A recurring throughout SXSW.edu last week was the conversation between Big Data and more organic, ethnographic methods for observing and analyzing learner behavior.

Though occasionally an adherent of one or the other approach would defend/promote whichever tack as the best or even only way to truth, for the most part the consensus was a pragmatic "it cannot be an either/or."

After all, which tools one uses depends heavily on what level of abstraction one seeks. Still, as computers grow ever smarter and capacious, it is salutary to remember Korzybski's famous axiom: "Do not confuse the map with the territory."

Daniel Rabuzzi is the Executive Director of Mouse .