debt the state is
• The money would be better spent on other things.
• The cost of running the train would be too high relative to the amount they could charge for tickets.

Overall, a pretty good list that nicely summarizes the major objections of the Commission.

I then asked them to think about solutions that might change the Commission's mind.  Here were there replies:

• Get the Federal government to pay for it all.
• Build the first phase between more populated cities to be sure there is enough demand.
• Put a cap on how much California will pay to build the train and its annual operating cost
• Turn the train into a cargo train

We discussed all of these at some length and then our time was up.

Overall, mission accomplished.  75% of our dinner conversation was discussing a current event / policy issue and the kids had a chance to exercise both their critical thinking and problem solving skills. In some respects the topic was a bit challenging because there was no specific answer they were working toward.  I'll consider that when I choose the next topic.  In the mean time, give this topic a try at your table and let me know how it goes.

My New Year's Resolution

I spent much of 2011 immersed in learning about how to improve education.  A great deal of my time was spent learning about ed tech and how it can transform classrooms and the way kids learn.  My conclusion is that blended learning is going to play a key role in the future of education.  At the same time, blended learning does not address the most fundamental challenge we face in improving education.  It's less about HOW we teach than WHAT we teach.

The 20th century education model was built on the assumption that access to information was the scarce resource and thus teaching content was the number one priority.  The internet has changed all that.  Access to information is now a commodity (indeed we have too much information) and what we really need to teach our kids are the SKILLS that they will need in the 21st century.  Critical thinking and problem solving, the ability to evaluate and analyze data, teamwork, entrepreneurialism, oral and written communication skills and creativity top the list.

Unfortunately, transforming our education system from a content focused approach to a skill building focused approach is going to be a long and arduous process - one that will clearly take longer than my kids will be in school (and I have a first grader!).  Thus, I have decided that developing these skills falls at least in part on my shoulders and the shoulders of all the other adults and activities in my kid's lives.

My Solution - turn the dinner table into a learning environment by talking about topics that engage my kids in the use of 21st century skills.


I have long been frustrated by the banality of the typical dinner conversation at home and with friends.  "How was your day?", "How is work?", "how are your kids?", "what's the latest gossip?".  I find myself constantly trying to turn the conversation to politics, issues or any topic that will generate some interesting debate.  But last week a light bulb went on.  I was having dinner with my oldest son (who just turned 13) and his grandparents when my mother asked the following question: "in 1980 (or some such date) there were 730 armed robberies in Central Park.  How many do you thing there were in 2011?"

My son wagered a guess - "17" - which turned out to be remarkably accurate.  On a normal day, we would have moved on to the next topic but I had critical thinking and the scientific method on my mind.  So instead of moving on I said to my son "why do you think it has fallen so much?"  For the next 30 minutes we engaged in a conversation of creating and testing hypotheses around this question.  We talked about increased police presence, the impact of drugs on robberies, economic conditions, better lighting in the park and whether cell phones protected people in the park.  It was magic and my professor parents later commented how few conversations they had like this with college students!  The critical thinking, inquiry and oral communication skills were being developed in front of our eyes and it wasn't hard to do.  All it took was an interesting fact and the willingness to keep pushing.

For 2012 I have resolved to have these conversations over dinner with my kids whenever I can.  I have also resolved to publish the topics and key discussion points that enter our conversation so that others may learn from it and perhaps try out at home.  In my wildest dreams chat-n-chew will become a place where many people share such conversations and the catalyst for developing a generation of kids who leave school with a portfolio of 21st century skills.

Here's to good food and good conversation.