Are you curious—or anxious—about machine learning and artificial intelligence EdTech? Do you want to know what the research does and doesn’t tell us about how data science tools help with student retention, success, and learning? Want to talk data ethics? Or about equity and economic theory? Or open-source in EdTech? Or the history of the […]
Alfred-Essa
Vendor Roles in Fostering Educational Literacies
In my last post, I talked about the need for educators in general and faculty in particular to develop literacy around data and analytics. But it’s really broader than that. Back when college was intended for a relatively small percentage of the population, the idea of “weeding out” students who couldn’t make it without help was not obviously out of alignment with its mission.
McGraw-Hill Education’s Perspective on Adaptive Learning
Last spring, I had the opportunity to interview some of the top folks on McGraw-Hill Education’s (MHE’s) digital team to get their view on adaptive learning. Between ALEKS, LearnSmart, and SmartBooks, they have the developed the most well articulated adaptive strategy of any of the big publishers, under the leadership of Chief Digital Officer Stephen Laster. […]
Course Signals Effectiveness Data Appears to be Meaningless (and Why You Should Care)
My father likes to say, “If you stick your head in the freezer and your feet in the oven, on average you’ll be comfortable.” Behind this pithy saying is an insight that is a little different from the “three kinds of lies” saying about statistics. It suggests that certain types of analysis produce a false […]
Desire2Learn Product Updates
I had a chance to speak to some folks about their latest product release (9.2) a couple of weeks back and am only now finding time to blog about it. First, there’s what they’re doing with the LMS itself. No surprise, one of their areas of focus is on user experience improvement, with reducing the […]
Doing Another EdTechTalk on EduPatents
I’ll be on along with Al Essa tomorrow night (Sunday, 9/17) at 8 PM EDT to discuss where we are with the EduPatent problem and what we can do about it.
Being Fair to Blackboard
Al Essa has taken me to task a bit for appearing to favorably compare Microsoft and IBM to Blackboard. He notes that companies can be good corporate citizens on certain patents while predatorily asserting other patents. Let me make a couple of points in response. First, my intention wasn’t to say that Microsoft or IBM […]