Bodong Chen

Around 3 years ago I heard from a professor from University of South California that his team was developing an educational game to help high school students choose the right major when they enter college. Hunch might has potential to do this kind of job, since the desktop computer it recommended for me is "make it yourself." ;)

However, it found many of its recommendations hard to evaluate because most of they are beyond my prior experience or knowledge. Also, in some cases, recommendations it provides for a specific topic tend to be the most well-accepted options--rather than based on my answers I guess.

Another thing is, it's a one-way recommendation, rather than an iterative loop that enables users to provide feedback on recommendations. I need to understand how did Hunch recognize those initial patterns or models, and whether/how does it keep improving them.

I am also very interested in using Social Network Analysis methods to provide formative feedbacks to students. Looking forward to discussing with you :)

Hi! I am from Toronto, Canada.

I am doing my PhD at the University of Toronto. Learning analytics is one of my research interest. The lab (IKIT, www.ikit.org) I am working in developed an online learning environment, Knowledge Forum, in 1980s. Formative assessment tools, which integrate various analysis techniques including social network analysis and latent semantic analysis, are regarded as an integral part of this environment. One question in my mind is what are the basic and fundamental questions we can ask in doing learning analytics. Have researchers found a set of questions, e.g. "is everyone participating," that reflects most important educational concerns. Secondly, how to visualize data effectively and hoe to make visualized information more accessible, understandable, and interactive for learners. So I am very looking forward to this course.

This is my first time to take an MOOC course. So finishing this course will be a success for me. Apart from that it will be a great success if I can enrich my understanding about learning analytics and hopefully find answers to my current research questions, by collaborating with colleagues in this huge group.

Related to the topic of learning analytics, I just started to look at some visualization techniques, such as prefuse, protovis, Jung, and Processing.js. It will be great if you also interested in playing with those tools.

I look forward to build knowledge with all of you!