We have been hearing a lot about privacy and security issues with Zoom - and deservedly so.

The myriad issues that have been documented with Zoom are real, and never should have made it into production.

We haven’t heard as much about other conferencing options - which should not blind us to the reality that other conferencing options like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams/Skype have comparable issues.

In an educational or business context, both platforms are only as secure as the skills of the least savvy admin controlling the system.

And I will refrain from commenting - for now - on basic issues with Meet that are starting to become problematic.

But another area of increased data collection in schools in the time of Covid19 that hasn’t received anywhere near the attention of other issues has to do with the collection and use of clickstream and process data in Learning Management Systems.

Most of the major players have been collecting and using data extracted from students while they use the LMS.

This student data - aka, the process of student’s experience learning - has been fueling all types of much-hyped and thoroughly bland flavors of “predictive” or “learning” analytics.

The fact that these analyses have turned out to be empty hasn’t slowed the data collection.

But now, as many students in K12 and higher ed are having their entire school experience filtered through their LMS, these companies are in a position to extract more data from more kids.

This won’t benefit learners. This won’t benefit schools.

This will be a huge benefit to the companies - or, in many cases, the private equity firms who own these companies.

The reality that a pandemic is forcing more complete adoption of tools owned and controlled by private companies should not be used as an excuse to turn over the process data of kids as they learn.

There are solutions that would fix this problem. Companies, schools, teachers, students, and parents have a role.

But this problem exists because of the choices made by companies to extract student data from the student learning experience.

It also exists because decision makers didn’t effectively challenge the practices of these companies.

But let’s be clear: in public K12, taxpayer dollars are paying for systems that extract data from student learning.