Discussion: The data-gathering capacity of wearable devices, including smartphones, combined with cloud-based analytics, has proven itself in clinical health applications (e.g. cardiac recovery) and for personal improvement (e.g. FitBit devices). Data can extend beyond health indicators such as movement, pulse, etc., to behaviours, attention, sociability, etc. The two-fold benefit of such Quantified Self concepts is that the data can generate live and long-duration ‘mirrors’ (where the wearer is offered actionable intelligence about themselves) and ‘portraits’ (where actionable intelligence is available to helping professionals, such as physicians or teachers).
523 Inspiration: What is the future for ‘quantified learners’? For example, poor diet and lack of sleep limit learning ability, so what range, combinations and dashboards of self-measurement feedback could help us become better learners? Check out the dedicated issue of The Economist.
I think this is such an incredible field in which quantitative data can inform our qualitative observations. As a person who derives a lot of his choices based on empirical evidence, relying on statistics and probabilities to justify reasoning and choices, that the excitement of knowing my own quantified stats (i.e. from a smart watch, the steps I take with my phone, my laptop informing me how long I use a specific app or program), can only benefit me towards making healthier decisions and choices, confronting the cold hard facts that are my own behaviors. I think it gives me so much control and autonomy over my behavior that is essential to my success.
This is why I would be such a huge advocate for a greater amount of quantification of the self in education. Students seeing their statistics, regardless of it being academic scores, health data, behavior points, etc., would only serve to communicate effective information for students to make informed choices and decisions.
I do recognize that over-emphasizing on simply data or numbers can be cold and inhumane, can cause testing anxiety or other forms of unhealthy behaviors. However, if we always preface the ‘quantified self’ data with a foundation that preaches an educational philosophy of lifelong learning and that education is built to help a person better themself, that students would break past of seeing numbers as just numbers and derive deep meaning and learning from it.
This frontier is fascinating to me – it combines data (personalized quantifiable information) and analytics, with the goal of providing insightful information and actionable items to improve learning and teaching.
I envision several applications for both learners and teachers as often times, people may be unaware of certain behaviours or indicators that may hinder learning.
For example, learners may gain valuable insight on their most attentive periods of the day, which can be used to inform learning routines or schedules. Learners may also identify, based on health indicators such as heart rate, what topic areas or activities cause high levels of stress or anxiety, which can be used to inform areas for development or mitigation strategies. From a teacher’s perspective, perhaps learners’ attention for a certain activity can be measured, with the data used to improve teaching activities.
I would be very interested to explore this frontier further with other peers who are interested!