Last month I attended the 25th International Conference on Computers in Education ICCE 2017 at Christchurch, New Zealand, organised by the Asia-Pacific Society for Computers in Education (APSCE). It was the first time I attended this conference, although I have heard of it previously when I was working in NIE, Singapore. Overall, it was a great experience, and I could see different sub-fields under ‘Computers in Education’ coming together. Being a slightly more extensive field than learning analytics, it helped widen my knowledge beyond my current expertise.
I found the keynote speeches and talks very exciting, and I was tweeting some of my key take-home messages with #ICCE2017 tag. Personalized and adaptive learning, learner models and how we can empower learners with technology were some key topics discussed in the keynotes and invited talks:
Giving people the power of their own data for Personal Informatics #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 6, 2017
Get students engaged with analytic feedback not as a single source of truth, rather critique and question it for reflection.. @jenpeilingtan at #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 8, 2017
Emerging technical solutions and capabilities shared in the paper and poster sessions, especially on Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mobile and Sensor technologies were widening the horizon of technologies used in the field of education. New applications of gaming technology used for teaching in many levels of education were quite interesting. Combining multiple forms and modes of data (multimodal data) was another emerging topic in collaborative learning, personalized learning and language education.
Conceptualising learning as a process of meaning-making rather than transferring knowledge. Multimodality In language education could provoke meaning making #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 6, 2017
The overarching theme of pedagogy and learning were emphasized and questioned along the way, when some talks were focussed more on technology than its appropriate usage in educational settings. I believe that this topic is widely discussed these days in many areas where technology is used for education: an emphasis to go back to the basic aim of improving education, working alongside teachers, with technology as only a helping factor.
“Machines not for mechanising education, but for supporting teachers and students” -Keynote by Mike Sharples at #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 5, 2017
Important to integrate personalized learning to the curriculum for teachers to be more involved. Teachers should know why #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 5, 2017
In particular, we had fruitful discussions within the Learning Analytics (LA) community on testing the effectiveness of LA applications, providing actionable insights for learners and teachers, creating standards for LA and data ethics issues.
Read More...We cannot start from what data is available and then try to get insights for #learninganalytics #ICCE2017
— Shibani (@ShibaniAntonett) December 6, 2017
I presented a full paper on the “Design and implementation of a pedagogic intervention using Writing Analytics”, where I shared work done with our colleagues at UTS Connected Intelligence Centre (UTS CIC) on exemplifying authentic classroom integration of learning analytics applications. It was well-received and provoked discussion on supporting students in their pedagogic contexts with the right kinds of feedback using analytics.
A gap between the potential and actual use of technologies is a problem for learning analytics – it’s important that the tools are appropriate for the context @ShibaniAntonett #ICCE2017
— Kate Thompson (@katethompson) December 7, 2017
I also presented a doctoral consortium paper on “Combining automated and peer feedback for effective learning design in Writing practices” based on my main doctoral research idea, where we had discussions on how an embedded human component can add to automated analytic capabilities. I received the APSCE Merit Scholarship of USD500 to help me attend the conference, which is quite special as it is my first external scholarship/award during my PhD😊 I’m also thankful for the VC’s conference fund from UTS and the constant support from my lab UTS CIC at all levels (mentorship and financial support to attend conferences – I attended ALASI at Brisbane just the week before attending this one).
APSCE Merit scholarship_Shibani
In general, I could see a good mix of senior and young researchers from the Asia-Pacific region sharing their work enthusiastically and networking with peers from different communities of the broader educational research field. I caught up with some old friends and met some new interesting people too 😊 The hosts of the conference were amazing and everything was well-organized. We were given an introduction to the local culture with a lot of tidbits and entertainment along the way. I noticed a lot of photos being taken both by official photographers as well as the delegates to capture special moments (Is it just me who observed this? I’m super happy anyway to see those pics). The conference banquet dinner and the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the conference need a special mention, as the past APSCE presidents were paid tribute. Also, watching the traditional Haka being performed during the banquet was a whole new experience. It was definitely a very well-organized conference, with every detail thought of and paid attention to; credits to the local organizing committee. Plus, New Zealand was so beautiful and I got to see some lovely places like these after the conference:
