June 14th, 2011Social Learning Analytics
This morning on the opening day of the CALRG 2011 Conference, we presented some of the recent thinking we’ve been doing on learning analytics, specifically in a social learning context.
A technical report setting out the line of argument in more detail…
Buckingham Shum, S. and Ferguson, R. (2011). Social Learning Analytics. Available as: Technical Report KMI-11-01, Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK. http://kmi.open.ac.uk/publications/pdf/kmi-11-01.pdf
Abstract: We propose that the design and implementation of effective Social Learning Analytics presents significant challenges and opportunities for both research and enterprise, in three important respects. The first is the challenge of implementing analytics that have pedagogical and ethical integrity, in a context where power and control over data is now of primary importance. The second challenge is that the educational landscape is extraordinarily turbulent at present, in no small part due to technological drivers. Online social learning is emerging as a significant phenomenon for a variety of reasons, which we review, in order to motivate the concept of social learning, and ways of conceiving social learning environments as distinct from other social platforms. This sets the context for the third challenge, namely, to understand different types of Social Learning Analytic, each of which has specific technical and pedagogical challenges. We propose an initial taxonomy of five types. We conclude by considering potential futures for Social Learning Analytics, if the drivers and trends reviewed continue, and the prospect of solutions to some of the concerns that institution-centric learning analytics may provoke.
June 22nd, 2011 at 1:50 pm
I think learning dispositions is one of several interesting dimensions here. Firstly I would be reluctant to see that the disposition resides solely in the individual. It is equally a function of others (individually and collectively).
Secondly, I would argue that social analytics, your term, can be part of a proces of disposition management. In other words, the shapes we choose in sampling the collective body influence and determine dispositions. In this respect, disposition is a collective issue as well as a personal one, and it may also be a product of the interaction design.
I also would argue that it is not just about social learning but about group-situated learning. I have steered away from discussing my design and emerging practice in the networked classroom (Shared Thinking) as social learning becuase of confusion with Bandura as just one theorist. I have gone more towards collective learning as a framework but that would be one that extends to collective reflection, evaluation, and research.
There may be some dangers in understanding analysis as something done individually (although it could be) upon a collective. I prefer a conception that is more participatory in nature and one that is based upon collective analysis and reciprocal development. That’s certainly something I have developed in my research done ‘with’ people rather than just ‘to’ the group.
There is I think a great danger in holding our thinking up at the collective level and avoiding the tendency to collapse into individual as well as institutional thinking. Both are valid but are perhaps also re-framed or re-positioned in the collective-level view. Certainly a distributed angle is in play but it I have found it equally appropriate to think in this cross-institutional way as part of classroom practices as well as online activity.
Very interesting stuff and very much of what you seem to be exploring is mirrored done within the networked-classroom for whole-group enquiry. I watch with interest.
Nick
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Nicholas Bowskill
Faculty of Education
University of Glasgow
Shared Thinking – Empathic Pedagogy for Groups
http://sharedthinking.info
June 22nd, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Many thanks Nick for your contributions here and earlier posts – much valued. We need to catch up with your work on Shared Thinking…
Simon
July 12th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
It’s a beautiful set of slides. Easy to see the amount of thought and creativity that went into the individual components to this project.
I do have one hesitation that comes from many years experience designing and developing institutional (higher education) databases and then using these for program and policy analysis. So I tend to put myself in the position of the IT folks who will be involved in architectural design and development. And, frankly, the scope of work you’ve described for learning analytics seems so huge as to be enervating. Is this a concern at all? Has IT been involved yet? What is their take on this? Finances, time commitment, human skill sets all seem likely speed-bumps along the way.
Best regards, Gary
July 12th, 2011 at 10:42 pm
Hi Gary
Thanks for the interest. Well, some of the analytics we show can be done with v low tech infrastructure (Snapp; Gephi; EnquiryBlogger…) while others are more computing intensive or require more advanced researcher skill to tune (eg. discourse analytics). So, no-one’s pretending that this problem is cracked, far from it — we’re just beginning, but the point is to get some sense of what’s important when it comes to modelling learning-significant patterns via analytics.
We are developing analytics and recommender infrastructure, as are many others, and we’ll presumably see these become commodity services in the cloud for those institutions who do not have the IT capacity in-house.
Simon