Oh! I would love A VUE (or similar) map of more specific interests in LAK (of participants) e.g. corporate sector, LMS/CMS, Institutional, higher ed, K-12, adaptive guidance, etc.
The interests should/could be mapped with their semantic relationships, and with the size of node representing numbers of participants with that specific interest. Nodes could be zoomed in and out. (Zooming in to the most detailed level would reveal usernames of participants listing that interest, and if we're dreaming - hotlinks to their presence on the web - blogs, twitter, fb, linkedIn, etc.)
This would be helpful for a number of reasons:
1) finding a subgroup with similar interests/emphasis in this MOOC
2) viewing the breadth and proportions of interests represented by LAK participants
3) It would be most enlightening to see how (or if?) this interest/emphasis map evolved over time. An animation of such would be very insightful, especially if somehow it could be tracked before and after LAK11 in Banff, to measure impact the course, and then the conference had on interests.
Mary McEwen
Posts made by Mary McEwen
Hi Dave,
I'm enjoying the relative chaos of orienting in a MOOC
But I'm also wondering about tools to make that easier, especially in light of George's post about artifacts of sense-making. In particular I'd like to find participants with similar foci to mine in regards to learning analytics, without reading every post and reply. I was thinking that if we had a VUE (or CMAP) diagram based on participant's interests, it would help. It would be great if you could click on an interest node, and see the list of participants including that interest in their profile (it would also be nice to have a hyperlink to their email/blog/etc. but one could always look that up if they've posted an introduction). I would be willing to give a prototype of the tool a shot, IF it was possible to somehow aggregate that information in some format (XML, csv, mysql, or whatever). [I suppose I could also go through everyone's introduction by hand, but I don't think I'm THAT interested in the tool 
.] It would be even better if the tool could be automated, because interests can be dynamic. Do you know is there a way to get that data (at minimum username, and interests) ?
Thanks!
Mary McEwen
I'm enjoying the relative chaos of orienting in a MOOC
But I'm also wondering about tools to make that easier, especially in light of George's post about artifacts of sense-making. In particular I'd like to find participants with similar foci to mine in regards to learning analytics, without reading every post and reply. I was thinking that if we had a VUE (or CMAP) diagram based on participant's interests, it would help. It would be great if you could click on an interest node, and see the list of participants including that interest in their profile (it would also be nice to have a hyperlink to their email/blog/etc. but one could always look that up if they've posted an introduction). I would be willing to give a prototype of the tool a shot, IF it was possible to somehow aggregate that information in some format (XML, csv, mysql, or whatever). [I suppose I could also go through everyone's introduction by hand, but I don't think I'm THAT interested in the tool .] It would be even better if the tool could be automated, because interests can be dynamic. Do you know is there a way to get that data (at minimum username, and interests) ?Thanks!
Mary McEwen
You'll find my response on my blog here:
http://minedthesynapse.blogspot.com/2011/01/week-1-playing-with-hunch.html
http://minedthesynapse.blogspot.com/2011/01/week-1-playing-with-hunch.html
Where are you from?
Orem, Ut, USA
Why are you interested in this course?
I'm a graduate student with research interests in how analytics can inform and improve instructional design, assessment, and evaluation
What has to happen in order for you to consider this course a success?
I'd love to gain more information and a better perspective about the history, current state, and possible future of this exciting area.
What else? (your work, your experiences, etc.)
20+ years in educational/instructional software development, have taught f2f math and computer classes in secondary and post-secondary environments. Other interests: Applied statistics, R, psychometrics (especially IRT). Analytics experience includes google analytics, and Omniture's (Now Adobe's) site catalyst.