I am an intermediate user of Excel at best and really only use it to store and manipulate research data. As I was watching Hans Rosling’s excellent TED presentation I was amazed both by his ability to make statistical data come alive as well as by the way he visualised the data using moving graphs. Rosling used a Google gadget that is integrated into its online spreadsheet programme. I had never really looked into this and for some of you this may be old hat, but by plugging in your data and clicking ‘insert’ and then ‘gadget’ you have access to an array of tools that let you present data in numerous, and very exciting ways. Here are a couple of my favourites:

The motion chart gadget is ‘a dynamic flash based chart to explore several indicators over time.’ This is excellent for example for displaying language development over time, test scores, and other time-based data. It displays as a mini video file that you can forward or rewind to stop at a particular moment in time or view to see the changes over time (this is what Rosling used). Another tool that is excellent for presenting information to an audience is the QR code generator that includes all the data in your spreadsheet. A simple picture with a cellphone lets your listeners take all your data with them.
qrcode.kaywa.com

For qualitiative research the word cloud is useful as it displays the frequencies of items in the data as a word cloud; more frequent items appear larger. Excellent for example for presenting interview data or conversation/classroom interaction analysis.

There are also tools directly useful for language learning. The Word study gadget lets you ‘create interactive flash cards. You can guess using word jumbles, type-ins, or multiple choice, and you can choose to have the hints come from Google images, Google translation, or your own spreadsheet.’ There is also an excellent flash cards gadget that lets you do exactly what it sounds like and a word search gadget which lets you ‘create an interactive word search from a column of words in a spreadsheet, with a user-specified number of rows or columns’, as well as a translation gadget.

If you have used any of these (or found other useful) tools for teaching or presenting research, let me know!