I think this validates your comments on the ‘you loop’ phenomenon, and gets to Jeremy’s point that yes, I do think we need to understand students’ ‘learner types,’ but that makes education ever-more demanding: tailoring curriculum, delivery modes, and assessments .

Again, brilliant Tiki-Toki. Cheers, PJ

The combination of recommended videos/courses do imply a certain identity but as they only partially represent my interests I don’t really feel much affinity with that particular identity.

Yes, agree with the clarification regarding the MOOC courses. The metaphor that springs to mind is that if you buy a black woolly jumper online, you would prefer an algorithm gives you other winter items to match your jumper rather than the same jumper in a variety of different colours

Interesting, so it was making assumptions about you based on your location? Yet, Mandarin wouldn’t be the dominant language where you are, is that right? I think there is a really interesting distinction here, that between assuming you are a particular type of person based on your location, or looking at your previous activity to determine that. Both seem fairly limiting?

‘the issue that being in ‘youloop’ may start to impact on your identity and the internet’s distorted picture of us actually creates who we are’

Yes, a central point here, and the one that seems to have significant implications for education. I wonder, from the recommended videos you received, did you feel the combination implied a particular kind of person? (e.g. professional might be lots of work-related stuff, music videos or other entertainment might imply something else). And if so, did you feel any affinity with that identity? Might this be related to the idea that we need to classify students into ‘learner types’ based on their activity data?

‘when I was logged in the comments were better written and supportive of the talk, while when I was logged out they were more critical, contentious and used bad language.’

Fascinating to hear this example, as I’ve never noticed that much of a difference when I’ve tired this, although admittedly not very often. I wonder, are there specific things you have done previously that might have contributed to this censoring? Have you down-voted or reported comments previously?

‘it’s fairly unlikely that you are going to do several courses on the same topic.’

Yes, however you may want to expand your understanding within a certain domain. Indeed, Coursera and edX have both developed specialisations recently, which are sequences of courses that lead to an overall certificate. However, these are predefined rather than being chosen by algorithms, and more nuance would be needed to decide which other courses in the same area would be a relevant step forward. As you say, simply redoing exactly the same subject may not be of interest or value to most.