learning analytics for collaborative writing: a prototype and case study
TRANSCRIPT
[ Learning Analytics for Collaborative Writing ]
[ A Prototype and Case Study ]
Brian McNely, Paul Gestwicki, J. Holden Hill, Phillip Parli-Horne, and Erika Johnson
Ball State University
[ Motivation ]
— Writing + Collaborative Knowledge— Formative Assessment
∆ - Zone of Proximal Development in networked
environments
[ Analytics ]
Project questions:
— Do learning analytics related to collaborative writing foster
greater metacognition among participants?
— Does such analytic data promote both instructor and peer
opportunities for real time interventions as formative
assessment?
[ Analytics & Collaborative Writing ]
Affordances of Google Docs:— Surfacing real-time collaborative writing
activity— Ample opportunities for interventions and
meta-talk— Suite of publicly available APIs
+ Docs Gdata API+ Google Visualization API
[ Uatu Prototype | System Design ]
[ Uatu Prototype | Visualizations ]
[ Methods ]
Systematic qualitative case study over 15 weeks, using ethnographic methods of fieldwork, including:
— classroom observations— semi-structured and stimulated recall
interviews— out of class observations of collaborative
activity+ pair programming+ collaborative writing
— documentary photography— collection of participant artifacts— triangulation across data types and
instances
[ Data ]
Total data collected includes:— 8 participants— 20 classroom observations— 24 semi-structured and stimulated recall
interviews— 14 out of class observations— 70+ photographs— 19 participant-produced written artifacts
+ including granular composition/revision history captured by Uatu
— 42,000+ words of fieldnotes and analytic memos
[ Findings | Overview ]
[ Theme 1 | Collocation ]
[ Theme 2 | Ephemera ]
[ Theme 3 | What “Counts” as Writing? ]
— What kinds of practices meaningfully contribute to final written deliverables?
— How do we measure who “writes” in collocated collaborations?
— What role do other forms of writing work play in the construction of final deliverables?
— How can such contributions be measured?
[ Implications & Opportunities ]
— Our prototype worked well, but it didn’t reveal much about novice software developer’s writing-in-practice.
— The real utility of a system like Uatu is in:+ Fully online learning environments+ Distributed collaborative teams+ Complex, ongoing, multi-contributor
deliverables
