Developing my ‘Learning’ with Data visualisation

The common theme in this block, ‘Learning with Data’, seems to be centred on defining personalisation and the impact that has from an educational perspective. Furthermore, there are common threads about data collection, ethics, student agency, transparency, and learning analytics, to name but a few.

For this block’s data visualisation, I initially wanted to explore how (and how often) my students engage with learning systems over a week and what data might be at play. However, on reflection, the ironic issue of transparency is essential here. As a public-facing blog, I wouldn’t want to critique or postulate when it came to my students (or school’s!) interaction with data.

Going back to Giorgia Lupi and Stephani Posavec’s companion journal to Dear Data – Observe, Collect, Draw!, the authors suggest starting with a key question. Considering that we’re talking about how data might be collected and analysed to influence and impact learning, I want to explore just what kind of platforms and learning systems I use daily. What systems use student data? What systems collect my data? What systems transmit or analyse data? How often do I use specific systems over the week? How do I define a ‘system’? This is the starting point for my visualisation.