Big Data in Education: The digital future of learning, policy and practice

Abstract

The emergence of analytics Compared to sciences such as physics, biology, and climate science, the learning sciences are relatively late in using analytics. For example, the first journal devoted primarily to analytics in the biological sciences, Computers in Biology and Medicine, began publication in 1970. By contrast, the first journal targeted towards analytics in the learning sciences, the Journal of Educational Data Mining, began publication in 2009, although it was preceded by a conference series (commencing in 2008), a workshop series (commencing in 2005), and earlier workshops in 2000 and 2004. There are now several venues that promote and publish research in this area-currently including the Journal of Educational Data Mining, the Journal of Learning Analytics, the International Conference on Educational Data Mining, the Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (referred to below as "LAK"), as well as a growing emphasis on research in this area at conferences such as the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, ACM Knowledge Discovery in Databases, the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, and the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.

Against All Odds: Education in Germany Coping with Covid-19

“…While in some countries data is perceived as the 'new oil,' as a resource to run new businesses, Datensparsamkeit suggests that the best data is no data at all. Unsurprisingly, ambitious field research in learning analytics, which is often based on the exploitation of private data (Prinsloo and Slade 2014;Williamson 2017), is scarce. The exception that proves the rule is research on 'trusted learning analytics' carried out by Hendrick Drachsler's group (2016).…”

The heart of educational data infrastructures = Conscious humanity and scientific responsibility, not infinite data and limitless experimentation

“…At the same time, the builders highlighted thoughts and trends seen elsewhere, including wanting to collect as much data as possible (Williamson, 2017), a focus on computational approaches at times over theory-building (Wise & Cui, 2018), and celebrating big data as bringing better science, better education and rapid innovation (Crawford, 2014). We did not, however, find a uniform zeal for data collection at all costs, predictive analytics as an automatic service, and algorithmic processing over human insight, major concerns about the future of big data science (Williamson, Builders see themselves as caring about learners being seen and empowered as human beings and at the same time as being aware of the limitations of the technologies they are building to be able to do that and yet they keep building because they believe in the opportunity for better science and service at scale.…”

¿Nuevas formas de enseñar y aprender? Las posibilidades en conflicto de las tecnologías digitales en la escuela

“…Éstos no son fenómenos lejanos a la educación: la nueva analítica del aprendizaje y los LMS (learning management system) incorporan el mundo del big data a las escuelas (Williamson, 2017). Además del cambio en las relaciones de poder y en las subjetividades de docentes y alumnos, puede notarse el desplazamiento de verbos centrales para la acción escolar, como leer, escribir, estudiar y atender, por otros que asimilan las acciones educativas a cualquier otra: clickear, linkear, acertar, compartir, visualizar y mapear.…”

“…En estos dos ejemplos -las búsquedas en Internet y la consideración de los textos como bancos de datos-puede notarse una cierta paradoja: si las nuevas pedagogías han estado insistiendo, desde hace varias décadas, en que el conocimiento no es solamente información, sino un proceso de apropiación y construcción significativa por parte de cada sujeto, la nueva infraestructura de la cultura digital parece, al menos en sus versiones dominantes, revertir estos logros al colocar en el centro el valor de la información, entendida como dato (Williamson, 2017). 12 Esto es más consistente con la "vieja pedagogía" que considera al conocimiento como el dominio de un conjunto de información.…”