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Web End = TechTrends (2016) 60:381384 DOI 10.1007/s11528-016-0072-1
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Big Opportunities and Big Concerns of Big Data in Education
Yinying Wang1
Published online: 27 April 2016# Association for Educational Communications & Technology 2016
Abstract Against the backdrop of the ever-increasing influx of big data, this article examines the opportunities and concerns over big data in education. Specifically, this article first introduces big data, followed by delineating the potential opportunities of using big data in education in two areas: learning analytics and educational policy. Then, the concerns over data security, privacy protection, and ethical boundaries of accessing personal digital data are discussed. The article concludes with an invitation to education practitioners, policymakers, and researchers to advance our understanding of big data and better serve students in the digital era.
Keywords Bigdata .Education . Educationalpolicymaking . Educational policy implementation . Ethics . Learning analytics . Privacy
In the wake of the Internet, technology has been transforming education. Instead of taking classes in brick-and-mortar schools, approximately two million students enrolled in K-12 virtual schools to take classes fully or partially online (Aud et al. 2013; Watson et al. 2012; Wang and Decker 2014a, b). The 1:1 computing initiativesthe effort to provide each student with a school-provided laptop, netbook, or tablet at school and at homeare gaining momentum (Topper and Lancaster 2013). It is predicted that the use of digital devices will be pervasive in educational system (Trucano 2014). Further, students, parents, teachers, and school leaders
use social media to communicate with one another (Carpenter and Krutka 2014; Wang 2013; Wang et al. 2016). Schools, districts, state education agencies, and the U.S. Department of Education also use social media to communicate with stakeholders and the digital public (Cox and McLeod 2014; Wang, Getting personal! Twitter communication between School Districts, Superintendents, and the Public (unpublished data)).
As we digitalize education, our online activities create a vast digital trove of data. The volume of the data is so massive that it might exceed the computing and processing power of one computer; hence, a cluster of computers are often needed for data...