Exploring Student Engagement with Learning Technologies - A reflection from TELFest

Last week at TELFest myself and Farzana ran a session on how analytics data can be used to understand more about how students are engaging with online tools we use.

We explored what data was available in some of the core systems we use at the university and encouraged discussion around:

• How it would work in peoples contexts
• What was useful about the systems 
• What they felt was missing

To support this I created a series of infographics using Piktochart. For anybody interested in creating infographics I found the creation progress to be really straightforward.

Click on any of the infographics below to see a larger view of what is available in that product.

   

   

Some of the points raised in the session were:

• The confusion flagging in Encore (Echo 360) is a great tool but it would be good if the tool automatically prompted an email to alert the instructor confusion had been flagged.
• There were some comments that the data that comes out particularly in MOLE can be a little overwhelming. Being able to pinpoint a particular piece of content would be better.
• The group felt we need to be mindful about the use of analytics to not create a culture of over-auditing or making students feel they were under surveillance.
• A point raised that analytics looks at the where and what people accessed but doesn't always tackle the why.

The session was a thought provoking one which concluded that whilst there is a lot we can do with the data from the systems, we use there is still a way to go to make it readily meaningful. The tools should be quick and simple to use and the data should be easy to digest.

Thanks to everybody that attended the session and we will ensure any feedback goes back to the relevant suppliers.