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SAS is hosting a data literacy conversation, on Clubhouse?

For the last year we have been using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Skype for videoconferencing and meetings because for one, they are robust and perhaps most importantly, they can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection without a need to pay or even download an app.

We present this statement to you because for some incredibly bizarre reason SAS has made the decision to host a conversation about data literacy, on Clubhouse.

Now, Clubhouse is currently rolling out to Android users around the world this week, but importantly, the platform is still invite-only so essentially if you’re on Android this conversation excludes you.

According to Statcounter, as of April 2021, Android accounts for 72.19 percent of the global mobile operating system market while iOS accounts for 27 percent of the market. This seems like a massive oversight on SAS’s part.

What makes this so bizarre is that the invite to this conversation is preceded by statements about how important data literacy is.

“SAS understands the power of data to help us understand our world, to do good and to solve problems,” says SAS chief executive officer, Jim Goodnight. “In our connected and data-rich society, the ability to apply and use data in everyday life is essential for everyone, not just data scientists and mathematicians.”

Everyone so long as they’re on the exclusive platform that is Clubhouse? Why not host this conversation on YouTube, or Twitch or any of the other apps we mentioned earlier? Hell, chuck it on Twitter as a live video as well while you’re at it. If data literacy is so important why host it on Clubhouse is our question.

If you do happen to have access to Clubhouse, you can click here to go to the conversation which starts tonight at 21:00. Should SAS give us an alternative way to join this conversation we will update this story.

While we scratch our head in confusion we should point out that SAS has done something less confusing that gets two thumbs up from us.

That something is a free data literacy course that introduces data basic as well as what it means to be data literate. The Data Literacy Essentials course is comprised of six video modules that are about 20 minutes long each.

“It teaches strategies for seeing the usefulness in data, interrogating data, discovering meaning, making decisions and communicating data. The course follows the journeys of a concerned parent, a small business owner and a public health expert, who each use data to navigate and problem-solve through the pandemic,” explains SAS.

In order to access the course you will need to head to this URL. You will need to set up a SAS account which is free and the process took us less than five minutes. The course is available for school learners, teachers or folks that are just interested in becoming more data literate.

The first two modules – Why Data Literacy Matters and Data Literacy Practices – are available right now and the other four modules are coming soon.

Good job with the course SAS, bad job on selecting a highly exclusive platform for a rather important conversation.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]

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