Looking at ways to engage with and use data to steer educational technology can allow us to make a great deal of inferences about our students as well as ask meaningful questions to drive our practices. We ask these questions to inform and make teaching and learning better.
The talk from George Veletsianos this week shed a great deal of light on the process of using analytics to question and critique what online learning should look like and how we can use this data to interpret the needs of online learners to better serve our online community.
The learning management systems and learning platforms are designed to collect and gather data about students learning and from this information we can learn a lot about the needs of our learners as well as the accessibility points. This discussion was eye opening, as I had not realized the amount of information these systems collected. Although provided great insight, I appreciated that the point was highlighted about making a human connection. The personal conference and ability to connect with a professor or fellow colleague is still far more meaningful and gives the educator a far better idea of how to best support the needs of the learner, rather than simply interpreting the data from the learning management system.
The concept of online learning and focus of flexibility and accessibility lend itself to a multitude of questions, as we think about and make assumptions about the neutrality of flexibility. This idea of “anytime, anyplace”, makes learning less rigid, more accessible, is more student centered, allows for more choice and often allow students to engage in material that is more relevant.
I appreciate that the concept is to create a more flexible learning environment where barriers are limited, however as was discussed there are other challenges presented that can account for other structural inequalities. I can attest to this where in previous online courses that I have taken the majority is self-paced and the material and options for assignments are heavily structured. While the flexibility is appreciated, online learning requires the learner to have the intrinsic motivation to stay on task and follow the flow of the course.
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