Download - Learning analytics, soft and hard
Analytics: soft and hard
Jon Dron, TEKRI, Athabasca UniversityLAK11
We shape our dwellings and afterwards our dwellings shape our lives
or, as McLuhan put it, we shape our tools and they shape us.If digital literacies are a phantom, fuzzy, moving target, then how about looking at how technologies themselves are constructed so that we can master them, rather than being mastered by them?
Crowd teaching
1990s - collaborative filtering, tag clouds, social adaptation, recommender systems for learning (e.g. CoFIND)
2000s - social navigation, collective intelligence, crowd wisdom, controllable environments (e.g. Dwellings)
2010s - nature of social learning technologies (e.g. The Landing)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationallibrarynz_commons/3326203787/sizes/o/
Ive been trying to discover ways that individual actions in a crowd can be used to help individuals in the crowd to learn better since late 1990s. CoFIND captured implicit and explicit traces of activities - clicks, frequencies, tags, pedagogical metadata known as qualities, bookmarks, to reveal exposed and transient user model. Explicitly self-organising through evolutionary and stigmergic mechanisms. Dwellings used dynamics of cities to self-organise - a cross between a MUD and a wiki, inhabitants moved avatars on sidewalks and built dwellings (content) - left footprints, many social navigation signs, evolutionary struggle between streets and dwellings. Moved on to more controllable technologies like Elgg. Now Im exploring the other parts of a social system to discover the processes that are not programmed - pedagogies, processes, methods, intellectual tools, etc...
group
set
net
learner
teacher
designer
activity
analytics
collect
compute
convey
groups - traditional fare of teaching like classes etcnets - connected people, looser, cannot see whole, only local connectionssets - about counting people and their actions, anonymous, sending messages to anyone/everyone, using aggregates, averages (e.g. classroom show of hands)
Why learning analytics?
to help learning designers make effective changes
to help teachers know how learners are doing
to help learners know how they are doing
to help learners decide what to do next
to tell learners what to do next
What is a technology?
a stick is not a technology - it becomes one when we add processes to utilise its properties for a purpose.Technologies are not just tools and are not necessarily physical. e.g. manufacturing processes, organisational systems, pedagogies, writing, language itself (invented, constantly changing, not just about communication but enabling richer thought in itself)
Technologies are assemblies
all, or almost all, technologies are assemblies ref W Brian ArthurTechnologies are assemblies. As a species we learned to use the things around us to build other things. Language was probably the best invention for that as it let us build ideas upon ideas - conceptual structures that themselves could be used to build bigger, better structures but we see the pattern in all technologies. We use technologies to make technologies and assemble, disassemble and reassemble constantly and continuously. The more we create, the more we are able to create. But sometimes we create technologies that make things easier at the cost of inflexibility. Factories, rigid processes, mass production methods, rules, laws.
What is a learning technology?
Pedagogies
Methods
Processes
Techniques
learning designs
Organizational structures
Software
hardware
management systems
assessment systems
content
always an assembly. all parts can be hard or soft but many are nothing to do with an external object or device.
The dance of technology
ref Terry Anderson. actually a process of coevolution. The soft parts interact with the hard parts, which interact with each other. But it is the soft processes that drive change and evolution
Softness
Increasing the adjacent possible
Kauffman, in Investigations, talks of complex adaptive systems as increasing the adjacent possible - each change opens up opportunities for new change. Franklin (The Real World of Technology) calls such technologies holistic, comparing them with prescriptive technologies, which limit us as humans - mainly automation
Hardness
Makes things easierBy reducing choice
hard technologies, that Franklin calls prescriptive, reduce our ability to be creative. But they increase efficiency, reduce error, make things simpler and can sometimes open up new adjacent possibles themselves - a lunar orbiter, for instance, is a pretty hard technology without which we couldnt go to the moon
Human
Flexible
Machine
Inflexible
Soft
Hard
Two views of soft and hard technology
Soft as in malleable vs soft as in non mechanized - following Don Norman rather than literature on technologies in businessHard as in inflexible vs hard as in solid.
Hard is easy
hard technologies reduce our choices, automate, simplify, speed things up, make things cheaper, reduce opportunity for error. But the cost is creativity and flexibility.
Soft is hard
Softer technologies increase the adjacent possible by enabling and/or making more likely new choices to be made.
More choices come at a price - we have to make them. That is one thing that makes them difficult or hard.
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
Anderson & Dron, in press
generationfocusteacher roleBy thinking of pedagogies as technologies we can ask questions about compatibility and how they interact with other technologies. May more importantly, we can see them as mechanisms that coevolve with other technologies, what terry calls the dance between technology and pedagogy. It is not a dance but a growing together. Different generations of pedagogy and other teahcing machinery have coevolved. Until machines for communication were cheap and ubiquitous, constricitivist approaches were marginal. Connectivism is all about networked people and stuff they create and consume.Behaviourist
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
Postal service and telephone
generationfocusteacher roleBy thinking of pedagogies as technologies we can ask questions about compatibility and how they interact with other technologies. May more importantly, we can see them as mechanisms that coevolve with other technologies, what terry calls the dance between technology and pedagogy. It is not a dance but a growing together. Different generations of pedagogy and other teahcing machinery have coevolved. Until machines for communication were cheap and ubiquitous, constricitivist approaches were marginal. Connectivism is all about networked people and stuff they create and consume.Behaviourist
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
Forums and the LMS
generationfocusteacher roleBy thinking of pedagogies as technologies we can ask questions about compatibility and how they interact with other technologies. May more importantly, we can see them as mechanisms that coevolve with other technologies, what terry calls the dance between technology and pedagogy. It is not a dance but a growing together. Different generations of pedagogy and other teahcing machinery have coevolved. Until machines for communication were cheap and ubiquitous, constricitivist approaches were marginal. Connectivism is all about networked people and stuff they create and consume.Behaviourist
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
generationfocusteacher roleUser generated, Web 2.0
By thinking of pedagogies as technologies we can ask questions about compatibility and how they interact with other technologies. May more importantly, we can see them as mechanisms that coevolve with other technologies, what terry calls the dance between technology and pedagogy. It is not a dance but a growing together. Different generations of pedagogy and other teahcing machinery have coevolved. Until machines for communication were cheap and ubiquitous, constricitivist approaches were marginal. Connectivism is all about networked people and stuff they create and consume.Behaviourist
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
generationfocusteacher roleCrowd intelligence, personalization,analytics
By thinking of pedagogies as technologies we can ask questions about compatibility and how they interact with other technologies. May more importantly, we can see them as mechanisms that coevolve with other technologies, what terry calls the dance between technology and pedagogy. It is not a dance but a growing together. Different generations of pedagogy and other teahcing machinery have coevolved. Until machines for communication were cheap and ubiquitous, constricitivist approaches were marginal. Connectivism is all about networked people and stuff they create and consume.Behaviourist
Cognitivist/behaviouristIndividual
controller
Social constructivist
Group
guide
Connectivist
Network
co-traveller
Wholist
Set
What the learner needs
Four generations of distance learning
Soft
Hard
generationfocusteacher rolea move from harder to softer technologies, but there is a twist - it all depends up your point of view
Soft for whom?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/SA6HEWNCB5I/AAAAAAAABeA/FTkqbqDd9do/s1600-h/1964-worlds-fair-schoolmarm.jpg
A technology that is soft for one person may be a set of chains for another. Computers are the softest machines ever invented, perhaps (language may be a contender), but only for those who use them to create other machines or who use the machines they embody to gain flexibility. For a clerk in a store operating a cash register, the opposite may be true: 'the computer says no' is the punchline of a great series of sketches on British TV but is a ubiquitous feature of life - most of us are victims most days of a machine limiting what someone can do to help us.
For example...
Developers
Course developers
Policy makers
Tutors
Students
System Administrators
Teachers
Learning Management Systems
Soft
Hard
Plugin developers
Developers
System Administrators
Course developers
Policy makers
Tutors
Students
...and everyone else
Teachers
Administrators
Alumni
Social networking system
Soft
Hard
Plugin developers
social networking tools are cool.
BUT...
Soft is hard
Softer technologies increase the adjacent possible by enabling and/or making more likely new choices to be made.
More choices come at a price - we have to make them. That is one thing that makes them difficult or hard.
Hard is easy
automation makes it quicker, more efficient, simpler to do things. It does so by reducing choices.
to help learning designers make effective changes
to help teachers know how learners are doing
to help learners know how they are doing
to help learners decide what to do next
to tell learners what to do next
Human - adaptable
Machine - adaptive
Soft
Hard
So, back to our model, the human element is strong when we use information from analytics to make changes. The more the system itself contributes, the less control is given to humans.
Some risks of analytics
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mob_Chase.JPEG
http://www.flickr.com/photos/osucommons/3226077133/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cornelluniversitylibrary/3855473015/in/set-72157622140446726/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationaalarchief/2948560477/sizes/o/
Buster Keaton being chased by mob - mob stupidityconcern for the engine, not the peopleheath robinson (like Rube Goldberg) - pointless machinesschoolroom mentality - not for the learnerIf we feed back the wrong thing, our systems will reinforce stupidity. We need to know what we are collecting and how it will affect behaviour. The harder the system, the greater the risks
Softening analytics
scrutable, not opaque
signposts, not fenceposts
adaptable, not adaptive
aggregation, not integration
BUT....
Being in control
Choosing when to choose
Control
Choices
But, sometimes hard is the right thing. We want the best of all worlds.
A target:Making the hard soft,making the soft hard(when we need them to be)
Soft
Hard
Soft
Hard
The landing is a tool to extend the adjacent possible. It moves control to the individual and the group. It has many tools that can be combined and recombined in many ways. It is a virtual velcro to pull people and things together. But it is a very soft technology and so makes some things harder. We are seeking ways to harden the soft by seeking feedback and ideas as well as observation. But the big dream is to put the hardening in the hands of the people. Eg context switcher.
Assemblies
you can modify but it is better to use larger scale object to build assemblies. Assemblies can both soften and harden. If a system doesnt do what you want, add a bit - that increases the adjacent possible. But what you add can also incorporate hardness. So - can use soft analytics to assemble the right things, hard analytics as a component to help guide when needed.
Some take-aways
Learning technologies are blends of soft and hard technologies
Softness increases the adjacent possible. Hardness increases efficiency and reduces error (if we automated the right things)
Soft is hard and hard is easy - we need both
We need control over amount of hardness in all our technologies
Assemblies can give the best of both worlds
thank you
http://[email protected]