Introducing Big Data in the Digital Literacy Curriculum

Introducing Big Data Concepts

in an Introductory Technology

Course

Mark Frydenberg

Bentley University

Waltham, MA

@checkmark

IT 101 Current Topics

• Computers

• Operating System Basics

• Input and Output Devices

• Internet

• Cloud Services

• Wireless Networking

• Web

• Software and Apps

• Office Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

• Security and Privacy

• Mobile Devices

• Databases

Goals:

• Introduce Big Data Concepts and Buzzwords

• Introduce Database Concepts

• No programming

• Methodology

The Presentation in Class

Tech Trends Enable Big Data

The Demo

http://bigquery.cloud.google.com

Turn on BigQuery

Sample Public Databases

Shakespeare Database

Google BigQuery

A More Complex and Amusing QuerySELECT title,

sum (num_characters) as num_characters

FROM [publicdata:samples.wikipedia]

WHERE

regexp_match(title, r'^G.*o.*o.*g.*l.*e$') and not (title contains 'Google')

GROUP BY title

ORDER BY num_characters DESC

LIMIT 1000

Natality Database Query

Download BigQuery Connector

Excel with BigQuery Connector

Data imported from BigQuery

Analysis with Pivot Table and Spark lines

Methodology

• 166 (64f + 102m) / 160 (64f +96m) students

• 7 sections of IT 101

• 1 Instructor (me!)

• Pre- and Post- Interviews following the lesson, approximately 2 weeks apart

• Interviews

Survey Results

Survey Results

What did you learn about Big Data?

"Every move we make seems to be recorded and every human being is leaving a data trail

that will be there after the human being is long gone."

Big Data has become a part of our everyday lives. It is tracing our locations through our

phones and we constantly leave paths through various social media sites."

“The content was relevant, crucial and necessary in what many would consider the

'technological age,' and I have begun to realize that informing myself of news and

materials in this field may prove beneficial, if not necessary."

Thanks!

Mark Frydenberg

[email protected]

@checkmark