Here are some free, video-based minicourses I’ve created for use by my students and colleagues here at MTSU. Anyone is welcome to use them, though.

Six Rules for Writing a Straight News Lead presents the basic lead writing principles I teach in my introductory media writing course. The minicourse includes a link to an approximately 15-minute video lecture covering the same material.

Spreadsheet Basics for Journalists is a spreadsheet introduction I designed for use in the entry-level media writing course here at Middle Tennessee State University. It covers basic data analysis and data visualization techniques using Google Sheets, the free, Web-based spreadsheet available from Google.

Data Analysis, Mapping and Visualization with Google Sheets is a more in-depth version of the Spreadsheet Basics course. It covers using Google Sheets and Google Fusion Tables to download, filter and analyze the latest MSA-level unemployment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; summarize the data in online, interactive graphics, and incorporate the data into online, interactive maps. The tutorial also explains how to embed the graphics and maps into a WordPress post. This minicourse is also a necessary foundation for most of the subsequent courses listed.

Making News Maps with Google MyMaps offers an easy-to-follow, non-quantitative introduction to enhancing one’s spot news reporting with an online, interactive map made in Google MyMaps. When colleagues tell me they’d like to teach their students some data journalism but are afraid of stuff involving math, this is the minicourse I recommend to them.

Understanding Poll Error Margins and Statistical Ties explains these two frequently reported concepts from public opinion polling and gives you some downloadable tools for calculating them.

Finding Gender Gaps in Pay and Promotion explains basic bivariate inferential statistics while demonstrating how a student journalist and I investigated pay and promotion gaps among faculty at Middle Tennessee State University and other Tennessee Board of Regents institutions.

Analyzing Superbowl Tweets about Tide Pods, developed for a guest lecture I gave in an advertising course at MTSU, shows how to use Excel and basic inferential statistics to explore the visibility of the “Tide Pod challenge” controversy in Tide-related tweets during Super Bowl 2018.

Digging Into the Raw College Scorecard Data is a favorite with students, because it shows them how to compare post-graduation debt and salary averages among federal financial aid recipients from their university with the same data from other universities.

Getting API Data with Excel (New!) shows you how to use Excel 2016’s “Get & Transform” tool to request data from an application programming interface like those available at Data.gov and ProgrammableWeb.

Making Data-driven Explanatory Videos shows how to use PowerPoint and Excel to produce an online video featuring animated data graphics. The minicourse’s use of MSA-level unemployment data makes it a good companion to the Data Analysis, Mapping and Visualization with Google Sheets minicourse. The page includes a downloadable .zip file containing example data and templates.