Tag Archives: learning analytics
The social life of Artificial Intelligence in education
Ben Williamson Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the subject of both hype and horror in education. During the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, AI in education (AIed) attracted serious investor interest, market speculation, and enthusiastic technofuturist predictions. At the same time, algorithms … Continue reading
Datafication and automation in higher education during and after the Covid-19 crisis
Ben Williamson Notes for a talk at the online webinar ‘Going Online During and After the Pandemic’ on 6 May 2020. Thanks to Mariya Ivancheva and Brian Garvey for the invitation. Over the last five years or so, data analytics … Continue reading
Re-engineering education
The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, for-profit philanthropy and experimental precision education Ben Williamson Many new parents announce the birth of a child on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg took it a step further, announcing in a December 2015 ‘letter to our daughter‘ that he … Continue reading
Critical questions for big data in education
Ben Williamson Image: https://flic.kr/p/bnZvFX Big data has arrived in education. Educational data science, learning analytics, computer adaptive testing, assessment analytics, educational data mining, adaptive learning platforms, new cognitive systems for learning and even educational applications based on artificial intelligence are … Continue reading
Brain/code/space
Ben Williamson In a new article published in Information, Communication & Society I aim to make some sense of how machine learning algorithms and new forms of ‘brain-inspired’ computing are being imagined for use in education. In particular, the article … Continue reading
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Tagged algorithms, big data, code, data, educational technology, learning analytics, machine learning, smart cities
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Intimate analytics
Ben Williamson In April 2016 the Education Endowment Foundation launched the Families of Schools Database, a searchable database that allows any school in England to be compared with statistically-similar institutions. At about the same time, the Learning Analytics and Knowledge … Continue reading
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Tagged algorithms, data, educational technology, learning analytics
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Education and the big data imaginary
Ben Williamson Big data and ‘smarter’ software systems are beginning to impact on education, particularly within the schools sector. In a paper prepared for the Big Data–Social Data conference at the University of Warwick, I have sought to trace the … Continue reading
Educating smart cities
Ben Williamson Computer code and digital data have become powerful influences in the social organization and governance of education. At the same time, cities are being reconceived as composed of code, driven by data, and made ‘smart’, ‘programmable’ or even … Continue reading
Digital education policy: big data, visualization and real-time analytics
Ben Williamson Digital technologies facilitate the generation, calculation and circulation of the data required to govern education. Seemingly objective statistical data are now being integrated into much educational policymaking, with schools and classrooms configured as ‘data platforms’ linked to vast … Continue reading
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Tagged algorithms, analytics, big data, code, data, data visualization, databases, education policy, government, infrastructures, learning analytics
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Programmable schools? Governing education through code in the smart city
Ben Williamson I recently presented some work in progress on the idea of ‘programmable schools’ on invitation from the Programmable City research team at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. The presentation sought to investigate how education has been positioned … Continue reading
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Tagged big data, code, digital making, learning analytics, learning to code, smart city
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code acts in education 