Using Google appointment slots
I'm not on the bleeding edge of ed tech, but I'm happy to steal use what others create. I've been using an online calendar service to schedule student appointments for a few years, but given my concerns about some glitches recently and the appearance of a new Google appointment-slot capacity inside Google Calendar, I'm switching. […]
Research Calvinball
Today, Paul Krugman argued that freshwater economists (you know, the folks who don't see any evidence of neo-Keynesian confirmation in the last few years of reality) are playing a Chicago version of Calvinball. Not only do I think Bill Watterson is among the best sociologists of childhood around (I know, I know: you think of him […]
Of Jonah Edelman and other braggarts
Over the weekend I saw several references online to a Youtube video of Jonah Edelman's brass discussion at the "Aspen Ideas Festival" of the legislative history of Senate Bill 7 in Illinois, which changed significant parts of teacher working conditions. In the 14-minute online version linked above, he claims substantial credit for the passage of […]
In-cell bar charts
CCPhysicist made some very good suggestions in response to Wednesday's chart of educational attainment, and I've had a few questions about how I produced it (in terms of the chart, not the basic pull-down of data from IPUMS and frequency tables). Before I get to CCPhysicist, there are two essential sources of inspiration for the chart: Population […]
Gaming Florida education policy
I need to write about this a little more at length after fiddling with it some more, but this morning I put my summer students in the shoes of school board members having to make high stakes decisions month after month, often with insufficient funds and with people likely to be upset no matter what […]