CRADLE at LAK 18
13 March 2018
Last week, three members of the CRADLE team – A/Prof. Margaret Bearman, Dr Joanna Tai, and PhD student Lasse Jensen – attended the 8th International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (LAK 18) in Sydney. Jo and Margaret share some of their thoughts and key takeaways from the conference below.
Jo:
Attending an international conference in an Australian city is odd (usually we are the ones travelling to the other side of the world!) but also very enjoyable: The Society for Learning Analytics Research (SOLAR) held the 8th International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK 18) in Sydney. It was a short trip for us, compared to the many international presenters who shared their latest work.
The three keynotes were very timely. David Williamson Shaffer emphasised the importance of theory in research, and using layers of qualitative and quantitative research to better understand phenomenon. Cristina Conati demonstrated new advances in gaze tracking research to understand how we can adapt learning interfaces according to the learner’s abilities. Finally, Neil Selwyn reminded us all that is it okay to be concerned about learning analytics research, and advocated for user respectfulness rather than user friendliness.
Overall, the paper presentations and ensuing discussions demonstrated the innovation, dedication, and concern in the field around improving learning and researching things that matter. A lot of the learning analytics research seemed to focus on future possibilities – how to fruitfully incorporate machine learning and discourse analysis were particularly interesting to me.
Margaret:
Like Jo, I also appreciated the short trip to Sydney. This is my second LAK conference; what I enjoy about this interdisciplinary community is that it affords glimpses into data science, computational and technological innovation, some of which will enhance learning but also teaching and administration.
The things that are staying with me from the LAK 18 are twofold. Firstly, I was struck by how institutions are now moving to integrate learning analytics into ‘business as usual’ – in some instances this is much further ahead than others! The advent of European initiatives such as SHEILA (supporting higher education to integrate learning analytics with Rapid Outcome Mapping Approach) underlined the focus on institutional embedding of LA (see http://sheilaproject.eu/). Secondly, I was noting an increasingly mature debate about what data is and how it might be interpreted. In particular, Kitto et al.’s conceptual piece suggesting that, given that our models are inevitably imperfect, how might we draw and build from these imperfections to a) enhance learning and b) build digital literacies.
Margaret Bearman, Lasse Jensen and Joanna Tai at LAK 18. Photo: Joanna Tai
