H817 The 'Academic Politics' of Learning Analytics (LA)
Friday, 5 Aug 2016, 08:54
Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Steve Bamlett, Friday, 5 Aug 2016, 09:02
As I work on the EMA for H817, I recognised that the topic I had chosen from the course material had a current history that was, to say the least, difficult to persuade to re-emerge. My chosen topic was the application of Dispositional LA (DLA) to learning platforms, focusing on ELLI (the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory) originally devised by Ruth Deakin-Crick and others at Bristol University.
As I worked I discovered that Ruth Deakin-Crick (who also now seems to prefer being named Ruth Crick) has changed universities (and the background ideas to ELLI in terms of more stress on the relational nature of Learning Power (LP)) has devised (Jan. 2015 seems the year of earliest mention) a new tool - the Crick Learning for Resilient Agency Self-Assessment Instrument (CLARA). This seems to be in follow-up development. The spiral image below represents CLARA (2015) in the website.
In her latest work she cites a writer I have yet to get to know and his ‘interpersonal neurobiology’. She and colleagues quote this claim of Siegel relating to a ‘core aspect of the human mind’: “an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information within the brain and between brains” (Siegel 2012 cited Deakin-Crick et. al. 2015:150).
CLARA is nevertheless clearly a child of ELLI. However ELLI is still promoted through a charitable offshoot of Bristol, ELLI-Global. The people involved in ELLIMent (the e-montoring system produced from ELLI - Ullman et. al . 2012) seem (but this is conjecture based on omission of follow-through) to have swapped allegiance to CLARA from poor old ELLI but there is no concrete evidence of that except for the learningemergence.net site's silence about the possible contradiction of interests and 'truth' claims between CLARA and ELLI.
The whole thing feels to a novice merely working on a short essay (2,500 words on this!) as embodied in corporate (or bi-corporate) ownership themes but I've gone too far in to back out now, hence I'm working out my frustrations in the BLOGGY. A simple point about DLA development can be made: that invention/innovation is still bedevilled by issues of the ownership of intellectual capital and that progress will be consequent on a resolution of this. However, because the 'evidence' of this is mainly conjectural - one could only guess at the politics involved and that seems 'unacademic' in a fundamental way (a helpful way to corporate sub-capitalism in the university sector which, despite itself, thrives on 'secrecy' rather than full openness). Meanwhile what happens to ELLIMent? (as far as we get in the H817 - is CLARAMent on the cards, even though the name doesn't quite work!).
Since Rebecca Ferguson seems a major player in this game) Learning Emergence groupie), the choice of this as an EMA topic based on her wonderful but clearly here, dated course materials is problematic. Will assessment be dependent on validated knowledge of the current situation or is there an admission that assessment is a game played with out-dated and difficult-to-apply knowledge. Does EMA work require you to be more up-to-date than the course material, which necessarily doesn't predict this event?
I'm not over-worried about losing marks but when I think a principle is involved I become rather concerned. Academic openness seems the issue here for me. One way forward is to blog my thinking on this and merely refer to that by referencing to ensure words are used to meet Learning Outcomes rather than looking for 'truth' of some kind. I've discussed this openly with Alan, my tutor, and this seems a way forward. Whether it benefits the EMA (or my checkered history with this module) I know not - YET!
Deakin Crick, R., Huang, S., Shafi, A.A. & Goldspink, C. (2015) ‘Developing Resilient Agency in Learning: The Internal Structure of Learning Power’ in British Journal of Educational Studies 63 (2) 121 – 160. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2015.1006574 (Accessed 14/06/2016)
Ullmann, T.D., Ferguson, R.,
Buckingham-Shum, S. & Deakin-Crick, R. (2012) ‘Designing an Online
Mentoring System for Self-Awareness and Reflection on Lifelong Learning Skills’
in Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2011
10 – 12 July, Southampton, UK. 34 – 42.
H817 The 'Academic Politics' of Learning Analytics (LA)
As I work on the EMA for H817, I recognised that the topic I had chosen from the course material had a current history that was, to say the least, difficult to persuade to re-emerge. My chosen topic was the application of Dispositional LA (DLA) to learning platforms, focusing on ELLI (the Effective Lifelong Learning Inventory) originally devised by Ruth Deakin-Crick and others at Bristol University.
As I worked I discovered that Ruth Deakin-Crick (who also now seems to prefer being named Ruth Crick) has changed universities (and the background ideas to ELLI in terms of more stress on the relational nature of Learning Power (LP)) has devised (Jan. 2015 seems the year of earliest mention) a new tool - the Crick Learning for Resilient Agency Self-Assessment Instrument (CLARA). This seems to be in follow-up development. The spiral image below represents CLARA (2015) in the website.
In her latest work she cites a writer I have yet to get to know and his ‘interpersonal neurobiology’. She and colleagues quote this claim of Siegel relating to a ‘core aspect of the human mind’: “an embodied and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information within the brain and between brains” (Siegel 2012 cited Deakin-Crick et. al. 2015:150).
CLARA is nevertheless clearly a child of ELLI. However ELLI is still promoted through a charitable offshoot of Bristol, ELLI-Global. The people involved in ELLIMent (the e-montoring system produced from ELLI - Ullman et. al . 2012) seem (but this is conjecture based on omission of follow-through) to have swapped allegiance to CLARA from poor old ELLI but there is no concrete evidence of that except for the learningemergence.net site's silence about the possible contradiction of interests and 'truth' claims between CLARA and ELLI.
The whole thing feels to a novice merely working on a short essay (2,500 words on this!) as embodied in corporate (or bi-corporate) ownership themes but I've gone too far in to back out now, hence I'm working out my frustrations in the BLOGGY. A simple point about DLA development can be made: that invention/innovation is still bedevilled by issues of the ownership of intellectual capital and that progress will be consequent on a resolution of this. However, because the 'evidence' of this is mainly conjectural - one could only guess at the politics involved and that seems 'unacademic' in a fundamental way (a helpful way to corporate sub-capitalism in the university sector which, despite itself, thrives on 'secrecy' rather than full openness). Meanwhile what happens to ELLIMent? (as far as we get in the H817 - is CLARAMent on the cards, even though the name doesn't quite work!).
Since Rebecca Ferguson seems a major player in this game) Learning Emergence groupie), the choice of this as an EMA topic based on her wonderful but clearly here, dated course materials is problematic. Will assessment be dependent on validated knowledge of the current situation or is there an admission that assessment is a game played with out-dated and difficult-to-apply knowledge. Does EMA work require you to be more up-to-date than the course material, which necessarily doesn't predict this event?
I'm not over-worried about losing marks but when I think a principle is involved I become rather concerned. Academic openness seems the issue here for me. One way forward is to blog my thinking on this and merely refer to that by referencing to ensure words are used to meet Learning Outcomes rather than looking for 'truth' of some kind. I've discussed this openly with Alan, my tutor, and this seems a way forward. Whether it benefits the EMA (or my checkered history with this module) I know not - YET!
So watch this space - PERHAPS!
CLARA (2015) ‘Assessing My Learning Power’ in LearningEmergence.com website Available from: http://clara.learningemergence.com/portfolio/assessing-my-learning-power/ (Accessed 04/08/16).
Deakin Crick, R., Huang, S., Shafi, A.A. & Goldspink, C. (2015) ‘Developing Resilient Agency in Learning: The Internal Structure of Learning Power’ in British Journal of Educational Studies 63 (2) 121 – 160. Available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2015.1006574 (Accessed 14/06/2016)
Ullmann, T.D., Ferguson, R., Buckingham-Shum, S. & Deakin-Crick, R. (2012) ‘Designing an Online Mentoring System for Self-Awareness and Reflection on Lifelong Learning Skills’ in Proceedings of the PLE Conference 2011 10 – 12 July, Southampton, UK. 34 – 42.