Hi everyone, just wanted to share Data Gems in action!

(Psst… here’s a link to the thread on the PLIX forum to join the discussion!)

My colleagues at pK-12 were running a middle school summer program called Full STEAM Ahead (lead by Joe Diaz) and I took advantage of the open-ended “choice time” to test out how Data Gems works with middle schoolers. (Also because it’s been a long time since I’ve worked with kids!)

I had a few questions I wanted to answer:

• Does Data Gems really tap into youth personal data interests? And how does that happen?
• How do the variety of examples I made support a diversity of interests?
• What might be some of the practical challenges for youth and for facilitators running this activity?
• Is it fun?

I had 10 youth for two days, ages 9-12. And all of them came back the second day, with an additional friend. I asked them to make wearable data trackers, kind of like friendship bracelets and keychains. I made the activity introduction was much shorter on the second day, since most of them were eager to get started.

Tapping into personal interests

One big thing that I forgot about working with youth is that whether they want to answer my questions depends on their individual personality. Most of the time when I was introducing the activity, they were just sitting there not looking at me, but they were paying attention in their own way. I guess that’s something we learn over time to do.

The questions on the Data Gems zine worked so much better for adults than for 8-12 year olds. When I switched to questions like “Who here feels sad when it’s raining?” and “What about feeling calm when it’s raining?” (I would also raise my hand for each question to model the behavior.) They would raise their hands as a way to answer the question… which made me feel better knowing that they are paying attention to what I’m saying. But… I wonder how much that helps them understand the goal of this activity versus doing something that makes me happy to know they’re paying attention.

Examples

I realize the diverse examples were absolutely key to them engaging with the activity. Having the examples at the table allows them to examine and explore at their own pace.

But I didn’t realize how common it was for people to just copy examples. I made sure the examples were more personalized. They were based on both what I’ve done and what other adults have done.

Some of the directions the youth took with creating their own versions were:

Copy the example but added their own flavor —  Even if they copied the example, such as tracking mood, they chose their own colors and what mood those colors represented (I had mentioned that “blue” can represent “sad” for some people or “calm” for other people.) One youth made a massive data tracker keychain that included many of the examples and what others had made!

Personalized the example for themselves — One example had a friend’s name on it, to track a friend’s mood… youth would make their own versions with their friends’ names. Sometimes they’ll make one with a nice reminder for themselves.

Expanded on their interests — To me, this is really the goal of creative learning, to bring in your own interests and what’s happening in your life into the activity. In one creation, a youth expanded the reading tracking example to track 15 hours of summer reading, and to also track his siblings reading time. In another, the same youth wanted to wear the calendar, and made two data wearables, one that tracked the day of the month, and another that tracked the month of the year.

Practical challenges and facilitation

Challenge 1: tying square knots — I brought 2mm nylon cord and elastic cord, along with beads, charms, and keychain hooks. The biggest challenge was tying it off at the end, especially for bracelets. I found that I had to do that for them, because 1) it’s impossible to do it one-handed, and 2) not everyone knows how to tie a square knot, which is needed for a secure knot. Also, make sure they know to have extra cord on both ends for tying a knot!

Challenge 2: laying out the beads — youth figured this one out for themselves —  lay out the beads before stringing them makes it easier if they’re trying to spell out words or make strings of numbers.

Challenge 3: falling beads — And a last challenge was beads falling everywhere. One way to reduce that happening (impossible to prevent it!) is to clip a small binder clip at one end as a temporary stopper so the beads don’t slide off while youth are stringing them.

Was it fun?

I think so! The youth were so focused for a solid hour and wanted to keep making more, and they all came back the next day. There was even an inside joke — one youth was chatting with a mentor while making and hanging out, “I’m tying more knots,” referring to tying knots to secretly track anxiety, based on one of the examples.