Excel is a black box. When we use it, we have to take on faith that its statistics do what they say they are doing.
Just as people mistrusted hidden power in the medieval period, I must avoid any closed software when analyzing my historical data. I will use open-source programs (like R, QGIS, or simple text editing) to clean and process my data so the exact transformation steps are completely visible and not hidden inside a "black box".
The principles that we should follow are: make the data and the methods that generated the results openly available script the stastical analysis (that is, no more point-and-click statistics). More on this below. use version control
This is like keeping a public, perfect record of a medieval financial ledger. When I gather my Black Death data, I must immediately put it into a system (like GitHub) that records every change, so I can always prove where my facts came from and how I used them.
Integrating Digital Toolsfor Adult Learners: Four Critical Factors
Discusses four critical factors in integrating digital tools for adult learners. Touches on blended learning implementation models in adult learning.