2nd Keynote Bart Rienties

Please, join us for the live stream of today's keynote: ow.ly/Aw4SR

A highly interactive start to the keynote as Bart had the audience interpret analytics relating to the world cup performance of Robin van Persia, demonstrating the limitations of learning analytics. He talked of the need to distinguish between learner data and learning data before introducing a number of studies around learning analytics. One such study involved pre-sessional students on an economics degree that were assigned to study groups for 4 months. Results showed that the students learned more outside their assigned groups rather than inside these groups. So, if 80% of learning occurs outside their "classroom" how can we encourage informal learning, and how can we capture this learning in learning analytics?

A further development of the study looking at the VLA data showed that the predictive power of VLE data alone is very low, whereas using all data for six performance measures yields a far greater prediction accuracy. Using such data allows for example for early and targeted interventions with struggling students. Questions for Eurocall to consider are what VLE metrics should mew use, what do students learn from peers? When should the teacher intervene and how could we use smart(er) metrics of emotions and learning patterns? Bart's closing remark to his very entertaining and inforrmative talk was that learning analytics has lots of potential, but still offers more questions than answers. (By Oranna)