Contextualising Learning Analytics with Classroom Observations: a Case Study

Educational processes take place in physical and digital places. To analyse educational processes, Learning Analytics (LA) enable data collection from the digital learning context. At the same time, to gain more insights, the LA data can be complemented with the data coming from physical spaces enabling Multimodal Learning Analytics (MMLA). To interpret this data, theoretical grounding or contextual information is needed. Learning designs (LDs) can be used for contextualisation, however, in authentic scenarios the availability of machine-readable LD is scarce. We argue that Classroom Observations (COs), traditionally used to understand educational processes taking place in physical space, can provide the missing context and complement the data from the colocated classrooms. This paper reports on a co-design case study from an authentic scenario that used CO to make sense of the digital traces. In this paper we posit that the development of MMLA approaches can benefit from codesign methodologies; through the involvement of the end-users (project managers) in the loop, we illustrate how these data sources can be systematically integrated and analysed to better understand the use of digital resources. Results indicate that CO can drive sense-making of LA data where predefined LD is not available. Furthermore, CO can support layered contextualisation depending on research design, rigour and systematic documentation/data collection efforts. Also, co-designing the MMLA solution with the end-users proved to be a useful approach

Literacy in a social media culture : an ethnographic study of literary communication pratices

Literacy is often considered a cornerstone of education that empowers people to participate in economic, social and cultural life. But what does it mean ―to be literate‖? Educational researchers, policy makers and teachers often feel tempted to present literacy as a fixed and universal set of skills, knowledge and attitudes (Livingstone, Bober, & Helsper, 2005; Buckingham, Banaji, Carr, Cranmer, & Willett, 2005). This conceptualization facilitates the construction of tests, benchmarks and teaching materials. However, scholars have demonstrated that literacy is not fixed or universal, but always situated in a social and cultural context (Street, 1993; Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanič, 2005). Based on this insight, they have questioned the dominant ―skills and benchmarks‖ approach in education which conceives literacy as neutral, monolithic and measurable (e.g. The New London Group, 1996; Gee, 2004). Scholars within New Literacies Studies2 have convincingly argued for an alternative approach to literacy in research, theory and education (see Street, 2003; Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2014). In the following sections of this introduction I will first present a brief overview of the empirical and theoretical insights that have contributed to the conception and development of New Literacies Studies. This analysis will also include a discussion of the two main questions that underlie much of the research from the New Literacies Studies tradition. In addition, I will focus more thoroughly on the historical connections between of literacy and media in general, and between literacy and literature in particular. In light of this discussion I will argue that the increasing ubiquity of social media presents a new opportunity for studying the transformations of literary culture and traditional print literacy. Finally, I will outline the research questions and focus of my research as well as the structure and argumentation of this dissertation

Youth and the Participatory Promise

The emergence of digital technologies and the ways we have seen many youth engaging with the digital environment suggests that youth may no longer be just passive consumers of digital technologies but that — given the right circumstances — can become more active co-designers and co-shapers of the digital environment. This promise of enhanced participation is supported by two strands of research. First, from a purely descriptive perspective, my research shows increased participation when studying youth behavior in various areas, including privacy and news. Second, from an analytical and normative perspective, we can observe a trend — and should support the potential — of stronger youth engagement and an increase in opportunities for youth to participate as we shape the future of our digital society. The implementation of participatory research methods and the child rights discourse illustrate this participatory potential. Together, the two perspectives suggest a “participatory promise,” in which young people have an integral and constitutive role when embracing the benefits and addressing the challenges of the digital environment and shaping its future

The Mind's Eye on Personal Profiles - How to inform trustworthiness assessments in virtual project teams

Rusman, E. (2011). The Mind's Eye on Personal Profiles - How to inform trustworthiness assessments in virtual project teams (Doctoral dissertation). June, 17, 2011, Open University in the Netherlands (CELSTEC), Heerlen, The Netherlands.The central research question of this thesis is: How to inform trustworthiness assessments of virtual project team members in the initial phase of collaboration?There is common agreement that the availability of personal information and the possibility to interact informally at the start of a project accelerates the trust formation process. This goes for face-to-face as well as for virtual project teams. However, there is no shared understanding as to what information is critical for this acceleration and why it is so. Acceleration of the trust formation process is beneficial, as interpersonal trust is one of the key factors influencing performance in face-to-face as well as virtual teams. When little or no trust exists within a team, serious collaboration problems are bound to occur. Virtual project teams experience more problems with interpersonal trust formation than face-to-face teams. This is likely to be due to the diminished availability of information and its computer-mediated character. Once we know what information is important for trustworthiness assessments and why it is so, we could use it for the design of measures to accelerate the formation of interpersonal trust. To investigate the central research question we combined a theoretical (top-down) with a practical, design-oriented (bottom-up) research approach. We concluded our research with an evaluation.Open Universiteit Nederland; SIKS research school (dissertation serie No. 2011-19); Cooper Project (Contract 027073