Lifestream Blog – Final Summary

My lifestream blog contains a blend of sourced and composed resources that reflect the key themes of Education and Digital Cultures. To fully explore each theme I conducted a series of practical exercises to gain insight from both an institutional and individual perspective. The content of my blog highlights many different points of view on each theme and is reinforced by experimentation that ultimately allowed me to construct knowledge of each topic through experience.

I was intrigued by cybercultures and the concept of posthumanism. It would appear that the human race is no longer satisfied with colonising digital territories and now seeks to infuse technology with our minds and bodies. I learned of an ethos that digital is better and that mechanical intervention will inevitably lead to progress whilst acknowledging the antithesis and realising that this may not always be the case.

The political and economic factors (Lister et al 2009) influencing digital education also intrigued me. This was most evident in my micro-ethnography where economic gain was the driving force of the MOOC in which I participated. My micro-ethnography would suggest that there are indeed limitations within a LMS that contribute to the perception of online community cultures, but that they only exaggerate circumstances that often originate out-with digital spaces.

As with most scenarios where the physical and digital worlds intersect there are inevitably ethical considerations to acknowledge. I noticed that ethics was a recurring theme throughout each block of the course, be it the ethics surrounding cyborgs, online communities, and analytics and big data. I learned that that no matter how great and efficient digital cultures make us, we are still human beings with qualities and principles that cannot be expressed digitally – ethics and responsibility being the two most relevant to the course.

Throughout the course I have questioned if, as human beings, we are supposed to benefit as individuals from digitisation – particularly when studying algorithmic cultures. In studying my own performance and analytical data from an online learning activity, I gained experience of the impact that exposure to learning statistics has on students. I realised that whilst big data and analytics support the notion that digital is better, within education this may only ring true for the institution and not the individual. This was an invaluable experience in connecting my understanding of the course themes to the content of my lifestream blog.

My lifestream blog shows the ubiquity of digital cultures in business, politics, education and everyday life. Our internet browsing trends, shopping habits, and social media interactions are being shaped and influenced by digital trends set by computer interpretation of our behaviours and actions. Education is merely another strand of life that is being made more efficient, accessible and available by digital intervention.

On conclusion, one could also observe a shift in digital culture over time. In the early stages the purpose of digitisation was to assist humans to do basic tasks. This gradually evolved into doing machines performing complex tasks and exceeding the limitations of human form. In the present, we are using technology as an alternative form of intelligence and as a tool for efficiency and predicting the future. Certainly, if transhumanism and cyberpunk ideologies come to pass, then the human form will play a lesser role in both education and the wider society.


References

Lister, M., Dovey, J., Giddings, S., Kelly, K. (2009). Networks, users and economics. In New media: a critical introduction. M. Lister (Eds.) (London, Routledge): pp. 163-236.

Week 9 – Weekly Synthesis

Week 9 already! Wow!

This week’s Lifestream activity has been dominated by the group ‘Tweetorial’ in which we investigated some topics and issues highlighted in the recommended viewings and readings. In summarising my Tweetorial activity, I would note that I contributed to discussion threads surrounding the following key themes concerning Big Data and Learning Analytics (LA):

  • Ethical considerations
  • Social media influence on algorithmic culture
  • Big data influence over students
  • Algorithmic pattern identification
  • Dependence on analytics

I felt it essential to explore the vastness of Big Data and to consider the implications of identifying patterns when it is analysed. I felt that this week’s recommended material focused on either how data was gathered/analysed or the resulting consequences for students. Therefore, I became increasingly interested in the gap between big data and hypotheses and what new knowledge we can discover from the space in between. My ‘Analyzing and modeling complex and big data’ post attempted to address this issue.

Following on from the ‘Tweetorial’ I was motivated to explore some of the issues raised to put them into a relevant context. My ‘Learning Analytics – A code of practice’ post summarised my investigation into a JISC funded LA project in which the project team addressed many (if not all) of my concerns around ethics and student intervention. In hindsight, I had only really considered LA from the perspective of the institution and the learner – not of the individual as a person.

It was another enjoyable week and I’d like to thank my tutors and peers for a very engaging Tweetorial.

 

Learning Analytics – A code of practice

This week’s Tweetorial highlighted areas of Learning Analytics (LA) that I was interested in investigating further – in particular ethics and student intervention.

Until recently I had a vague awareness of a JISC funded project aimed at developing a Learning Analytics service for UK Colleges and Universities (Jisc, 2015). I decided to delve into the project’s Code of Practice to gain a clearer understanding of how the education sector currently addresses some of the issues that we have been discussing this week.

During the Tweetorial, James Lamb asked the #mscedc group:

James' Tweet
James’ Tweet

I responded by tweeting:

Stuart's Tweet
Stuart’s Tweet

Therefore, I was relieved to read that JISC acknowledge that “Institutions recognise that analytics can never give a complete picture of an individual’s learning and may sometimes ignore personal circumstances”.

What I also found to be of high interest when reviewing the Code of Practice was guidelines relating to student access to analytical data. JISC stress “If an institution considers that the analytics may have a harmful impact on the student’s academic progress or wellbeing it may withhold the analytics from the student, subject to clearly defined and explained policies.”

I found this fascinating as we have been considering the potential consequences for students based on the comparison between analytical output and an institution’s performance benchmarks. What I hadn’t considered is how a student’s performance may be affected by viewing their own analytical data.


References

JISC. (2015). Code of practice for learning analytics. Retrieved: 18 March 2017. https://www.jisc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jd0040_code_of_practice_for_learning_analytics_190515_v1.pdf

 

 

Micro-ethnography

Microethnography

I chose ‘The Internet of Things’ (IoT) MOOC delivered by Kings College London via FutureLearn to be the subject of my micro-ethnography. I decided upon this MOOC as my IT background would act as a point of reference when wading through the mass content that is held within the course.

Before beginning my research, I ensured that I had taken appropriate steps to satisfy any ethical considerations arising from ethnographic observations. I contacted both the course facilitator, Prof. Mischa Dohler and the General Enquiries contact at FutureLearn to declare my intentions and make them aware that I was conducting an ethnography.

To begin, I felt it compulsory to establish just how massive the IoT MOOC was. I was forced into contacting Prof. Dohler as the information required wasn’t readily available to students enrolled on the course. I was intrigued by the idea that 8566 individuals were participating in an environment without having a full understanding of its scale.

MOOC Overview
MOOC Overview

Amongst the masses, there would inevitably be wide and varied sources of motivation for participation. The goal for what seemed like the overwhelming majority of participants was business opportunity or financial gain – however there were mentions of other motivators:

MOOC Overview
MOOC Overview

I decided to focus my ethnography on the role that discussion forums play in developing a community culture within a MOOC. In preparation for this I charted the relationship between the total number of comment contributions with the chronology of each forum. My findings were consistent with Fischer’s (2014) observation that the participation rate within a MOOC is usually always low.

Forum contribution chart
Forum contribution chart

From this I was able to make some important observations.

General Observations
General Observations

The cause of the constant decline in participation was difficult to prove without statistics being readily available. Instead I was able to make a comparison between the aforementioned motivators and Kozinets when he surmised that ‘if future interaction is anticipated, participants will act in a friendlier way, be more cooperative, self-disclose and generally engage in socially positive communication’ (Kozinets, 2010, p 24).

I noted that community building and academic discourse did not appear to be of any priority to those who admitted to enrolling on the MOOC to generate money.  Instead, their forum comments contributed to what I previously referred to as “digital cacophony“.  The result was a linear community with large volumes of people voicing their opinion without appearing to interact or engage with others.

Interestingly I noticed that each discussion forum was either not introduced, or introduced with a closed question, such as:

Question 1
Question 1

The resulting answers and opinions arrived in large volumes but there was very little interaction between any respondents. I put this down to the following reasons:

  1. participants seemed to want to satisfy their own needs rather than assist in the learning of others
  2. participants were not encouraged to challenge opinions and ask questions of each other
  3. there were simply too many comments to interact with and people seemed overwhelmed

The participants in the IoT MOOC did not comment very much, this may have been because they felt over-whelmed by the peer-to-peer approach (Baggaley 2014).

In conclusion, although I was not an active participant in the MOOC I felt largely insignificant as a learner and almost unable to make sense of what was going on.  The discussion forums were the only way to communicate with others on the course but I felt that the design of the course, student motivations and lack of direction had a detrimental effect on the community culture within the course.


References

Baggaley, J. (2014). MOOCs: digesting the facts. Distance Education 35(2): pp. 159-163.

Fischer, G. (2014). Beyond hype and underestimation: identifying research challenges for the future of MOOCs. Distance Education 35 (2): pp. 149-158.

Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Understanding Culture Online. Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. In Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. (London, Sage): pp. 21-40.

 

Ethical considerations – Requesting permission from facilitator and provider

Ethical considerations – Requesting permission from facilitator and provider

I have been considering the ethical implications on my research when conducting my micro-ethnography. I have not quite managed to finish all of the core readings for this block yet, and I am aware the Marshall (2014) reading will more than likely provide further points for consideration. However I thought I would make contact with both the course facilitator and the course provider to investigate how to obtain permission to conduct my observations. I was encouraged by the responses that I recieved from both parties: (identities have been deliberately concealed)


 


 

I would like to extend my thank to both parties for granting permission.

References

Marshall, S. (2014). Exploring the ethical implications of MOOCs. Distance Education 35(2): pp. 250-262.


Tags: Ethics
February 17, 2017 at 10:19PM
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