Themes

The expected outcomes of the LAKathon are the identification and concrete pilot implementations of prototypes/tools/studies, which arise from the synthesis of educational technology, software development, and data science perspectives.  As for previous events, the hackathon will generate repositories of code, sample data, screenshots, and slides from the activity of participants.  At the LAKathon 2021, we expect to emphasise the following themes.

Hacking the Hackathon

The organisers seek to strengthen, harden, and persist a virtual gathering of like-minded researchers, answering the questions: (1) Which novel practices associated with LA interventions do we instance? (2) How do we increase the positive influence of the LAK hackathons and better embed into the broader context of the discussion between the research and practitioner communities? (3) How do we accelerate the trajectory of research impacting on the features and practices around Educational software?  

Labour Market-Education Divide

Current developments in the labour market pose a number of challenges on pockets of education, which aim at providing services to learners targeting particular skills needed for their careers. These educational settings are usually dynamic, personal, and specific to the type of work or skill, which is being targeted. To support this scenario, LA needs to go beyond traditional education-related processes and data sources. In this context sustainable career progression should be considered as a point of departure, and based on individual work-related objectives, personalized learning pathway(s) (curriculum(s)) should be built (Tavakoli et al, 2020). 

Video Conferencing Analytics

The newly enforced remote learning situation has made video conferencing the main channel of instruction in higher education.  Most educators are simply replicating their traditional face to face classes into a video conferencing format. However, this format overlooks important aspects of education such as students’ engagement. This challenge will explore the possibilities of conducting analytics on video conferencing data to explore good design practices to use video conferencing, potential applications that can support the instructor, and additional infrastructure or data-driven features that can improve the video conferencing experience of students (e.g. Seng & Ang, 2017). 

Psychological Ramifications of Learning in Isolation

Although the COVID crisis creates novel opportunities for LA, because more data are generated due to education taking place online, there is no evidence about the psychological ramifications of online learning. Isolation can bring about feelings of loneliness, disconnectedness, anxiety, and purposelessness, each of which may have a nontrivial impact on the individual learning process. By incorporating psychological measures of such constructs in the LA toolbox, we can understand which issues may need to be addressed to leverage the power of online learning by facilitating students’ mental health.

Digital Infrastructures

With the spread of the Covid19 pandemic, the majority of educational institutions have had to move their courses online. In most institutions “emergency teams” have been established to cope with the unprecedented mission of moving most of the education online. Online learning, however, does not equal emergency distance teaching. Robust digital infrastructures must be set in place when online teaching is blended with a physical presence. Video conferencing tools have become a wide-spread practice for online communication and collaboration. However, many small and medium educational institutions still lack adequate digital infrastructures to support their online learning initiatives including HW, LMSs, safe cloud storage, intranet channels for internal communication, netiquettes and privacy-preserving policies, etc.

Diminishing the negative effects of Covid-19

Through the appropriate application of Learning paths. Vast seas of OER material exist of various qualities. We aim to support different types of isolated learners who are potentially suffering from wider Covid isolation issues. This support is achievable by the group’s definition, exploring gaps or underuse in current practices in Education and the Job market. Storytelling via the creation of personas. Later combining the personas with a systematic set of Covid support related learning paths. From these actions, we hope to focus effort through describable journeys that lead to the appropriate reuse of materials.

Other Ideas?

You have the power: Please contribute a challenge to the hackathon, check our Call for Proposal.