Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

What is datafication? And how does it affect education? These questions were put to me ahead of conference discussion panel recently. While writing a few notes, it quickly became apparent I needed some categories to sort out my thinking. In simple terms, datafication can be said to refer to ways of seeing, understanding and engaging with the world through digital data. This definition draws attention to how data makes things visible, knowable, and explainable, and thus amenable to some form of action or intervention. However, to be a bit more specific, there are at least ten ways of defining datafication.

Online Education websites provide a platform which has high demand all over the world and most importantly the type of demand does not vary with places- e.g. if a person from India wants to learn German language from home, the course he needs, will be very similar to the course that a person from China/USA/Japan will need to learn German language.

Lately, I have been spending quite a bit of time digging into research and academic writing about the development and evolution of many of the educational technologies that are common in schools today. Last week I read through Augmented Reality: An Overview and Five Directions for AR in Education authored by Steve Chi-Yin Yuen, Gallayanee Yaoyuneyong, and Erik Johnson and published in June of 2011 by the Journal of Educational Technology and Exchange. While I was reading I started to think about how far augmented reality has come in the last eight years. What follows is my commentary on those directions given the benefit of the last eight years of development of AR.

I reference the history of the so-called “checklist approaches” to online information literacy from time to time, but haven’t put the history down in any one place that’s easily linkable. So if you were waiting for a linkable history of CRAAP and RADCAB, complete with supporting links, pop open the champagne (Portland people, feel free to pop open your $50 bottle of barrel-aged beer). Today’s your lucky day.

2018 marks the 20th anniversary of open content. I’ll be writing a range of essays this year reflecting on two decades of work toward opening the core intellectual infrastructure of education (textbooks and other educational materials, assessments, and outcomes / objectives / competency statements) in order to increase access to and improve the effectiveness of education. This post, written as part of my agreement to keynote #OER18 later this spring, provides some historical context for the emergence of open content.

I don’t make any claim to objectivity here – this history is written wholly from my personal point of view. You may have seen it differently. That is the nature of history.

  The first tweet Co-founder Dorsey sent the first tweet, on March 21, 2006 which said "Just setting up my twttr". You will note that the original name for Twitter was Twttr. (Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jackdorsey/182613360/) just setting up my twttr — Jack (@jack) March 21, 2006     The Twitter Logo To date the Twitter logo…