All manner of holiday baked goods on a glass dining room table.

Special Interests no. 2

I started writing up my approach to how I’d slice and dice up a data strategy for a survey… just one survey as part of something bigger… and i realize i need to break that up for better consumption and learning for readers, so that will start coming out next week.

Otherwise, this week has been one for reflection and family.

Learning Engineering

Microsoft has an Open Education Analytics Framework, which under the hood has some pretty decent supporting materials to use Azure’s Synapse Analytics tool to ingest analytics along three dimensions:

  • Attendance
  • Demographics
  • SectionMark

I might want to do more/different dimensions as a baseline for my analytics stack, but with their videos and especially their focus on “Responsible AI” this is a toolkit that enables a technically curious person to load and analyze learning data.

“Responsible AI” as presented by the Open Education Analytics Framework.

Music

It’s the time of year for everyone’s best-of-2022 lists. These are my favorite songs that were new in 2022. It was difficult to condense it down to under an hour, but the vibe emerged and I feel good about the set.

That said this list is….

  • Not necessarily representative of my favorite albums
  • Not even necessarily representative of my favorite songs on favorite albums.

Sandwiches

Early flights to/from Chicago to see my kid in his first starring role were a challenge for sleeping and eating habits, but the Portage Park neighborhood has many latin dining options within walking distance, and this one joint, TropiCuba, really got me in the feels with their jibarito, a sandwich that uses fried green plantains to hold the contents together.

This chicken ropa vieja jibarito from TropiCuba Cuban Cafe was good enough to come back the next day with my mom for another, with lechón, which was even better. Shown here served with congrí , cuban black beans and rice.

My flight back on Thursday had me hungry at 5:30am but O’Hare was kind.

My early flight allowed me to score a quiet table at Rick Bayless’ Tortaza in Terminal B. This chorizo torta with their blend of Intelligentsia really hit the spot.