“What has open data got to do with education?”
This was the question yesterday’s online community session attempted to unravel.
During the session it was agreed that potential for open data in the education space is huge, with an increasing number of case-studies emerging and exciting data hackathons taking place. However there are also many discussions that still need to be had, for example:
What data should be collected within education institutions or for assessment? How do we evaluate this data i.e. what makes a good student/citizen? What makes a good school? What about pupil privacy and anonymisation? Can open data open up the education debate to a wider audience? Can approaches be global or do they need to be localized? Can open data ultimately lead to policy change and better education systems?
The session was facilitated by Heather Leson (community builder at Open Knowledge) and delivered on behalf of the Open Education Working Group, (http://education.okfn.org) with talks from:
- Marieke Guy (Open Education Working Group, LinkedUp Project)
- Otavio Ritter (Open education data researcher, Getulio Vargas Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), who shared his findings from work on paper involving a comparative analysis of school open data in England and Brazil and the availability (transparency) of government information related to primary/secondary education area.
If you missed it then not to worry, a video of the session is available and embedded below:
The slides from the session are also available:
If you are interested in discussing this topic further then the Open Education Working Group mailing list is just the place!
There’s much talk about STEM education – Science, Technology, Engineering & Math, as critical to our Knowledge-based Economy.
IMHO, Open Data is perfect for acquiring STEM skills – rather than using some abstract textbook example in class, wouldn’t it be more fun to use data about your City?
I also submit that Open Data enables ESTEEM – the two extra E’s for “Entrepreneurship” and “Environment & Society”.
“Entrepreneurship” because these kids will face a future where life-long jobs are increasingly rare.
And “Environment & Society”, because by using data about their environment in learning these critical skills, we are not just training future engineers and scientists, but better Citizens as well.
Open data ultimately lead to policy change and better education system or open education debate to audience.
Open data ultimately lead to policy change and better education system or open education debate to audience.
open up the education debate to a wider audience