Category: Uncategorized

I have a problem, now that I a managing people I need to figure out a good way to record and visualize what my people know. I’ve done a few google searches, and I’ve read about “skills mapping matrixes”, and while this seems like the best option out there, I’m not really excited about it, at least not yet.

I can’t decide if I want to primarily focus on what particular a member of staff knows, or focus on the areas of knowledge, and then which staff member knows the topic. I am not sure which fits my needs best. Although I think that I need to focus on the areas of knowledge.

First Step-Develop a List of Areas of Knowledge

I decided that my first step is to develop a list of areas of knowledge in the education workgroup.

There are 3 major categories Early Childhood Development and Education, Primary and Secondary, and Higher Education. There are also other misalaneous topics such as libraries and the longitudinal data system center that don’t fit into any of the other categories.

Early Childhood Development and Education

  • Childcare Programs
  • Early Childhood Development Programs

Primary and Secondary Education

  • Funding Formulas
  • Teacher Certification/Career Ladder
  • Curriculum Requirements
  • Governance (State Board of Education, AIB)
  • School Construction
  • State-Operated Schools
  • Alternative and Innovative Public School Programs
  • Assessments and Accountability
  • Special Education
  • Rehabilitation Services
  • School Safety
  • Homeschooling

Higher Education

  • Maryland Higher Education Commission and Program Approval
  • Higher Education Funding and Funding Formulas
  • Community Colleges
  • Public Four-years
  • Regional Higher Education Centers
  • Financial Aid
  • Collective Bargaining
  • Credit Transfers
  • Capital Funding

Other

  • State Library
  • Local Libraries
  • Maryland Longitudinal Data System

Since the active cases in Anne Arundel County Public School students have increased since Thanksgiving, I was curious about the percentage of students with active cases by age range. The rates chart below are just estimates because the total number of students is from the prior year (2020-2021) and the case data has extra categories (i.e. charter/contract, other, and specialty centers). As you can see, rates for all school types stayed below 0.4% until mid-December, when all rates increased sharply. The rate for high school students increased the most, up to 0.8% on December 15.

Somethings you think are going to be easy, but then you learn that you still have more to learn. In a class, I learned to make a dynamic calendar in Excel. I then expanded on what I learned to make a calendar that shows the first and last day of the Session, and the day that the 90-day report is finished. I thought it would be easy to upload the Excel sheet to my website to document what I learned. So far that has not been easy. I’ve been able to save the Excel worksheet as an HTML page; however, I can’t get it to display on in an iframe the way I display my tricky data visualizations. It might be because the Excel workbook has multiple sheets. When I try to do that I get a 404 error. I have attempted to upload the page to my file manager, but that has led me to realize I have not yet used that feature, so I don’t know the password for the site.

If I upload the Excel workbook to my site, all that does is make the worksheet download automatically upon loading the website. This is not something I want my website to do. I want users to be able to choose to download information, but I do not want it to automatically download.

So until I figure out how to display a dynamic version of this calendar, here is a pdf of the beginning of 2022. It shows that Session begins on Wednesday, January 22, 2022, which is the second Wednesday of the year. It ends 90 days later on Monday, April 11, 2022. I am finally able to take a break on Friday, April 15, 2022, when the 90-day report is finished.

As this website is primarily a personal learning experience I am documenting my learning experience rather than just perfection.

Usually, I write about data visualizations and education policy. Today I am going to write about the fundraiser I am going to do for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in conjunction with the Game Theory Community Challenge 2021. With the recent loss of our family cat [EDIT 2: our cat returned a week later, we are now looking to bring happiness into the world in thanksgiving], my 10-year-old son and I decided that we wanted to bring some good to the world. He came across the Game Theory Community Challenge that is happening during the month of October 2021, and he said that we had to join this year as fundraisers, not just as donors. The details of what we are going to do to raise funds are still unclear beyond putting the word out that we are fundraising. His idea is for us to bake and sell sourdough bread. While I am grateful for his faith in my baking, I am unsure of the logistics. So while I try to figure out the logistics, I am just going to put our request out into the universe.

My son got into St. Jude’s mission last year when he was 9 through the Game Theory Community Challenge on YouTube. He got excited about the mission and asked for help in donating some of his own money to the cause, and convinced me to donate. This year he wanted to do more by asking for donations from others and I agreed to help. My son believes in St. Jude’s mission to give kids free cancer treatments free of charge. He says that he thinks that cancer treatments must cost a lot of money and childhood cancer must be scary for the kids and the parents.

So if you are interested in donating to St. Jude’s, and bring joy to a kid that wants to help other kids. Click here to donate. We are team “I-like-rice”.

Donate

Game Theory Community Challege for St. Jude’s 2021 Data Visulizations

Edit: Actually, I have an idea. I am going to try to figure out ways to visualize the data from the challenge! I don’t know if I will be able to keep up with the data, but I have a few visualizations that I would like to try with the data. For example, I would like to try a bar chart race with the top donors. But until I figure out the racing bar chart, please enjoy a regular bar chart. [Edit 2: We were so busy celebrating the return of our cat I took a few days off data visualization, but I am now back at it. I am finding the bar chart race very challenging. I want to switch the “years” in the example I am looking at to “days”, but it is breaking the formula.]

UpDate: October 13, 2021

I have not abandoned this project, but I am having trouble figuring out coding the racing bar chart using days rather than years as was used in the coding example I used. I have discovered that I need to understand the coding behind the chart better. I am also not making the time to record the data I need to make the chart as my work has recently gotten busier.

This is a test of taking HTML code from Amcharts LIVE and embedding it into a post. If this works it might make making some types of maps and charts quicker. Although I like the flexibility of building charts and maps from scratch. I am just exploring all of the ways I can do data visualization so I can choose the best tool for the task at hand.

I made the map in amcharts Live and then I download the HTML code. I uploaded the code into my WordPress media file. Then I referenced the media file in a frame on this post.

As a public policy professional, I consume and manipulate a ton of data. Unfortunately, as a government employee, I often do not have access to the latest data tools. There tend to be many layers of approval and cost restrictions. Therefore, I am really excited to give Datawrapper a try here on my own website. It offers an extensive free service that I want to explore with public data.

Today I was able to follow the easy instructions to install the Datawrapper Plugin on my WordPress-based website. Even without much website experience, the installation was easy. Then I decided to build a map in Datawrapper using data I have been looking at published by the Maryland Longitudinal Data Center for one of their data dashboards. I am really excited about their data, but I feel like I have to manipulate it myself to understand it. The map below is me just dipping my toe into the water to understand the data and how to use Datawrapper.

The map shows the percentage of public high school graduates from 2011-2012 that enrolled in college at any point after high school graduation. I was looking at 2011-2012 graduates because I am also interested in the number/percentage that graduated from college by age 25. I will likely examine the college graduation data in a future post.

It was really easy to upload the data into Datawrapper, I already had it in an Excel file. The map below was created in a few minutes. I did have an issue with getting the data to display using the percent symbol. I will have to see if there is a way to get the percent symbol to display using the program.

I am not sure about the choices I made regarding the scale and colors for the map. I want to make a bunch of maps and graphs to publish here on my website to explore how best to represent the data.

Overall I am really excited that I was able to quickly make a professional-looking map. I am looking forward to testing its capabilities and seeing if I can learn any insights about the data.

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