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Week 10 Review – Learning Analytics

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!

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