Monday, December 7, 2009
Ced0540: Stats - Week One
This first week watching and rewatching and reading and re-reading notes on statistics reminds me of my days of taking econ in college. I was fine the first lecture or two when all we talked about was supply and demand but then was completely lost after that. Same with stats. I have been following along and thought I had everything covered until we got to the part on deviations and variances. Now I'm confused. I have to admit, however, that unlike econ, I'm at least curious about how stats work. I actually enjoyed the Youtube video on stats and found it really helped cover the basics for me. And watching the video brought to mind the things I do at school to use statistics that I hadn't thought about before, mainly in the library. Every month I'm supposed to run reports, documenting the books that have been checked out during that time. Quite honestly, I have never run the reports because I really didn't see the point. What do I care if "Lightning Thief" was checked out once or ten times in November? Except now I see the point. Part of my job is to order more books, as well as weed out those that aren't as popular. If I ran the reports, I could see what books are most popular and then base my decision on new purchases accordingly. For example, if it turns out that "Lightning Thief" if a popular check out, I could justify ordering similar novels. Likewise, if it turns out that our 100+ collection of "Goosebumps" books are no longer popular, I would have a reason to clear the shelf of them and stock different books. Like the video pointed out, it's the statistics that give credence to the claim. I could certainly claim that I never observe certain books being checked out, but that doesn't necessarily come across as objective, and how does anyone know if my observations are accurate or supported. What I now need to figure out is how variance and deviation fit into all of this.
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I love 'Lightning Thief' and it is always checked out of my library. Reading your post inspired me to find some statistics on some work that we do here on our team. I have a Ning set up as you well know, but also my team does a homework blog that students and staff can use to find the work for the day as well as possible link to assignments. Just today I decided I wanted to see how many people are actually putting these sites to use. I installed Google Analytics on the site and hopefully within 24 hours I'll be able to track the number of users, as well as what they are accessing and how long they are staying. I, like you, am hopeful this will either validate our work, or will indicate that we need to do a better job of selling our technology resources to our students and parents.
ReplyDeleteIf you know of a library where I can locate 'Lightning Thief' I would appreciate it.
Kara and Jason, now you've got my curiosity. I just requested Lightning Thief from my library. It turns out that every one of the twelve library systems that make up Eastern Shores has at least one copy. Kara you observation about using circulation data to help you order or week is a wonderful example of a very practical use of statistics.
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