G'day Everyone,
I'm Richard Olsen, Assistant Director of ideasLAB, a research and development lab exploring what technology makes possible for schools. Prior to joining the lab, I've worked as a teacher and a programmer.
My interest in Learning Analytics, although I've never used this term, is how data can be used to understand what is happening, and improve the quality and design of online communities. This ranges from front end stuff like, user reputation and role progression using game elements such as points and achievements, to back end stuff such as Google Analytics and content analysis.
One of our recent projects has been exploring how we can leverage these ideas to track and understand what is happening, for individuals and cohorts, when using diverse and distributed websites and tools. I think this will be increasingly important as learning institutions try to leverage the opportunities of personal learning environments, using course designs such as this one. This project uses a browser plugin, I believe browser plugins offer powerful opportunities for capturing and manipulating web experiences by adding a data layer to the browsing experience.
Looking forward to an enjoyable and thought provoking six weeks, I'm hoping to gain insights into how others are using learning analytics to understand and improve practice.
Richard
twitter: @richardolsen