Google Data Studio – Craig M Sheil

Looker Studio for Athletics Schedule

We continue to find ways in which Looker Studio, formerly known as Data Studio, can be used to help visualize data differently. (NOTE: In the example provided, no student data is used). For years, our Athletic Director at the high school posts a monthly schedule of all sport practices, games/meets, team meetings etc that happen as to way to make sure that all athletes and parents are on the same page. But how can we make this schedule experience better? Welcome Looker Studio.

The athletics schedule had always been created in a Google Sheet. The community was given view access each month so that they can scroll through and find the events that pertain to them. The one missing element was being able to sort the data easily. This meant that users had to scroll through all of the events and hope that they didn’t miss a practice or a game. The athletic director would hide dates once they passed so that those events no longer showed to help with the view of the sheet; meaning that once a date happened, the row was hidden. Below is a gif showing what one calendar view looked like:

Marketing Students, Data & Looker Studio

Recently, I had the opportunity to work with the marketing teacher in school, Mrs. Wilczewski, where we wanted to help students analyze their data collection. In groups, students were asked to research a particular restaurant that could be opened in town. Students organized focus groups to gather some information. Additionally, each group created a Google Form to gather feedback through survey questions. Students were then asked to create a presentation about their findings for a new restaurant in town.

In talking more with Mrs. Wilczewski, we decided to curate all of the data from each of the 15 different restaurant groups and pull them into a Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio). To take a look at the Looker Studio, click HERE. A quick sample of what three of the pages look like can be seen below without launching the Looker Studio. NOTE: It is important to note that no PII is included with this Looker Studio. There is absolutely no student information being shared.

Rethinking a District PD Day

Nothing has been ‘normal’ this school year. Hosting our 5th Annual Future Ready Conference, back in March, in our district, was no different.

For the past four years, we have been hosting our own conference on one of our workshop days. We have had staff members as well as outside speakers partake in sharing out best practices sessions. We have managed to have about 100 different sessions offered throughout the day to help meet the needs of all of our staff.

Instead of following the traditional format of listening to a keynote session and then attending four different hour long sessions, the Bedford School District Tech Team wanted to come up with a way that staff could still grow professionally without having to be in the same space. We wanted to think differently. We wanted to think purposefully. We didn’t want staff to be in front of their screens necessarily the entire day. As a result, a menu idea was born.