Abstract:

A September 2020 survey by the National Education Association reported that 75% of children living in households in the United States have a device other than a smartphone. The demographics of the study included children aged 5 -17. This represents a snapshot of the digital access of students in K-12 classrooms around the country. It is an understatement that students live in a digital world with access to devices and endless amounts of data. The daily interactions with these devices affect every aspect of how they learn, socialize and live . George Westermann of MIT said, “When data transformation is done right in business, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.” We envision a classroom setting where all students strive to become butterflies by implementing a similar narrative in education. To achieve our objective, we implemented a framework to integrate data storytelling over a broad range of topics including literature, mathematics, history and technology. Using the Data Storytelling approach, we designed a course framework to provide students the ability to gain new skills and experiences to better understand how to navigate this new era of digital access, information overload and technology utilization.

Keywords:

Education, data, smart-devices, technology utilization.