Our coding framework highlights both student and educator actions to describe learning interactions online. We build on previous work that has defined capacities and dispositions critical for learners in the 21st century, prior studies of youth-educator interactions and roles played to support the development of such dispositions, and analysis of common features of online social learning networks.

To analyze the interactions between educators and youth, we drew from prior research which identified the influential roles played by adults in formal and informal settings (Barron et al, 2009; Barron et al., 2014) and formulated the Online Learning Support Roles framework (OLSR), a set of online learning support roles for educators. Definitions are provided in Table 1. This set of educator roles was developed from our experience working mentors (i.e., informal educators) who had significant experience working with youth to develop digital and traditional literacies both in face-to-face and online contexts (see Nacu et al., 2014).

To analyze the online activities of youth, we developed a framework of 21st Century Learning Opportunities which maps iRemix logged actions onto 21st century learning themes and intended learning opportunities.

Martin, C.K., Nacu, D., & Pinkard, N. (2016). Revealing Opportunities for 21st Century Learning: An Approach to Interpreting User Trace Log Data. Special issue of Journal of Learning Analytics on Learning Analytics for 21st Century Competencies 3(2): 37-87.

Nacu, D., Martin, C.K., Schutzenhofer, M., Pinkard, N. (2016, April). Beyond traditional metrics: Using automated log coding to understand 21st century learning online. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale. (pp. 197-200). Poster (PDF)

Nacu, D., Martin C.K., Pinkard, N., & Gray, T. (2014). Analyzing educators’ online interactions: A framework of online learning support roles. Learning, Media and Technology. 41(2), 283-305.