Reflective Data Storytelling for Youth: The CODAP Story Builder

Abstract

We describe the design of Story Builder, a tool to support adolescents in building interactive multimedia stories that integrate data analysis and visualization with text, images, and other multimodal resources. Story Builder is a plug in for the Common Online Data Analysis Platform (CODAP), a free, online, open-source drag-and-drop interactive data analysis system. Based on early prototyping conducted with several 7th grade classrooms, we sought to design a tool that would allow students to (a) integrate their data investigations with relevant personal and contextual information; (b) record the step-by-step process and rationale of their data analysis; and (c) reflect on and share these contextual and process-oriented elements of data analysis work with others. A major goal of Story Builder is to encourage students to consider and incorporate personal, social, and scientific considerations during data analysis.