Data Selfie

Giorgia Lupi - a co-founder, author, and information designer - thinks of data from the perspective of "data humanism." That is, the numbers represent real "knowledge, behaviors, and people." She and another information designer, Stefanie Posavec, created the Dear Data Project, where the two collected data about their everyday lives and sent each other hand-made data visualizations. Because of Lupi and Posavec's humanistic view of data, activities like the 'Data Selfie' are born.

• Check out the Dear Data project, where images of Lupi and Posavec's postcards to one another are available for you to see, as well as information about them and their viewpoints on the project.

• Check out Giorgia Lupi's TED Talk, where she discusses this humanistic view of data and ways data can help reconnect us to our lives. 

This project doesn't require much, just the following materials:

• Access to the Data Selfie instructions

• Plain piece of paper

• Colorful writing utensils

In the Imagination PLAYce, we have a computer, paper, and plenty of writing supplies for your use if you want to make your own Data Selfie!

Utilize the following steps with yourself, or with a class to create some 'Data Selfies':

Step 1: Using the instructions from this blog post by James Freitas, start the process of creating your Data Selfie. The website provides prompts/questions at each step, as well as what visual piece accompanies your answer to each question. Keep adding your visuals to the same paper to complete your selfie. 

You can complete the activity here, or for a more advanced and reflective activity, continue to the next steps. 

Step 2: Look over your own Data Selfie, and, if you are able, look at a partner's selfie as well. Think about and answer these questions:

• How is the 'self' rendered through this representation?

• What does this abstraction offer, and what does it limit?

• What symbols are most effective in 'reading' this data?

• How effective is this symbolic representation in conveying a story?

For future and current educators, take this activity even further by continuing to the next step.

Step 3: Add to your existing Data Selfie by following the instructions in the document below. We adapted Dr. Beatrice Dias educational leadership data selfie questions below.

You have now created a Data Selfie! This selfie is a representation of who you are, and who you aspire to be. There are a myriad of ways to represent data, and a selfie is just one entry point into understanding humanistic data.

This Edutopia article by Matt Wilkins helps lay out steps for introducing data literacy in the classroom. 

This resource uses the ideas presented in the Dear Data project to formulate 6 lessons on asking the right questions in data collection, finding the story in data, and creating data visualizations.