2:00 – 5:00 | University of California, Irvine. Emerald Bay B | Wednesday, October 4, 2017
3 hours | 20 Participant Maximum
Cost: $75

*Workshop is now at capacity. 

Caitlin K. Martin | Digital Youth Network | Email: cmartin@digitalyouthnetwork.org | Twitter: @caitlinkm
Charles Lang | Teachers College, Columbia University | Email: charles.lang@tc.columbia.edu

Today’s young people participate in multiple forms of learning across platforms and over time, which has resulted in an explosive growth of learner data. Processing and interpreting this data is a non-trivial task, and many questions about best practices and methodological conventions remain for the many stakeholders involved: learners, parents, technology vendors, educators, administrators and policy makers. The burgeoning field of learning analytics attempts to investigate this space with the express aim of better understanding learning patterns and processes.

This workshop will focus on learning analytics in informal environments with an online component. We will begin with introductions and two or three case presentations that frame the emerging work of learning analytics in informal learning spaces, including approaches and tools. The rest of the session will include full group and small group discussion, and collaborative work using a shared dataset of middle school girls in an informal blended digital making program. A concluding group discussion will focus on ongoing strategies for continuing the work.

Guiding themes include:
• What data is collected in informal online spaces?
• How can we use this data to look at learning, especially in ways that go beyond traditional metrics?
• How can we retain the contextual lens of unique learners and individual contexts when looking at large data sets?

The final format and schedule will be determined based on participant proposals. The primary workshop objectives are to: (1) foster a DML learning analytics community and (2) further identify and organize work and research themes around which future collaborations might arise.

All interested participants are welcome, but we are designing this workshop particularly for researchers interested in studies of socio-technical learning networks, and program and technology designers who are working to understand collected log and participation data.

Download workshop flyer here.