As part of the MOOC on Learning and Knowledge Analytics I've opened an account on Hunch.com to play with it and see its potential in a learning context.
My summary: skeptical. I have the feeling that the tool simply wants to gather information (some of it very sensitive) and then throw some suggestions at you the quality of which cannot be truly stated.
The fact that you are supposed to receive suggestions specifically designed for you creates a state of mind prone to the self-fulfillment of the prophecy. I might agree or not that my favorite sport is soccer, but that statement has the same validity for basketball, biking, etc.
Some suggestions are curious, and might make you try some music composer, writer, or shampoo brand. But the amount of information to receive in return for the amount of answers you provide does not pay off.
The most troubling aspect are the questions about political/religious believes. I would say those (and some others) are fairly delicate topics. Seeing them next to question about the first thing I use when I shower seems to be deliberately created to lower your reluctance and gather this information. Paranoid, may be.
As for its use in a learning scenario, as is, I'm even more skeptical. The main reason is the scope of a learning experience. In a learning scenario there is typically a fairly delimited topic or area. A platform like hunch should have more specific questions to provide also much more specific recommendations. This would take us to the issue of specificity. The more specific the topic, the more specific the recommendations, I think the less effective the approach shown by hunch.
Could the Hunch approach be modified to easily adapt to a specific topic in a learning scenario? Tricky and challenging, but interesting nonetheless.
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