Education Services Australia introduces SuperVIEW into Australian classrooms.
Space-Time Research announced today a partnership to bring Tourism Australia data to Australian classrooms to give students experience with data analytics. The project, implemented by Education Services Australia provides online, real-time exploration and analytics of the large Tourism Australia database to support the National Curriculum. Space-Time Research has provided a cloud-based version of the SuperVIEW analysis and visualization product which is being made available to primary and secondary school classrooms across Australia.
Discovery-Based Learning
Discovery-based learning places importance on students exploring large sets of data to ask their own questions and make their own judgments based on this data. School children can now be set an exercise that requires them to analyse thousands of data records to reach a conclusion then support that conclusion with tables, charts, graphs, and maps derived from the data. Discovery-based or inquiry-based learning is a ‘student centered’ methodology that provides an active learning environment where students learn by doing. Proponents believe that discovery learning can encourages active engagement, promotes responsibility, and the development of creativity and problem solving skills.
Education Services Australia selected SuperVIEW to provide the interactive experience with the tourism data and make large and complex databases easy to analyze and understand. Education Services Australia Director of Digital Content Services Stuart Tait explains “What was important to Education Services Australia was not only the technology and experience of Space-Time Research, but they also understood that the discovery-based learning project would be more successful if it was able to evolve with the requirements from our multiple stakeholders”.
Space-Time Research was able to introduce to Education Services Australia to some of their government clients that hold the large, national databases that would be the best resources to use in the classroom. Tourism Research Australia, part of the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, were the first to recognise the value of making their tourism survey databases available to Australian schools. Wayne Calder, General Manager of Tourism Research Australia said, “By making our Domestic and International Visitor Surveys available to the schools via this program we are able to help school children learn about data analysis and inform school children about the importance of Tourism to the Australian economy”.
Cloud-based
A particular challenge in an Australia-wide learning environment was how to handle the unique user numbers and potential usage peaks. To solve this Education Services Australia implemented a hybrid cloud-based version of the Space-Time Research SuperVIEW solution. Peaks of use are handled without noticeable performance impact because the application has access to almost limitless amounts of processing power on an as-needed basis.
Don McDougall, CEO of Space-Time Research said “What excites us about this project is the natural circle it completes”. He explains further “our government customers are adopting Gov 2.0 solutions to make their data easier to access while this school initiative trains the next generation of data users who will demand and use more public sector data. We are proud to be associated with Education Services Australia and Tourism Australia.”
About
Education Services Australia is a not-for-profit, ministerial company established to provide services to the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs (MCEECDYA) and other education and training bodies.
About
Tourism Australia is the Australia Government agency responsible for the international and domestic marketing of Australia as a destination for leisure and business travel. Tourism Australia uses surveys, data analytics, and research activities to increase demand for Australia as a destination, strengthen the travel distribution system and contribute to the development of a sustainable tourism industry. http://www.australia.com
