Transcript Document

Numbers as Story Tellers
Why do we need them?
Can we trust them?
How do we get to know them well?
http://www.fno.org/oct04/numeracy.ppt.htm
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What’s the story here?
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What’s the story here?
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Founding 1969
Dates of NZ 1976
1925
Wineries
1922
1975
1980
1973
1974
1943
1902
1947
1942
1937
1983
1934
1936
1935
1902
1937
1961
1979
1937
1973
1933
1948
1944
1904
1981
1872
1918
1860
1960
1876
1980
1967
1974
1977
1979
1981
1978
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Do Numbers Ever Lie?
“Life is getting better!”
# J obs
4001400
4001200
4001000
Number of Jobs
4000800
4000600
4000400
# J obs
4000200
4000000
3999800
3999600
3999400
1994
1995
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2003
2004
Year
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Maths vs. Numeracy
 The doing
 Memorized patterns
 Cooking by recipe
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------ vs. ------Figuring stuff out
Solving unusual problems
The bigger picture of literacies and
understanding
Cooking for real
Weaving webs of meaning
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Numbers: What are they good
for?
Digging to China?
Finding the difficult truth?
Telling stories
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Counting
Describing
Measuring
Mixing
Building
Cooking
Planning
Predicting
Accounting
Selling
Understanding
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Why bother?
 Consumer issues
 Citizenship issues
 Employment issues
 Invention and
discovery issues
 Others?
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Home-Made Collections
 Pets
 Patterns of behavior
 Interviews
 Experiments
 Observations
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BOM
 What can we do with
all those numbers?
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What are the Questions?
The BOM provides
lessons that might
prove useful.
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Serial Questioners
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Exploring vs. Describing
 What’s going on?
 What’s the story?
 What is really
happening?
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Figuring Out vs. Describing
Why do you
suppose?
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Predicting vs. Describing
What are the chances
that X will happen?
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Critiquing vs. Accepting
Life is getting better!
# J obs
4001200
4001000
4000800
Number of Jobs
 Challenging
 Debunking
 Wondering
 Analyzing
4001400
4000600
4000400
# J obs
4000200
4000000
3999800
3999600
3999400
1994
1995
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2003
Year
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2004
Number Stories
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Numeracy in the News
http://ink.news.com.au/merc
ury/mathguys/mercury.ht
m
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Chance and Data from MANSW
http://hsc.csu.edu.au/pta/mansw/chance.htm
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EDNA Theme Page
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page456.html
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Crunching Numbers
Exploring the World with Data
http://fnopress.com/CRUNCH.htm
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