Gettin' the Word Out

Many people try to become famous and for this project my teacher wants us to get the word out about them. So she wanted us to answer the questions: Who is this data going to be useful for? How are we going to get the word out? And why would our topic be interesting to others? I think the best way to get the word out is to call and email various newspapers and news stations that may be interested in my topic. I plan on getting in touch with the newspaper by calling them or summiting an article to them. The media should be interested in the topics that me and my classmates chose to do. I also think we should also help each other in getting the word out. For example, if I know a food critic for a newspaper, then I would give his contact information to Alex Any way we could help each other, then we should. since she is doing her project on restaurants.

The data is going to be useful to people that wants to know the answer to the question: How do the citizens of Jefferson Parish spend their free time? People spend plenty of their time watching television and playing video games instead of exercising or reading books. The amount of time spent watching television limits the time people spend exercising which can contribute to the obesity level. (Here is a website that speaks of the obesity rates in Louisiana http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/offices/?ID=270). Nutritionist, dietitians, and people worried about their nutrition would be interesting to them. It would also be useful to parents to see how much time them and their children spend watching television that could be spent on other activities. Obesity is plaguing the nation, and there is things that could done to prevent it.

Toolbox (#2)

What are the changes that I made to the data analysis tool box and why?

In the class, this week my class and I edited our data analysis toolboxes based on our teacher comments and our previous toolbox. I noticed the level of the other toolbox and realized mine needed a lot of work.

The first thing that I changed about my data analysis toolbox is data part of the toolbox. The teacher suggested that I added more detail to this section of the toolbox. I added the names of all the Head Starts that I will be collecting data at. I had to delete the Grand Isle Head Start because there are transportation issues. I will have to call them instead of collecting the data myself. I made to changes to add clarity to this part of the toolbox. It really makes it easy for me know what question I am answering and why I am collecting the data.

One of the major parts that I changed in the data analysis toolbox is the graphs part. I added why each graphs was the best to use, what are they going to be used for, and some I added what they are. For example, “The box plot is used to show the spread of the data and the five number summaries. It would be easy to compare the centers’ performance by comparing the box plots. The box plot would show the minimum, maximum, median, first and third quartile. The box plot would also show the outliers that are in the sample.” This is an important addition to the toolbox because would help me with the comparison. Also, I know exactly why each graph is used.

The last thing I changed is the numerical summaries portion of the toolbox. One of the major additions is the two-sample hypothesis t-test. I added that because I need to compare the West bank and East bank. I also choose the t-test because I do not know the population standard deviation. I also added why the other numerical summaries would be used.

"HOT" Blogs

Friday, March 6, 2009

Everybody use blogs everyday to communicate about different topics. I like to use appealing color schemes and speaking in a language that is appropriate to the audience. I enjoyed reading Sobia’s entries because it was like we were having a conversation with one another. My teacher should be looking for when grading our blogs is a conversation like dialogue. We have to be able to relate to the audience and the best way is to use dialogue type writing. It is also important that they keep the audience in mind and use appropriate language to convey their message. Also, the teacher wants us to have pictures that are related to the blogs. I think she should rate the pictures based on the creativity and relevance to the blog entry. Also, we should be graded on using media other than pictures such as videos, screenshots or quotes. It would be awesome if someone created a sound bite and uploaded to their blog. Of course, the sound would have to be relevant to the topic. The teacher should also look for our use of examples. Maybe we could relate our blog entries to an example or experiment that we done before. It would help us with finding research and how to find a relationship between my information and someone else’s. We should find links to websites that relate to our topic or blog entry. The links could better clarify the point or the points we are trying to come across. I enjoy writing blogs not only for this class but for my personal use. It would help if we had guidance for the blog entries for this class. I hope my teacher receive inspiration from my and my classmates blog for our rubric for the blogs for this class.