LTC Creates Education Visualization Lab to Help COE Researchers Analyze Large Datasets - September 12, 2011

The visual analysis of data is quickly becoming an indispensable tool in educational research. Although visual data analysis is well established in the natural sciences, recent developments, such as the collection of massive amounts of student data and large scale textual and computer logging analyses, have made its use applicable to many kinds of educational research.

The College of Education’s Education Visualization Laboratory, in the Learning Technology Center, will allow COE researchers to more easily see and understand patterns, structures, trends, and relationships in large and complex datasets.

Opening soon, the EdVisLab, located in SZB 439A, features an array of 15 30” high resolution monitors, specialized software, and an intuitive graphical interface. The lab is a joint project with the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), which provided technical design assistance and will help operate the facility. The LTC received special funding from College of Education Dean Manuel Justiz to create the EdVisLab.

“The EdVisLab will allow the College of Education to become a national leader in the use of visualization in education and the social sciences,” says LTC Director Paul E. Resta, who developed the proposal for the center and garnered faculty support for it. Already, many researchers in departments and centers throughout the College have made plans to use the lab as the benefits of visual analysis become evident.

The Texas Education Research Center can use visual analysis to study the massive amounts of data they have gathered on Texas students. In Kinesiology, the lab could be used for the graphical display of data involved in the biomechanical analysis of human movement, as well as for simulations of movement. Trends over time, in multidimensional data, such as teacher migration, could be determined. In all areas, large datasets could be analyzed more quickly, and more complex analyses could be conducted.

Taylor Martin, Associate Professor in Curriculum & Instruction who has already done work in the TACC Visualization Lab, is particularly looking forward to using the EdVisLab. She conducts research on virtual manipulative software and how children use it, looking for patterns in the ways young learners approach problems. She also studies how students learn programming and the evolution of computational thinking concepts through the use of a virtual robot programming environment.

Both projects involve massive datasets. The lab will allow her to use visual analysis much more frequently, and more easily develop analysis tools to find undetected patterns in the data and to display those patterns in ways that reveal new insights into the learning process.

The EdVisLab will also feature a 73” 3-D monitor with special 3-D glasses. “3-D learning objects help us better understand models of things like maps, atomic particles, and DNA because they can explore them from all angles,” says Ken Tothero, LTC Coordinator for External and Special Projects who has managed the development of the EdVisLab. “3-D simulations let researchers interact, manipulate, and change models.”

Use of the EdVisLab will be by appointment only. For more information and to inquire about using the lab, please contact Ken Tothero.

—Laurie Caldwell, LTC Communications Coordinator