Week 10 you did a wonderful job explaining analytics in education in a simple and concise manner. Not an easy task! I really liked the way the your site seemed to intuitively answer the questions I had about the topic as I went through the OER. The delivery was so thought provoking it left me reflecting on the subject of data and epistemological variance.
I can’t help but walk away with some concerns about the future of this area. I think that the primary concern is in the contradiction and interpretation of the data. I understand that analytics really is providing basis for a statistical mean understanding of what is happening with regards to making decisions about the next direction to take. Relying so heavily on statistical approaches and analytics systems could create an educational landscape where we have a new ideology of how to define the ‘perfect student’. That is to perpetuate one type of educational belief and or opinion(s) onto society as whole and potentially create an A standard that is one dimensional because of wealth of data driven educational ideologies. This isn’t to say that learning analytics shouldn’t be used, but there should by multiple views and perspectives that are chosen to drive data forward. The problem inside the technology space is that data in various fields is often controlled by one or two major players. If this happens to education, we could face fundamental problems with data analytic theory and epistemological views on education.