Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

Welcome to a brand-new week. 

I once took an online class on the history of public health movements. By all means, it was an excellent class—offered by Oxford University, and comprising a mix of recorded lectures, virtual walks through London’s old, historical parts, and a little bit of online text reading. It was the best combination of resources.

I couldn’t make it past the first lesson of the first module.

Now, there could have been a bunch of reasons I didn’t stay “engaged” in the course. I was doing it alone; the content was boring; I am lazy; a hobby course on public health history isn’t exactly high stakes. Still, for the course maker, I became yet another opaque data point who wouldn’t stick on till the end. AKA, they had no idea what happened to me.

Engagement is at the heart of every edtech operation. Companies spend millions of dollars on tech, tutors, personalisation, user interfaces and design to get students to stick around beyond the first 10 minutes of a lesson. But even if they’re staying, who says they’re paying attention?