Hello Everyone,
I shared an article about Ann Cavoukian’s viewpoint on data privacy and analytics. I found another interesting one that states that “greater digital privacy laws will stifle business competition”. I found this interesting cause in the age of technology when our privacy and ethical concerns surrounding our data is so important, many advocate for reduced restrictions on these laws. The article addresses Bill s-4 in relation to our Canadian rights and privacies. The Bill has not been passed by the Harper government as yet. Bill S-4 is aimed at overhauling the rules for online privacy, giving new power to the Privacy Commissioner and introducing new penalties for privacy breaches. A huge part of the Bill already has extensive support. It is part of a few new bills before Parliament with implications over how Canadians’ private online information can be handled and shared. According to Josh Wingrove from the Globe and Mail, critics believe that the bill will extend to unwarranted data sharing by online companies without the consumers consent.

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/data-privacy-regulation-stifling-competition-macdonald-laurier/
Solveig Singleton, Report Author for the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, believes that Canada is getting too private with digital privacy laws. She argues that stronger digital privacy laws don’t help consumers but stifle businesses from being competitive and increase their business costs.

You can listen to her interview with Radio Host on CKNW News Talk Radio 980 here

https://soundcloud.com/cknwnewstalk980/cknw-morning-news-june-12-knowing-your-privacy?in=cknwnewstalk980/sets/philip-till-audio

Here are the suggestions made by MacDonald-Laurier Institute upon new digital privacy laws as well.

http://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/mli-report-less-regulation-the-best-approach-to-digital-privacy/
Love to generate a discussion here. How would you feel about Bill s-4 being passed, possibly leading to unwarranted data sharing? Your children’s or students information online?

Leah

Hi Everyone,
Along the same lines as Group 10’s work on Analytics, I came across an interesting article I thought I’d share from Canadian Business. It relates to data privacy and analytics as this was brought up as one of the numerous challenges broached when using any form of analytics. From the discussion within Group 10s OER, for many of us the misuse of analytics was predominant but there were a few of us who were also concerned about privacy and ethical concerns.
I found this article interesting in that the Ontario Commissioner on Privacy, Ann Cavoukian, stated her belief that “privacy controls and innovation can coexist. “Privacy has enormous value at both the societal level and at the individual level. It forms the basis of our freedoms and allows creativity and innovation to thrive,”. She stressed the importance of not just amassing data but having “good data” which is quite important when analyzing any form of analytics.

She also states that privacy issues should be a” business issue and not a compliance issue” to help foster innovation. I wonder how this would be addressed if this becomes the case in the future, then consumer’s data privacy may then become too lax. I will post a differing viewpoint that I found above as there was another article pinpointing this exact point.

She outlines in her paper, seven foundational laws of privacy that businesses should then follow to help foster innovation. The second link is to her paper, the first is the article in Canadian Business.

 http://www.canadianbusiness.com/technology-news/ann-cavoukian-privacy-leads-to-innovation/

http://www.privacybydesign.ca/content/uploads/2009/08/7foundationalprinciples.pdf
Cheers, Leah

Week 10 you did a wonderful job explaining analytics in education in a simple and concise manner. Not an easy task! I really liked the way the your site seemed to intuitively answer the questions I had about the topic as I went through the OER. The delivery was so thought provoking it left me reflecting on the subject of data and epistemological variance.

I can’t help but walk away with some concerns about the future of this area. I think that the primary concern is in the contradiction and interpretation of the data. I understand that analytics really is providing basis for a statistical mean understanding of what is happening with regards to making decisions about the next direction to take. Relying so heavily on statistical approaches and analytics systems could create an educational landscape where we have a new ideology of how to define the ‘perfect student’. That is to perpetuate one type of educational belief and or opinion(s) onto society as whole and potentially create an A standard that is one dimensional because of wealth of data driven educational ideologies. This isn’t to say that learning analytics shouldn’t be used, but there should by multiple views and perspectives that are chosen to drive data forward. The problem inside the technology space is that data in various fields is often controlled by one or two major players. If this happens to education, we could face fundamental problems with data analytic theory and epistemological views on education.

Hi Group 10 – Great overall presentation with Learning Analytics, the navigation and layout of the website were excellent, and managed to find all the required resources as necessary. The question that really interested me, and attempted to use your resources to answer included understanding technological learning and IT integration in teacher education. Recently the Ontario Government mandated 2 year teacher college programs and the big thing was that they were focusing on providing “tech” learning during the second year. I am so curious as to understand what this tech learning is about, and if teachers will actually benefit from this second year. Understandably, there are other reasons for extending the program, but IT and teaching technology correctly with adequate training programs needs to be measured somehow. For instance, will the teachers be measured on their use of internet, and research, or perhaps they should be measured on how often they create, implement, and deliver a web-based solution, such as website creation, online resource formation, wiki entries, and other important tasks. Will teachers be able to provide the right knowledge to students, or will they simply sit them in front of computers and say, “Now Kids, off you go!?”. In respects to this, some of your products, such as the Panorama Advanced Analytics tool is perfect for this measurement, and educators need to adapt this technology for this kind of measurement. There are some issues with Performance-based analytics, including understanding the true measurement of student achievement, and if indicators suggest that students are performing well, does that relate to a naturally talented group who understands technology or does that relate to how well the teacher can teach and train the students on using the software. There are many considerations to take into account; however analysis of learning is only the beginning. I think that this tool would help weed out the bad teachers from the good, and those who are just there for being there. The tools are important for teachers delivering online courses, and understanding how often students log-in and contribute, but it doesn’t measure, quality of content, and perhaps what the students do when they log in! Haven’t you noticed that some Facebook users are always logged-in but they never actually participate in conversation! Another potential problem!

Hi Week 10,

Great job all round! I did not know a lot about analytics or their importance up til now, but I have a greater understanding after going through the information on your site. I did like the idea of a checklist to make sure we had seen all the activities. Most of them were fairly straightforward and easy to complete.

I loved how the flow of the website made things easy and direct. I gained a lot of knowledge and I enjoyed the activities. Analytics is everything these days. I hope I can apply it properly in my LMS in order to benefit learning. I guess we could have a part explaining xAPI the standard to collect learning experience through different LRS databases

Week 10 – great job on learning analytics, I felt like this was perfect timing for me, as I have been wanting to learn more about what the capabilities of analytics are, and what as an educator you can look for through these tools.

I really appreciated the organization of your website, the ease of navigation and checklist. I also realized afterwards that the use a consistent tool for participation was key (ie. activities through comments) because there was no confusion, everyone could participate without major barriers and I knew what to expect.

Your content and activities were great, I felt like I learned something new, and was able to actively incorporate the information into my own circumstances. Great job!

Hi Week 10,

Great job!  Thank you for helping me learn about learning analytics, and surprisingly it was applicable at my job this week as I learned about an analytics company that we and many school districts use to monitor employees on call for all areas of a school board.  This lets school boards know if they need to hire more employees and in what areas.  I thought it was so interesting and timely.  I thought your OER was very professional looking and one of the most striking things to me was how organized it was.  I thought that you made a good use of the physical space of your webpage with proper headings, bullet points, videos and icons.  I really found it easy to navigate.  I also feel that it was concise with not too much information per page.  It was separated into manageable chunks and I appreciated this.  The discussion activities were great too – it is always nice to have choice and I made use of the checklist because I had (somehow) missed an activity when I first went through the class.  Unfortunately (but fortunately) I really don’t have any suggestions!

Thanks for a great week,

Danielle

http://www.edweb.net/gaming

I subscribe to the mailing list with Edweb and almost every day they send out free webinars for teachers. I have done a few webinars and they range in content but they have all been interesting. Edweb is also a community for teachers so if you are interested in building or creating your personal learning network (PLN), Edweb is a good place to start. The website is american and follows the Common Core but it is very good and easy to use.

Mathcraft is a webinar that is taking place July 17th, you can sign up on the link and it is free. The teacher who is presenting has been using Minecraft in his classroom and has seen math proficiency go from 18% to 83%.