Great questions! The way the app conceptualizes the data stories is through annotating the graphs that teachers and preschoolers have made together. In the Design a Data Story part of the app, it culminates a series of investigations, adding the narrative to create a book-like experience that can help children review details about their investigation. We created a video to show teachers how to use this part of the app. 

Children's experiences with the data stories have varied. One example I love is a teacher who integrated the app into their unit on exercise. She showed the children four types of exercises and the children voted on the one they thought they would like best and generated a graph. Then they actually tried all these exercises and voted again on which one they like the best. Their data story focused on observations about what they learned by trying the exercises and what changed their minds from the beginning to the end. 

Excellent question! While this was designed to be a teacher-facing app with the teacher holding and operating the app, children definitely use the app by entering data and using the features of the app. For examples, children easily drawing on top of the screen as they talk about the data. We've noticed that over time, children become very comfortable entering data and using the tools. For example, in one classroom, children would gather data from the class by independently holding the tablet and entering the data as they spoke with other children during free play time. 

Its also important to mention that while lots of graphs are created with the app, each investigation also includes lots of hands-on experiences and these can be done without the app. For example, in Animal Data Shuffle, each child takes an animal card and physically sorts themselves into the corner of the rug with the number of legs their animal has (0, 2, or 4 legs) and create a graph. Then children sort their animal again by how the animal moves (e. g. run, hop, slither) and create a graph. 

We also encourage multiple representations, using hands-on materials to create picture graphs, object graphs, body graphs, and also graphs in the app. 

There is a teachers guide embedded within the app and also online. The guide includes a section about the content, preparation, and then links to each investigation lesson plan. In the preparation section, we also have a video library with links to short videos for each investigation and videos about common questions (e.g. making a useful graph, leading a data talk). We hope these supports provide teachers with knowledge and confidence to try it! 

Yes, great point! We designed the app for use with young children due to this concern about developmental appropriateness. Since its teacher-facing, we expect teachers to be heavily involved in scaffolding the process, but in the design process, we tried to make the interface intuitive enough that children could follow. We don't expect preschoolers to be able to read directions, so the steps are laid out the same way in each investigation.  

In terms of understanding the data visualization, we kept the options for visualizations very simple. The existing investigations present a pictograph format that then converts - using the slider function - to a box for each data point, then a full bar graph. The "create your own" section of the app allows teachers to use a tally chart as well! Throughout, teachers and children can use the photo feature to create images for their variables to make them meaningful. 

A key element of each investigation is our "Data talk" in which we suggest teachers encourage discussion about what the data means - and prompts for this discussion are embedded in the app tools. For preschoolers, that often starts by talking about how many are in each category, then identifying the variables with the most/least, before talking about how the data helps answer the original research question (listed at the top of the screen). There is also a feature to compare two graphs on one screen to further the discussion in selected activities. 

One thing that was really great to see in our study with teachers was that they came away with a new appreciation of preschoolers' abilities--they were so impressed that the preschoolers could learn how to "read" data visualizations and were able to grasp some complex mathematical concepts much younger than they would have expected! We could tell that the teachers felt so proud of their students and they were excited to have a tool they could use to more easily do data collection and analysis with their students.

What a great question! We actually do want to design an interface that would allow children in early elementary school to create more complex representations, so I'd love to talk with you about wht you think that might look like. The current app is flexible enough for children 6-8 to engage with on their own, using the "Create Your Own" section of the graph. Teachers may need to help with the writing of the research question, depending on children's reading and writing skills. 

Hi Noelani! Yes, its available on iOS and Android tablets:

Web-Based Teachers Guide, Apple App Store, and Google Play App Store.

So excited that you are interested to use it with your classroom, Noelani! We'd love to hear any thoughts you have after you try it out! :)

Excellent point about accessibility for young children with disabilities. We have not yet focused on this; however, teachers using the intervention have made adaptations along the way as they implement. Most of these adaptations have focused on adapting for the developmental level of the children, as many preschool classrooms have a range of ages (3-5) and abilities. Starting with those adaptations may also tell us a lot about how to adapt for children with disabilities. 

Hi Karen--Great question! Since we're using apple tablets in this project, I don't see any reason that wouldn't work the same way internationally. Our previous apps have been heavily downloaded abroad, but we will check on whether this is an issue with this particular app. 

Thanks for your question, Karen! The app should definitely work abroad! (And you're right, it's not a big data draw -- our team works hard to ensure that. :))

Your work sounds amazing! Excited to hear if you use it!