«Learning Informatics as Inspiration for Learning Analytics»
Simon Buckingham-ShumUniversity of Technology Sydney, Australia
Abstract
Informatics offers systemic ways of analyzing and designing the interaction of natural and artificial information processing systems. In the context of education, I will describe some Learning Informatics lenses and practices which we have developed for co-designing analytics and AI with educators and students. We have a particular focus on closing the feedback loop to equip learners with competencies to navigate a complex, uncertain future, such as critical thinking, professional reflection and teamwork. En route, we will touch on how we build educators’ trust in novel tools, our design philosophy of “embracing imperfection” in machine intelligence, and the ways that these infrastructures embody values.
Bio
Simon Buckingham Shum is Professor of Learning Informatics at the University of Technology Sydney, where he serves as director of the Connected Intelligence Centre, using analytics to provide new insights for university teams, with particular expertise in educational data science. Simon’s career-long fascination with software’s ability to make thinking visible has seen him active in communities including CSCW, Hypertext, Design Rationale, Scholarly Publishing, Semantic Web, Computational Argumentation, Educational Technology and Learning Analytics, producing several books: Visualizing Argumentation, Knowledge Cartography, and Constructing Knowledge Art. He has been active in shaping the field of Learning Analytics, co-founding the Society for Learning Analytics Research, and catalyzing several strands: Social Learning Analytics, Discourse Analytics, Dispositional Analytics and Writing Analytics.
