Blog Reboot

Several years (and embarrassingly few blog posts) ago, I started the Third Distractor as a place to ruminate on issues related to foreign language and assessment. (The blog's name refers to a common test writing experience; in a typical multiple choice test with four options, writing the third "wrong" answer, or distractor, tends to be more difficult than writing the first two.) Although I managed to write a few entries, blogging did not become a natural part of my routine and I was much less prolific in my postings than originally intended.

Fast forward to now. After a cross country move and a couple of career changes, I no longer work on language test development for my day job (though I still do some consulting, and recently co-taught a course on language assessment). In my current position as data scientist at a large public university, I spend most of my time wrangling educational data from a learning management system and a variety of surveys. Nevertheless, I have found that the notions of validity, context, and score interpretation still have a place in my thinking about working with educational data in general. Working in several different organizations has also given me a chance to see how different folks manage people, projects, and crises, all of which has been enlightening.

I've decided to try to resuscitate this blog and use it as a place to externalize some of the thoughts swirling around in my head as well as keep track of data wrangling tips and tricks that I've found useful. I'm doing this mainly for myself, but perhaps others will find a useful nugget once in a while.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to update the profile pic either...