Five Favorites — 101Questions [6/2/12]

  1. San Francisco House, Scott Farrar.
  2. Costco TV, Megan Hayes-Golding.
  3. Bill Roll, Joe Kremer.
  4. Good Tip / Bad Tip, Joe.
  5. Little Boy Counting, David Wees.

My Own Listing:

Data Dump:

I’m obliged to Phil Wagner for helping me parse 30,000+ questions:

Most Common First Word

49%: How
18%: What
5%: Is
4%: Why
3%: Which

Most Common First Two Words

20%: How many
10%: What is
10%: How much
6%: How long
2%: How big

Most Common First Three Words

8%: What is the
2%: How long will
1%: What are the
1%: How big is
1%: How many people

Most Common First Four Words

2%: How long will it
1%: How big is the
1%: How tall is the
1%: How long is the
1%: How long does it

About 
I'm Dan and this is my blog. I'm a former high school math teacher and current head of teaching at Desmos. He / him. More here.

7 Comments

  1. Interesting. Does the 101qs format often lead to measurement and counting questions?

    And, which of the 101qs are most likely to lead to questions which do not start with how many or how long?

  2. Steve Phelps

    June 2, 2012 - 9:47 am -

    @David Wees I think measurement and counting questions require the least amount of thought to pose.

    I would hypothesize that the 101qs items that do not lead to measurement and counting questions probably get skipped.

  3. The house pic is mesmerizing. Perfect example of what this site can do for our kids.

    @Steve Phelps I would tend to agree with you about the skipping. To grab people’s attention, the intended question needs to be short and snappy. “How many” and “How big” fit that bill.

    Is the art of this site, then, to strive to develop a complex topic in a short bite?

  4. @Bob Lochel: I like to hope this is how the site will develop. In the first few weeks there were just so many ‘massive version of something usually quite small’ type questions. I’m much more interested in the ways people find of introducing the more complex topics at a low rung on the conceptual ladder.