Anthony Altieri @aa_altieri "Analytics: What You Want to Know" #DevLearn

These are my live blogged notes from the opening session at this year's DevLearn, hosted by the eLearning Guild and happening in Las Vegas. Forgive any typos and incoherencies.

Anthony Altieri @aa_altieri "Analytics: What You Want to Know"

I got here late so my notes are partial...he seems to be talking about the difference between using Google Analytics vs. xAPI for capturing data.

Google does some gross aggregates and averages. For specific user date on devices and more - you need to enable what they call "user tracking" -- although google terms don't allow you to send personal informaiton e.g anything that identifies you and you. You can give a unique token to each user and it will track those users (although not personal data).  So you can track things like which device someone started a program on and if they moved to a tablet and then if they moved back…you can see resolution and pixel depth.

[Google Analytics embedded in Captivate courses)

xAPI - you need your own LRS you need your own reporting -- there's a cost here. But you can see all kinds of things. To see resolution/pixel in xapi you'd have to add some code.

Using this data you can find out things like:

Where are you users coming from?

What devices do they use?

Which browsers or OS?

What parts of the content do they use most? Are they watching some videos more than others (could be because they're great or because they're terrible)

When are they using your content?

Google just dropped java support -- He says, "anyone using skillsoft courses? Not anymore!"

Dos and don'ts with data:

• Do start with a question -- how many students are taking my course?
• Don't start with a conclusion and try to prove it -- "everyone passes my course!"
• Do look at your content and find out where the data is hiding.
• NEVE base your strategy on what your tool allows you to do
• Do figure out what you need to show, hen see if that tool can do it.

http://adlnet.github.io/xapi-lab/

Used to build xAPI statements you can copy and paste into your code

He shared a bunch of other links for tools to view testing statement results, tutorials, examples of how to use xAPI for reporting test answers and results.

xAPI can be more powerful that GA, but it requires more coding and work

Interesting fact: He's wearing a wearable LRS: using ADL's LRS and beacon software. Check out his Twitter feed for more on that.