Image from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/technology/tools/informationvisualization/

Discussion Questions

1. With this statement in mind, where do you see the benefits of emerging technologies best fitting in education? Address the when, where, how and why you use it.
2. What are the weaknesses, if any, of using Game-Based Learning for educational purposes?
3. Do you think Learner Analytics support a PLE and ONLE?
4. Do you agree with the positive and negative aspects of MOOCs shared in this chapter?
5. Where do you see MOOCs headed in the future?
6. Do you think InfoViz impacts ONLE education? How?

Learning Activities

Activity 1: NAU GPS (Mash-up)

Similar to the RioPACE program, Northern Arizona University (NAU) also implements a learning analytics system called GPS (Grade Performance Status). GPS provides formative assessment that is designed to improve student retention and GPAs (Inside NAU, 2009; Picciano, 2012). Both NAU and Rio Salado College have online degree programs for flexibility needed by non-traditional students. In this activity, you will create a mashup of both learning analytics programs with a new name and new mission. Be sure to include information visualization that quickly describes your program with an image or diagram.

Activity 2: Aggregate Price Action

In addition to data collection, aggregation of data can also take place in Google Sheets, where special functions can import data from multiple data source. For example, we can save a CSV listing of DOW 30 companies to Google Drive. The plain text file can be opened in Google Sheets, where the symbols can be used as input for aggregating price data as seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Price quotes imported into Google Sheets

Practice this activity’s core actions (save, convert, aggregate) on the Learning Analytics demo home page ( https://etc655g6.appspot.com ), powered by the cloud computing platform called Google Cloud.

Activity 3: Minecraft (Game-Based Learning)

Teachers can use this to have student create structures, instead of using physical objects for that construction. This game can also give students a sense of experience pertaining to something like surviving in early America (Jamestown) (Farber, 2016, para. 5). Students can also use this as a medium to show their learning for geometry through showing square footage.

Readings

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Estrada, V., Freeman, A., & Ludgate, H. (2013). NMC horizon report: 2013 higher education edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2014). NMC horizon report: 2014 higher education edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., & Freeman, A. (2014). NMC horizon report: 2014 K-12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Suggested Readings

Dede, C. & Ho, A. (2016, August 22). Big data in higher education: Promises and pitfalls. Educause Review. Retrieved from http://er.educause.edu/articles/2016/8/big-data-analysis-in-higher-education-promises-and-pitfalls?zbrandid=4007&zidType=CH&zid=37597833&zsubscriberId=1030494261&zbdom=http://educause.informz.net

Dodgson, D. (2015, October 16). Getting started with game-based language learning. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/game-based-language-learning-david-dodgson

McCandless, D. (2010). The beauty of data visualization [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-08-24&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

Weller, M. (2014). MOOCs. Book Battle for Open: How openness won and why it doesn't feel like victory (pp. 89-116). London: Ubiquity Press. Retrieved from. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1KM-dkRnhT0Z0FaNWhick54Wkk/view?usp=sharing

Teaching Resources

Chapter Prezi: https://prezi.com/view/nWJePTFsaPOhgPmGzuyC