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Wow, this paper looks super interesting

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439884.2022.2035395?af=R

A patchwork of platforms: mapping data infrastructures in schools, by Luci Pangrazio, Neil Selwyn & Bronwyn Cumbo

From the abstract:
This paper explores the significance of schools’ data infrastructures as a site of institutional power and (re)configuration

Taking an institutional perspective, the paper explores why digital technologies continue to complicate (rather than simplify) school processes and practices.

#edtech
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

Finished reading it. Very interesting indeed!

My first takeaway:

There is no single platform that schools can rely on: there are many tools they need

#edtech
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

My second takeaway:

Teaching staff are not the ones who decide which tools can be useful:

Private schools need to pretend they are IT-savvy and thus update frequently to show they have all the latest and greatest bells and whistles

Public schools are part of the education department of their region, which makes decisions based on system-level logics rather than taking into account the individualities of schools

#edtech
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

My third takeaway:

Data is assumed to be helpful to improve student's education, without much criticism or reliance on actual results

#edtech
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

And my final takeaway:

Teachers and IT staff have extra work to enable tools do their tasks:

There is a lack of interoperability

Tools are designed by software developers, without input from the actual users (no agile in #edtech?)
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

Thanks for sharing. Do they draw any attention to FLOSS solutions that do it right? I haven't used it too much but I intend on ramping up my use of Moodle to facilitate the online component of learning
in reply to Danny (he/they)

I don't recall any of the systems being FLOSS, but that was not the point of the paper anyway.

Which FLOSS systems do you recommend? Why do you think they do it right?
in reply to Rafa Gálvez

I guess data infrastructure is kinda nebulous so I don't really know what systems are being discussed.

Moodle is a software for online learning (like Blackboard) so has tools for students to use forums, evaluations, readings, etc. Teachers can collect information about how the materials are being engaged with and communicate to students etc. Data in Moodle (courses, grades, users) can be exported and development is open source so there is an open discussion of features.
in reply to Danny (he/they)

I know Moodle from my undergraduate and master's in Madrid, we used it at University Carlos III de Madrid. I personally didn't find it specially useful, it was more of a repository of documents than any other thing but it's true that's already a few years ago.

In this paper they don't talk about Moddle, but they do say that schools preferred "professional" tooling coming from the corporate world, which are assumed to be more effective because there is a market for them.

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