Data
Immigration dashboard
I had some fun today throwing together a Tableau dashboard showing travel and immigration visa status by country for those wishing to come to the United States.
Amy Cavender
Data
Custom functions for preparing data
Last week, I explained how I used a combination of macros in Google Sheets to clean up class lists for a project I’m working on. With that part of the project complete, the next step was to combine the individual class lists into one consolidated list that I could
Data
Macros for data cleaning
Students often ask me, “What can I do with a degree in Political Science?” There are many things, of course, but one of the best ways to give students ideas about what they might do with a Political Science degree is to let them know what former students are currently
Teaching
A Shortcut for creating random groups
Just before the academic year began in late August, I found myself looking through the Shortcuts application to see whether I had any shortcuts I needed to update for the new term. I found that I was missing one: a shortcut for creating random groups of students for small group
Tech
Python scripts for duplicating files and folders
Earlier this summer, I spent some time creating Python scripts to copy files and folders. Why do that? For me, the most common use case for copying files is that I want to have a marking sheet for each student. The starting point (the blank sheet) is the same for
Data
Data design and shortcuts
One of my projects over summer was to learn Shortcuts. I’d been hearing about Shortcuts ever since Apple first released it for iOS in 2018; a lot of the podcasts I regularly listen to mentioned it. I played around with it, but it didn’t really click for me.
Tech
Duplicating files and folders with shortcuts
Last week, I wrote about Python scripts for duplicating files and folders. Those scripts work well. However, not everyone is comfortable working with Python, and they might not want to learn how to use it just for the purpose of being able to copy files and folders quickly. For those
Teaching
A shortcut for randomly calling on students
Calling on students in class is, perhaps surprisingly, one of the things I find challenging. I’ve never been wholly comfortable cold-calling on students, but always calling on volunteers limits opportunities for more timid students to contribute. One way to make cold-calling less off-putting is to call on students randomly.
Tech
The Bento Method with Things and Obsidian
A while back I listened to Episode 151 of the Focused podcast. David and Mike had Francesco D’Alessio on, and they discussed Francesco’s new iOS app, Bento. Francesco has a good overview of the Bento method on Medium, so there’s no need for me to go into
Tech
Importing a WordPress XML File
This is a script I wrote to accompany a short video I created for users of our campus’ WordPress installation, which I set up and managed until it was shut down at the end of January 2021. The video was intended to help users migrate their content prior to the
Tech
WordPress Export
This is a script I wrote to accompany a short video I created for users of our campus’ WordPress installation, which I set up and managed until it was shut down at the end of January 2021. The video was intended to help users migrate their content prior to the
Some thoughts on Austin Kleon’s -Show Your Work!
Date: September 1, 2021 Tags: reading Some thoughts on Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work! I recently read Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work!. Two passages in particular stood out for me: “…if you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader first.” (Kindle edition, loc. 511)