Analytics Post
My apologies for not participating in this week’s discussion. I have been battling a nasty cold and too many final projects.
I do have to say kudos to the Social Analytics group for their presentation this week. They have certainly enlightened me about a few things about this topic. I found the information about Klout to be very interesting. I knew that with Social Analytics many things could be tracked about a person and I knew that there could be potential problems with this, but I wasn’t aware of anyone actually publishing information about it.
Your presentation also made me think of my own internet surfing and the sites that I often travel to. I think previous to the MET program, the sites that I travelled to were relatively boring. Now due the activities that we do in the MET program, my web exploration has expanded substantially. I have started to use many other programs and visited sites that I normally wouldn’t have. This also made me think of what my surfing habits would be like after I completed the MET program. I wondered what social analytics would show about my surfing behaviour.
The learning analytics associated with our WebCT is an important factor in teaching. I kind of see the tracking systems built into LMS systems to be an important part of the digital classroom management skills that we all need to learn when teaching in a blended or online environment. We can track the postings that our students make, which ones they read and which ones they refer to the most. This type of analytics can give us an idea of how engaged that they are in the course. It can also be used to catch those students who claim to be doing a lot of work, but haven’t even read a post.
I will freely admit that I was this student this particular week, but I am trying to catch up now! 🙂
Juliana.
Posted in: Week 12: Social Analytics
Allie 7:02 am on November 27, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks for your post, Juliana, and no worries – it’s been a hectic week for all of us!
I think that by pairing the Klout example with your own admission of ‘being that student’ demonstrates how cautious we educators need to be with using Analytics too closely as a gauge of behaviour and engagement. In fact, I think it’s quite a brilliant pairing. Engagement, like influence, are intangible qualities – i think we must be aware of the limitations of statistical programs in quantitatively measuring something that is qualitative.