Immigration Visualization Project Reflection

Posted by Manna-Symone Middlebrooks in American History - Laufenberg on Monday, September 26, 2011 at 7:48 am

What surprised you most about this information? What seemed quite obvious about explaining this data set?

- I was surprised by how different the immigration and population graphs looked. Immigration in the United States is a hot topic and because the U.S is an immigration county, a somewhat constant flow of immigrants was expected. I did, however, find it quite obvious that discrimination would drive the types of immigrants allowed in the country and life when they arrived.

Looking at the overall trend and incorporating what you know about the US presently, predict and defend the immigration trend for the next two decades.

- The immigration trend seemed to reflect the state of the nation at that time. Towards the end of the graph there was a high spike heading into the 2000's. Durring that point in time the U.S was at a pretty good place financially. Considering that one of the lowest points on the graph was durring the Great Depression, I think that our current financial state will slow the inflow of immigrants.

Describe how you made a decision on how to visually represent the information.

- Our group was looking to do something set apart from the rest. We first thought of creating an online pop-up book. After some brief confusion surrounding that idea, we decided on creating a Prezi. This visualization would use the letters of the word "Immigration" to illustrated the various points on the immigration graph. The visualization would contain images that were key events of that time and a demonstration of the population graph to compare to immigration.

What parts of group work were challenging?

- There were a lot of ideas about how the finished product should look. Getting group members to compromise had to be the most difficult challenge. When there are too many leaders in one group it's hard to get things accomplished.

What would you do differently if you had this project to do over?

- If I were to do this project differently, i would add a few videos and audio files to mix up the media content.

Comments (8)

Shamarlon Yates

One of the main reasons why I enjoyed your presentation was because it was interactive. Some of the pictures were really self-explanatory but I could not understand some of the other ones. I also think that you could have included the population and immigration numbers into your presentation. Great job and thumbs up on creativity. :)

Manna-Symone Middlebrooks

I understand what you are saying Sophie, but not having the information "in front of your face" or "black and white" was intentional. I wanted the viewer to follow the ups and downs of immigration in the United State.

Sophia Henninger

This project is very interesting and definitely original. It's visually appealing. My only issues with it was that the information isn't in black and white, right in front of your face which while in the classroom is okay since we are all researching this but to regular people they may not completely understand it.

Martha Robles

I liked that it moved at your own pace and not only showed words but also showed pictures i also liked the overall design of it.

Margaret Long

I agree with Symone, the way you used each letter form immigration, was visually attractive. Some of the images got pixelated or blurry though, but that could be the fact that it's on SLA. Other than that, its great!

Symone Smith

I thought it was very clever how you used each letter from the word immigration to represent each time period. I saw that there was a line representing the immigration graph however there were no numbers attached to it. Otherwise, I thought this Prezi was great.

Cyndilynn Sheridan

Manna, I thought your visualization of immigration was very effective and knowledgeable. I like how you choose to do the timeline on the letters that spelled out immigration. That was very unique! Some images were a bit blurry, but overall this was an outstanding project. I know you worked very hard on this, and in my opinion it really paid off.

Katherine Hatzidais

I really enjoyed this presentation. It was interactive and of course visual. I liked how you could run the presentation at your own pace. The pictures were helpful because it helped see what people saw during that time.