In my classes I’ll often have students give short presentations, and recently I wanted to allow my students to also rate each other. Here’s a very quick and easy way to accomplish that while also having the data analyzed to tell you who is the ‘winner’
Optionally have some way for students to easily get to the form – you could send it out via your LMS or create a QR code that students can scan in class (I chose the latter).
In Google Forms, choose the “Responses” button and then the green Google Sheets link – this will store the responses for your form in Google Sheets.
In the Google Sheets spreadsheet, go to “File” then “Publish to Web”. Choose CSV as your format, and copy the link that it gives you after you press Publish. This is what we’ll feed into R to do our analysis.
Open R, create a new script, and put in these lines:
Modify line 1 to have the CSV file link you got from Step 4, and change line 2 to be the easy-to-remember variable names for your form fields. Lines 3 & 4 simply show how to get summary data for each interest by a group identifier.
6. At this point you could just run the R script after your students enter in their ratings, and it will give you all of the information you need. However I took a little extra step: I installed the script on one of my Virtual Private Servers – it runs the script every minute and creates an HTML report that I can access from Safari on my iPad. That way I can easily see what the group scores were while in class to award the winner. This step takes a little extra time, but it will be worth it, especially if you want to share the results with your students (Or you want them to be able to see the results in near-real-time).
Easy hookup of data to analysis, with a lot of possibilities for customization!
I made this in about 5 minutes… sometimes having the right tool means pay a bit of money to speed up your workflow. Could I have done it for free? Yes. As accessibly? No.
It’s been awhile since I’ve talked productivity on this blog, but recently I’ve had a number of people point out to me that I’m extremely busy. If you don’t know, I have a few different roles professionally and personally – if you’re really curious, here’s the list as of today. But without boring you, know that I have multiple job titles and roles. I’m at the point this fall that I’m openly telling people that if they hear a story of me throwing someone out a window, it’s because that person told me “I’m too busy”, because I don’t know of anyone else on my campus that has as many irons in the fire, as it were, as myself. They probably exist, but haven’t revealed their true amount of overloadedness to me.
Anyway, this post isn’t about how busy I am – it’s about how I maintain a high level of productivity while being so busy. I figure every so often it’s a great idea to point out what I’m doing that makes me productive, so that I can share it with others. Also helps me highlight some of my older content that you may have missed. So here’s what I do:
Everything is on every device or accessible from every device. I wander around with my iPad Pro, which can connect to my MacBook from anywhere, meaning that when I’m out at a meeting across campus and I have a few moments to take care of some work, I can do it remotely.
I also dispatch and answer emails and texts as quickly as possible, so that they don’t bunch up. There is an added psychological benefit both to myself and for myself in this as well. I honestly believe I’m seen as much more competent than I might be just because I get back to people quickly. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ill-equipped for my job, I just don’t think I’m as great at it as others tell me I am!
I use a calendar booking service (YouCanBookMe) and I send automated reminders to people that we’re scheduled to meet. Prior to this I’d say I probably spent at least 10-15 minutes per day answering emails that purely were about scheduling time to meet. YouCanBookMe, and to a lesser extent, sites like Doodle.com and SignupGenius.com are essential scheduling tools.
In the classroom, I take advantage of technology to facilitate my teaching – through entry/exit tickets and tracking participation in Microsoft Excel. Both save time when entering information into my Gradebook.
While I have 2 offices on campus, I also try to be as productive out of the office as possible. This post, written prior to the pandemic, highlights 5 tips I gave then that helped me weather the “work from home” storm much easier in 2020 than I might have otherwise done.
Sometimes when I get tired of having to type the same things out over and over again, I write them down so I can direct people to them. This might seem a bit callous or flippant, but it’s the honest truth:
Students having issues with registering? See my DSU Probs posts.
Want to know all my best R tips? Read this book (I put 10 years of tips in this)
Want to run a server like I do? Read this book (I put 20 years of tips in this).
And, ya know, posts like the one you’re reading right now!
So there you have it – in very basic terms how I stay productive. What I perhaps didn’t put here is that one also must balance things out within oneself to be productive – if you haven’t thought about it, I suggest two small additions to your life:
Routine / Ritual: Whether it’s a morning ritual to get pepped up, an evening ritual to wind down, or a lunchtime moment of enjoyment, find something that you can structure around and try to hold is sacred. This trains your brain to understand that even when life is absolutely crazy, there are almost always constants. This is also a great way to add new habits to your life that you want to take pride in.
Balance work and life as best as possible. I do this in a few little ways:
Saving work – If something isn’t time sensitive, I have no problem putting it down to do later in the week. It’s a common misconception that you should keep working until your to-do list is empty. The honest truth is that your to-do list should never be empty, but your time sensitive tasks for today should be. Think about it this way: If you have something due in a week, and you know you have a light day later this week, what is better – assign that task to the light day, or do it today and miss out on a) dinner with your spouse, b) a conversation with co-workers, c) a TV show you enjoy relaxing to? A-C are much better options than being bored at 10 AM on Thursday because you did the work Tuesday night.
Don’t be afraid of embracing unmotivated boredom time at work. I have, on several occasions, freaked out co-workers by dropping by their offices and saying “I’m bored, what are you up to?”. They usually tell me “Don’t say you’re bored – it looks bad!” – but the honest truth is, sometimes we aren’t motivated. Sometimes we are bored. And those are times when a little human interaction can be really beneficial. Not only does it give you something to do that many people find rewarding (e.g., talking to people they like, assuming you like your co-workers), it also creates relationships that are reciprocal in nature. No one wants to be that co-worker that only talks to you if they need something.
While I personally plan on saying “No” a bit more this fall (given my work level), I generally give the advice to not be afraid of saying “Yes”. Be an “experience junkie” – take on new challenges and find enjoyment in them. Just don’t overload yourself.
So there you have it, my tips and tricks, Fall 2021 edition. Stay safe, stay sane, and stay busy!
“Better days are in the cards I feel I feel it in the changing winds I feel it when I fly So talk to me Listen to this story I’ve been around enough to know That there’s more than meets the eye”
Seems appropriate for a school year that is starting out amidst uncertainty over what will be the norm, with a virus that won’t just go away, with people who are desperate for some bit of the familiar in still unfamiliar times.
The last 18 months have been really unique and challenging, but I think the best we can do is realize that all things do pass. Tomorrow might not be better than today, in fact, it might be worse – but every day offers the possibility of things getting better, and eventually the better days offset the worse. As we move into the 2021-22 school year, watch out for each other, be kind, and if I can help, reach out to me.
If you ask around the internet about rest days, you find a debate between the “be active every day” crowd and those who insist that your body needs recovery time. And honestly, the answer is somewhat in the middle. If you’re doing something that requires regeneration, such as strength training to build muscle, than yes, a rest day is critical to give your muscles time to heal. If you’re power walking, which is one of my main forms of workout (e.g., walking at a pace of a 13:30 mile, or about 5.5 MPH), you will find there are mornings your legs are on fire from last night’s walk. And if you walk outside, like I do, you also have the weather to contend with. Hard to go for a long walk or run when it’s pouring out (Although I have been the crazy guy out there in light rain with an umbrella walking!)
Sometimes walking in the rain and snow is pretty, though.
However you feel about rest days, one thing that’s very clear is that Apple doesn’t give you any days off if you’re a fan of the mantra “Close Your Rings”. Heck, it wasn’t even until last year that they gave us the option to change the amount of exercise minutes and stand hours (It was previously set to a hard 30 minutes and 12 hours, respectively). Plenty have complained that this is unrealistic – why should your 400+ day move streak end because of circumstances outside of your control. What circumstances, oh…
You get sick
Your family is sick and you have to care for them.
Your Apple Watch dies temporarily or permanently.
You decide to go on a technology-free retreat.
Plenty of reasons you might not be able to log your move calories, your exercise minutes, or your stand hours. Should you just let the streak die? No!
Well, perhaps Yes – you see this all gets into how you measure your own success. Unless you’re competing with another, the majority of the time you’re using your rings as a way to be honest with yourself. Closing them gives you a sense of accomplishment, earning badges gives you small boosts of dopamine that say “I’m doing stuff…”. And failing to close them can make you discouraged if it was due to circumstances not related to your fitness. I’ve certainly had friends joke “If you workout and your watch doesn’t record it, what was the point?!?” – And for some of us, psychologically, there is a grain of truth there. So should you let a streak die? Here’s my simple rule:
If you view your streaks as part of a life change that you want to affirm to yourself regularly – if you’ve assigned substantial meaning to them, then you should keep the streak going even if you didn’t technically do the work on a given day due to things you couldn’t control. After all, your intention was still there.
If you view your streaks as simply metrics on what you’re doing, in the way that you might view any other number without emotional connection, then just let them die.
I’m assuming if you’ve made it this far, you fall into the “Save my Streak” category, so I’m going to use the rest of this post to tell you how to do that without having to install any special software. Turns out there is a way to preserve your streaks without much effort.
The Obligatory “Why I Figured This Out” portion of the Recipe
So I know you just want to know how to do it, so skip this unless you know me personally and are curious. Anyway, as of today, here are my streaks:
As of August 6, 2021
As you can see, I have been working out a lot over the past year. As I mentioned in Part 3 of my weight loss story, I really wanted to make it to 365 days. Which I did. Then I kept going. But at some point the streak that I set each day became further affirmation of my changing body and mind, and I really wanted to keep it. So much that I changed my move goal from 810 calories to 480, my workout goal from 30 minutes to 10, and my stand hours remained at 12. Now here’s the kicker – I’ve never needed to “use” these lower levels, on average – over the past 90 days, my average Move is 880 calories, and my average exercise minutes is at 72 minutes. With the exception of a few days of driving for summer trips, I don’t need to use the lower goals to maintain the streak.
This got me thinking: What if there were a way I could return to my actual goals, but still have the security of being able to persist in my streaks even if my watch dies (like it tried to do the other day), or in an emergency I can’t work out. And maybe, just maybe, it would be useful if I wanted to give myself a “day off”, but more on that later.
Then I realized – Apple lets you do this already, all you need to know is where to look.
How Do I Fill My Rings Manually?
It’s easy – follow these steps:
Open the Apple Health app on your iPhone.
Go to Browse and type “Workouts” in the search.
Open the Workouts data, and choose “Add Data” at the upper right.
Enter whatever activity type you like (while not completely accurate, a rest day could be “Preparation and Recovery”, or just use “Other”)
Enter the calories burned, These will increase your red move ring.
Enter a start and end time, These will be counted toward your exercise ring.
Hit “Add”
And there you have it – You should see the Apple Activity app on your watch update as well as on your phone. You’ve essentially done exactly what your phone would have done if you’d worked out, but you entered it in manually. Yes, the iPhone will flag this as “Entered by user”, but it will still count it.
When Should You Use This Power?
Again, this question is largely up to you. But one thing that I have thought a lot about lately is “rest days” – as in, days when either my Oura ring outright tells me to rest…
The Oura Ring telling me to “Pay Attention” in Readiness
Or on special occasions – a holiday or a day I feel I’ve earned a break. I’ve considered having 10-15 days per year that I could “use” (Sort of the equivalent of workout “paid time off”) as I like. I haven’t decided yet on if I will do this, or how I would track it, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
In fact, I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this “nonsense” (Which I put in quotes because sometimes the realist in me calls my mind out and says “Dude, this stuff doesn’t really matter – health is for you, who cares if a stupid smart device confirms what you already know!”). Are streaks meaningful? Do you care about a sleeve of virtual medals? If so, why? If not, why not? And will you “cheat” or stay honest in your streaks?
On this week’s Battling Pickle Podcast, I talk about statistics – what they are, why correlation does not imply causation, and a bit on measurement scales. I mention Tyler Vigen’s great Spurious Correlations webpage as well!
