Using Web Science for Educational Research

1. Web Science
guest lecture
Using Web Science for Educational Research
(and vice versa :-)
Dr Christian Bokhove

2. About me
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Dr Christian Bokhove
Lecturer in Mathematics Education at Southampton
Education School
Background maths and computer science, teacher
secondary school for years
Use of ICT to support learning
Use of technology for analysing learning

3. Aim of this presentation
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Impression of 4 topics I’m (more or less ;-) working on
Topics transcend education
A. Modeling software and analyzing children’s drawings
(with University of Twente, Netherlands)
B. Educational datamining: mining log files, automatic text
book analysis
C. Social network analysis (classrooms, organizations)
(D. Tools for data analysis)

4. A. Modeling software
After visit of Prof. Van Joolingen
SimSketch: www.modeldrawing.eu
If time allows this, demo at end
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6. Analyzing drawings
EXAMPLE 2
(Prof. van
Joolingen)
EXAMPLE 1

7. Challenge
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We have modelling software that produces
drawings/models
Can we do analyses of drawings automatically?
So: datamining, pattern recognition?
Project to work on improving modeling software and
automatic analysis

8. B. Educational datamining
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Log files, electronic books, student actions
What can we say about their ‘learning behaviour’? Or
about textbooks?
Learning Analytics/datamining: using algorithms to
explore this

9. Example 1
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Log files with student
activity
Classification,
predictions (e.g. bored,
on-task, Ryan Baker has
done a lot of work on
this)
European project where
Learning Analytics
important role
USING RAPIDMINER

10. Example 2
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Online resources or a
textbook (non-edu:
tweets)
Can we extract its
meaning?
e.g. Latent semantic
analysis
USING R

11. Challenge
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A lot of digital resources are used in education; they
create a lot of data (‘Big Data’)
What can we learn from usage?
Project to work on using aforementioned methodologies
to analyze student work

12. C. Social Network Analysis
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Started with social sciences (networks)
Then Watts and Strogatz took it into physics
Now very multidisciplinary
See Freeman (2004)
Dynamic Social Network Analysis: over time, statistical
models, simulations, animations
Freeman, L.C. (2004). The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the Sociology of Science. Vancouver: Empirical Press.

13. Example
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Using tools
R
o Gephi
o nodeXL
o UCInet
o Pajek
o ….
McFarland, D.A. (2001). Student Resistance: How the Formal and Informal Organization of Classrooms Facilitate Everyday
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Forms of Student Defiance. American Journal of Sociology107(3), 612-78.
Moody, J., McFarland, D.A., & Bender-deMoll, S. (2005). Dynamic Network Visualization: Methods for Meaning with
Longitudinal Network Movies. American Journal of Sociology, 110, 1206-1241.
Snijders, T.A.B. (2001). The Statistical Evaluation of Social Network Dynamics.Sociological Methodology, 31(1).361-395.

14. Challenge
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Use existing methodologies from Social Network
Analysis (SNA) and apply them to social sciences (here:
education)
Use existing metrics from SNA to explore (community)
patterns and new metrics (for me: for educational
effectiveness, for example)
Project proposal to apply SNA to educational context

15. D. Tools for data analysis
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Would also love to build capacity for all these
tools we use
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R
Rapidminer
nodeXL, Gephi, UCInet, Pajek
etc.

16. Heard
something
interesting?
Let me know, we can look at the options:
C.Bokhove@soton.ac.uk
Building 32 Room 2035