Learning Analytics, New Technologies, and Improved Learning

George SiemensOct 19, 2015

OSU

I worry

that the social and equitable contribution of universities in society will not remain as they undergo stunning and dramatic restructuring

“If the ladder of educational opportunity rises high at the doors of some youth and scarcely rises at the doors of others, while at the same time formal education is made a prerequisite to occupational and social advance, then education may become the means, not of eliminating race and class distinctions, but of deepening and solidifying them.”

President Truman, 1947

The problem space

Equity of accessUnder represented learnersQuality of learningOpportunities for success

Income inequality: “The defining challenge of our time”

Student profiles

Diversifying(OECD)

Less than 50% now full time(US Census Bureau)

http://www.oecd.org/edu/skills-beyond-school/EDIF%202013--N%C2%B015.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr11-14.pdf

Favours women over menMore learners as % (up to 60%)Average entrance age increasingTop three countries for entering students:

China, India, USATraditional science courses waning in popularityGreater international student

OECD 2013

Enrolment: “perfect storm of challenges ahead”

University Business, January 2015

The solution space

Education Sector Factbook, 2012

Ed-tech startupsWith transformations already underway in news, music, videos/movies, startup gold rush now turning focus to education

This system is being unbundled & rebundled,

creating new power and influence structures

Technology in education

This is the background of new teaching/technology use:

1. Growing income inequality2. New learner profile3. Systemic change (unbundling &

rebundling)

Much of it starts in openness (free software, open source, and eventually open

education)

This idea of building on the accepted foundations of knowledge, the basis of scientific culture, naturally passed into the ethos of the computing world with the advent of the first computer networks in the 60's and 70's.

They recognised that they could never fully harness the vast and quickly evolving power of these computers if they worked in isolation.

de Grancy et al. 2004

“anything artificially put in to stop people from running a program is simply a deliberate bug”

Stallman, 1996

Four Generations of Educational Technology

1. Basic tech use: CBT, website2. ERP-type learning systems

(LMS/CMS)3. Fragmentation: Web 2.0, social

media, competency, adaptive/personalized

4. Distributed & networked

Technology is intertwined with power shifts in society

But, the power shift also creates Pareto’s Palace for top companies

Parallel developing partners: Adaptive and personalized

learningPlatform Publisher

Knewton PearsonSmart Sparrow McGraw-HillDesire2Learn adaptcoursewareLoudCloud CMU OLI

Learners who own their content, spaces, and learning

Framework for understanding future technology infrastructure

Control between learner and faculty/institution, including structured and unstructured learning activitiesOwnership of data and content – the learner or the institutionIntegration – loosely coupled with data exchange happening through APIs and related industry standards or tightly connected with enterprise level systemsStructure - centralized and decentralized teaching and learning approaches

In: Siemens, Gasevic, & Dawson (eds), 2015

In: Siemens, Gasevic, & Dawson (eds), 2015

To understand what tomorrow’s education system will look like, the technologies that we will use, and how we will teach,

we have to understand the architecture of information today:how is it createdhow is it sharedhow is it iterated

how is it controlled?

Preparation for future technology use is a mindset shift :

experimental, acceptance of ambiguity, recognition of complexity,participatory pedagogy,flexible control points

Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for the purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.

LAK11 Conference

Analytics is the process of developing actionable insights through problem definition and the application of statistical models and analysis against existing and/or simulated future data

Cooper, 2012

What will LA do for learning science & education

Add a new research layerPersonalizationOptimization (move from negative orientation)Organizational insightImproved decision makingNew models of learningIncrease competitivenessImprove marketing/promotion/recruitment