Want to understand “brain science” and “machine learning” better? Maybe? Give it a try with this post and see how you like it. You may be surprised at how accessible and relevant it can be.
Machine learning
More Blogging on Automated Essay Grading
Sometime guest blogger and friend of e-Literate Elijah Mayfield has another great post up on using machine learning tools in the service of improving student writing over at his company blog. However you may feel about the technology, the exploration that he’s doing raises some important question about what good feedback on writing is. This aspect of […]
Blackboard Analytics Update
In my last post, I promised that I would give an update specifically on the state of Blackboard’s learning analytics. Well, here you go. This is a summary of what I learned about their product from a chat with Mark Max, Blackboard’s VP of Learning Analytics and, to a lesser degree, with VP of User […]
Getting students useful feedback from machine learning
Last month, I wrote this narrow defense of automated essay grading, hoping to clear the air on a new and controversial technology. In that post’s prolific comments section, Laura Gibbs made a comment echoing what I’ve heard from every teacher I speak to. I am waiting for someone to show me a real example of this “useful supplement” […]
Six Ways the edX Announcement Gets Automated Essay Grading Wrong
Last week, edX made a splashy spectacle of an announcement about automated essay grading, leaving educators fuming. Let’s rethink their claims. “Give Professors a break,” the New York Times suggested in this joint press release from edX, Harvard, and MIT. The breathless story weaves a tale of robo-professors taking over the grading process, leaving professors […]
A Taxonomy of Adaptive Analytics Strategies
I almost never quote a blog post in its entirety, but this one from Dan Meyer is so good that I just can’t bear to cut a single word: Stephanie Simon, reporting for Reuters on inBloom and SXSWedu: Does Johnny have trouble converting decimals to fractions? The database will have recorded that – and may […]
What Is Machine Learning Good For?
A few weeks ago, Audrey Watters wrote a great piece on her concerns about robo-grading of essays. (I tend to take a lot of inspiration from the things that annoy Audrey, in part because they usually annoy me too.) Here’s the crux of her argument: According to Steve Kolowich’s Inside Higher Ed story, [educational researcher Mark] Shermis […]