JonWestfall.com

Send Automated YouCanBookMe (and other) Appointment Reminders Using Microsoft Flow / Power Automate

byJon Westfall January 24, 2020 Teaching Tips Technology

I have 2 offices, which means that when someone makes an appointment with me, they need to be aware which office I’ll be meeting them at. My appointment provider (YouCanBook.Me) sends an appointment request to both myself and the person making the appointment, and I then update my copy with…

Easy Class Participation Tracking, Grading, Rubric Generation, and More with Excel

byJon Westfall January 24, 2020 Psychology Teaching Tips Technology

One of my classes this semester requires me to track how often students speak in class, and evaluate each comment. I also have students leading discussion, and I need to be able to generate completed rubrics easily for them so they get my feedback. I’ve found that I can keep…

Entry and Exit Tickets in Google Forms / Sheets – Flexible and Fun

byJon Westfall October 28, 2019 Psychology Teaching Tips Technology

Last week I attended a workshop on Differential Education, and realized that I’m already doing something very “differential-ly” – starting this semester in my General Psychology class. Students do a five minute entry ticket each day upon coming into class, and a five minute exit ticket on the way out.…

Franklin, the Ghost Who Successfully Evicted Hipsters from His Home, Parts 1 & 2

byJon Westfall September 15, 2019 Personal Writing

On October 1, 2019, two new books of mine will be released! One of them is a short story collection. The star is a little ghost named Franklin, who just doesn’t get the whole haunting thing. Interested to read the first 2 parts (of 4) of Franklin’s story, and to…

Bullets

byJon Westfall July 26, 2019 Personal Projects

As promised, when my Facebook Author page reached 200, I wrote a story based upon poll results. Here’s the Evil Item of Clothing story… “He was shot in both eyes?”, Detective Horne said, incredulously. “Yes, apparently so, although the killer was a bit off with the left eye – it…

Sometimes Things Take a Little Longer, There an Gulf Coast Time.

byJon Westfall April 12, 2019 Observations

Recently I’ve heard the song “Gulf Coast Time” by Roger Creager a lot on Radio Margaritaville. It’s a nice song, and it’s even nicer that iTunes has the lyrics. Or at least it says it has the lyrics. I don’t think they’re quite right. Here’s what iTunes has… Yeah… I’m…

ProfLife – Being Productive Out of the Office

byJon Westfall April 3, 2019 Personal Psychology Teaching Tips Technology

One of the great things about being a professor is that we’re essentially trained to be project managers – people who are specialists in a given topic area but also trained through graduate school to be self-sufficient. It surprises many to learn that when I’m assigned a course to teach,…

Download All The Music You Could Ever Want, Legally, for $29

byJon Westfall February 10, 2019 Technology

Just a quick post in case you’re old fashion and like downloading actual copies of what you listen to, instead of streaming. I’ve been using this solution for 2-3 years now, and have been pretty happy with it: Find the song you want on YouTube – Pretty much everything is…

I’m Excited… I Swear!

byJon Westfall November 30, 2018 Personal

I teach psychology for a living, and each and every time I talk about the Big 5 personality traits, I reflect a bit on my own mental makeup. If you’re curious, it looks something like this What stands out? Aside from the fact that I don’t tend to favor the…

Open In Case of Friday Emergency

byJon Westfall August 24, 2018 Personal

Students and Staff alike often wonder… … What is in this mysterious manila envelope taped to my office wall. Well, here’s the story. Friday, September 2, 2016 was the last day of a crazy week. My first year as FYS Coordinator, I had a ton of things going on at…