Discussion: “Big data” includes large, complex, diverse, and unstructured collections of data sets that cannot be easily parsed with common tools. These massive data sets are gathered by a range of technologies, including mobile devices. As data sets grow in size, so too must our ability and capacity to capture, store, analyze, search, visualize, and share information in its ever-increasing volume, variety, velocity, and complexity. Remember that generative AI works on LLMs (Large Language Models) that train themselves on every piece of writing available, so imagine what happens when the training ground shifts from words to images, and our AIs begin to learn from countless video feeds?
523 Inspiration: How big is big data to education? Along with its younger siblings—data mining, data visualization, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and learning analytics—big data is one of the most influential frontiers in education. One of the most compelling aspects of big data is its reach: this bird’s eye view of information is increasingly (re)shaping knowledge and knowledge production, technology and application development, education as a field of practice and research, and how public and private sectors seek to improve education as well as address its problems and challenges, both locally and internationally.
My organization already collects a lot of training data but the insights are still shallow, we mostly track participation and costs. I see Big Data as the key to unlocking predictive learning analytics, such as identifying which training pathways improve employee performance. Developing skills in this area aligns directly with my current interest in data literacy, HR analytics, workforce planning, and digital transformation. This opens pathways for me to develop professionalism in data-driven decision-making.
While I am not a massive fan of the way the term Big Data is thrown around casually in many conversations, I think the contents that fall under the umbrella are certainly profitable ground for education professionals to explore. For thousands of years we have been educating people successfully (to varying degrees, of course) without having an enormous amount of data to work off of, but now, through the grace of computers and the internet, Big Data could help us redefine our understanding of what it takes educate others most successfully. The difficulty I find is that there is a lot of noise that we need to contend with in terms of the vast quantities of data we generate, and must therefore analyze. Careful inspection of this space could turn into the “pot of gold” at the end of the education rainbow, but we must proceed with caution. Within all the data we are collecting, we may be able to uncover some of the mysteries scholars have been contending with for years, we just must strive to maintain ethical guardrails around the processes by which we gather the data to ensure the safety and privacy of everyone.
Big Data is one of the most transformative frontiers for education, not only because of its scale but because of its implications for personalization, equity, and evidence-driven practice. As an educator, I see how data already shapes decisions about learner progress, curriculum design, and institutional priorities. With advances in learning analytics and AI, this potential expands dramatically: from predicting student difficulties before they manifest, to tailoring learning pathways in real time. What excites me most is the opportunity to move beyond one-size-fits-all education toward systems that can adapt dynamically to the needs of individuals and cohorts. At the same time, this frontier requires caution. Data-driven education raises serious concerns around privacy, bias, and surveillance, especially when decisions about learners are automated or outsourced to opaque algorithms. For me, Big Data is compelling because it embodies both immense promise and profound responsibility. How we integrate it will determine whether it enhances human potential or reduces education to a set of metrics.
Big data has been able to provide corporations and concerned parties with insights into people’s behavior and personal preferences in ways that may have been unthinkable just a short time ago, and has become the underpinning of the attention economy and all the market capitalization growth that has occurred because of it. I think it’s only a matter of time before this paradigm reaches the institutions of education and becomes part and parcel of the learning experience. Big data will equip learning institutions with the insights necessary to customize in excruciating detail the information and mode of deliver that students receive and will give even more insight into not just what they learn, but how they learn, and how they internalize and externalize that knowledge. Learning analytics have only been around for a short time in the grand scheme, as has the constructivist and socio-cultural learning theories that birthed it. Big data has not yet truly hit the main artery, so to speak, in learning analytics, at least at public scale education institutions, so I believe the impact when it does will be as massive for education as it has been for commerce and media.