How much, if at all, did you struggle with the data scraping? Considering what you now know about data journalism and web scraping, what are some ways you can imagine using some of these tools and approaches for your own work?
Related Articles
5 thoughts on “M4 Reflection”
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I struggled quite a bit with the data scraping because I am not fully versed in Google Sheets. However, I feel like this assignment really helped me in gaining a stronger understanding of how to use Google Sheets and most of all, data scraping. Because I am a future English Language Arts teacher, there aren’t a ton of reasons I would use this tool, but if I were to ever need further data surrounding successful strategies within the classroom, I can see how this could be helpful. Similarly, if I wanted to create my own business one day, data scraping could be super useful for making business decisions and filtering out good and bad decisions when building a specific business!
I have background in my academics using data journalism programs and I have retained these skills to this day. When I had to, I would pick stories that involved statistics and these would be useful to tell a compelling story boxes of data and sort them manually. I usually like using Excel for these types of assignments, but Google Sheets was still familiar to me as a web app based on my knowledge of data scraping.
Whew! I had a little trouble typing the formula correctly but once I nailed it after about 5 attempts, it was a breeze. I absolutely love this tool. My favorite feature is the automatic charting. It makes information gathering so cool, accessible, and dummy proof! I don’t have to worry about creating my own chart!! How wonderful! Some ways I can imagine using this tools is the information gathering process I go through to learn about a topic that I interviewing a person or to learn more about the person. This is a great tool for preparation for interview.
I must admit that I struggled a lot with this assignment. I am not accustomed to working with Google sheets. This web based application is not something that I use in my everyday work. However, if I were in a position where I had to manage a staff and create schedules I could see this application coming in handy.
Data scraping like anything mathematical, is more of a mental struggle for me. I also struggled with the thought of Google products. I appreciate that you had us use Google because I have always tried to avoid Google products because I was trained old school style, in person, with months-long WordPerfect, and Excel certification(s). It’s cool to face the unknown. It’s also helpful because Googe products are becoming a standard option. Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined and It is like simplified Excel, without a lot of the functionality of Excel. Until I can afford to hire one of those cool folks who break down the red and blue during elections, It’s a tool that I can use to create informative data-related pieces. It is also helpful to reimagine articles from the perspective of being inspired to change the previous standard formatting and add creative presentations of data scraping tools.