Block 1: Learning with Data In the block ‘learning with data’ I learned more about the key issues surrounding ‘data analytics’ and ‘personalisation in education’. Through the readings, I explored how new technologies offer the opportunity of ‘democratizing information and instruction’, where the classroom is a space where students can be creative and ‘pursuit their own paths’. (Bulger, 2016) The ‘myths of e-learning’ were explored by Friesen (2020), where personalised education can be better understood as a ‘dream’ that is still far from being achieved. Through the creation of my data visualisations, I was able to understand more clearly, from the ‘data producer’…
This week I tracked how many different digital tools I use in an ‘average’ online lesson, and how many times I use each tool. In the diagram above you can see a very basic visualisation, where the number of uses is marked in green. In this diagram I forgot to add the use of an iPad for teaching, as a whiteboard or presentation screen or just as a secondary device. Overall, I think I use a lot of tools in one lesson! I think I do this effectively, however, after seeing the data on paper it is making reconsider my…
This block we explored the topic of ‘Governing with data’, the interdependence between government and knowledge (production and use), as well as different ways of digital governance and practice. According to Ozga (2016), there has been a drastic shift in terms of how human activity is understood and measured, and the ease by which vast amount of data can be collected and process sin all aspects of human activity. The rise of ‘data-led’ practices where ‘actionable data’ is privileged, pose the risk of reducing ‘creative thinking’ and limit the possibility of understanding the ‘fundamental problems and possibilities’ of human activity. In…
This week I reflected on some of the forms teaching practice is governed through data. This week I identified four forms I thought I was directly or indirectly ‘governed through data. The first example is through the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) where the performance of teachers is evaluated through the number of assignments created, how quickly feedback is given back to the students, the number of formative and summative assignments register, etc. In the last few months I have also felt the need (or some sort of pressure) to have my online presence indicator in Teams in…
“A week of dilemmas” Through this visualisation (without clear data), I wanted to represent the interactions and tensions between IT specialists and educators. The left side is meant to represent the more linear, structured and measured perspective of IT specialists at schools. The IT department does an excellent job at setting and maintaining systems, deploying resources and equipment, creating accounts, providing internet connection, and basically keep the school running with all the technological essentials. However, the structured approach of IT professionals can also treat schools like ‘businesses’, expecting users to behave a certain way, and demanding clear data to be…
This week I tracked the weather! First I tried to track the weather at different times of the day, morning, afternoon and evening. But when translating the (simple) data into a visualisation I decided to show the most prevalent weather / temperature that day. Just because it looked nicer and was easier to illustrate. Ever since working from home for most of the last year, I’ve enjoyed looking out the windows in my apartment, observing the clouds, change in weather, taking short time-laps videos of the changing of the sunrise or sunset. It is how I take a break from…
Digital technologies and data systems are shaping the educational systems and everyday life of students and teachers. The extent and presence of these systems in schools and higher education spaces is growing every day, often without being noticed by educators until it is already embedded into the educational practice. The quick adoption of new technologies in the classroom, often with very little consideration of the ‘data subjects’, lead to a ‘pedagogical reductionism’ that values ‘datafied learning’ over any other types of ‘learning’. (Williamson, Bayne and Shay, 2020) This block we explored how data-driven technologies can enhance and modify educational practices; how…
Dashboards I don’t have a lot of experience using dashboards in education, I’ve only ‘seen’ a few in different digital educational tools we use at school, however, we don’t use them to evaluate student’s learning or teacher’s lessons. An interesting teacher dashboard I explored (and discovered) this week were the one in Microsoft Teams. I was not aware all that data about the students, and me, was collected. As I was reading more about Teacher dashboards, I found and article online about all the data collected in the ‘background’ in Teams. The one for one of my classes looked something…
Week 7 was not my best week of the course so far, and this data visualisation is not the most accurate I’ve created so far, and it’s also the one that took me the most work to design… This week I was reflecting on the different ways education is ‘datafied’, not only in the more traditional sense of data collection, but also in the way that communication is structured, presented and encouraged in an ‘modern’ educational context. The ways in which students can contact me as a teacher are many! Students can: Write an email Send a message (in Teams)…
“Digital Life” and Apple’s “Screen Time” This week I tracked the time I spent on my phone, the applications I used and number of phone ‘pickups’ each day. I was surprised mainly by the number of times I ‘picked up’ or open my phone every day – more than 70 times one day! How dependent am I on my phone? I use it every day and take it with me everywhere. It plays my music, has my emails, messages, social media, audio books, photos, and much more. This week I decided to explore how ‘dashboards’ of data and behaviour are…