Data Mining not just for Amazon anymore.

This article in Education Week talks about using the seemingly extraneous information that can be gathered while a student is interacting with technology to determine how the student is doing. I think this is awesome but leaves off a very huge part of the equation, paying for students access to technology. I also feel that a good teacher is doing just that as he or she is interacting with their students. Of course the teacher can gather every minutia of information that every student is putting out but maybe this information can help teachers identify students who need help or who are excelling at their subjects. The example given of the students who use clickers to answer questions is an interesting one to me. Sure it lets every student participate, but as the article points out it would be difficult to immediately interact with that much information. Further, I believe that school should be more than just being able to answer questions on que but to have that social interaction of standing up before your peers and demonstrating your participation. The more we focus on every detail of academic achievement the more we lose sight of the goal of education, to empower better citizens.