Neil Selwyn has a new paper published in Research Papers in Education – “‘Just playing around with Excel and pivot tables’ – the realities of data-driven schooling“. The paper is the first from our ARC-funded Discovery project on the coming together of data-driven practices and digital technologies in Australian schools. As the abstract puts it: “In contrast to the idea of ‘Big Data’, schools were most often found to be engaging in small-scale, improvised forms of spreadsheet work. The paper considers the social, cultural and political reasons underpinning schools’ reliance on such forms of ‘small data’ – particularly in contrast to the more sophisticated, automated and continuous forms of data analysis that are now available”.
