Open Access Journals at Aalborg University
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Place-responsive principles of sustainable networked learning
Get PDFThis work builds on the work of Hodgson and McConnell by extending the principles of networked learning to incorporate aspects of place-responsive pedagogy and sustainable education. Place[1]responsive education is traditionally situated within the outdoor education field, and invites a deeper recognition of the interwoven nature of learning. It aligns with a postdigital perspective of networked learning, embracing the complex entanglement of learners, environment, technology and everything else. Sustainable education focuses on the creative, participative and reflexive processes which underpin transformative pedagogies, recognising the importance of collaboration and time. The goal is learning to live sustainably as part of the ecosystem. This extension of the principles was undertaken in order to strengthen the recognition of place and place-knowledge as part of the postdigital network, to find a way to give voice to the non-human participants in the learning environment. It will also demonstrate how networked learning is a sustainable educational approach. I will start by outlining the place-responsive framework that will guide the review of the principles. This will be followed by an overview of sustainable education, explaining what role this plays in networked learning and the importance in developing future-proof skills. Next, the eight principles will be extended, building on the framework. Finally, a case example will illustrate how this can be applied in practice
Am I building a bubble around me? A phenomenographic study exploring students’ perceptions of online personalised filters and information literacy
Get PDFFor networked learning to be successful, students need good information literacy skills. These skills will enable them to move away from being "passive recipients of digitally distributed information" (Wiske, 2011) to become critical thinkers willing to challenge, discuss, collaborate and connect with other learners and teachers. This small-scale study uses phenomenography to investigate students’ perceptions and experiences of personalised filters, which present a challenge for educators concerned with developing information literacy skills. Findings show that students are comfortable with filters to find basic information. However, for more complex ideas, students felt they needed to adopt sophisticated search strategies
Phenomenology and Networked Learning: Mobilage glimpsed from the inside through an online focus group
Get PDFThis paper arises from doctoral studies which adopted a multi-methods design which aimed to disclose being healthcare students using a mobile phone for academic work: the student and mobile phone, i.e. mobilage, was the unit of analysis. This paper picks up on a long-term but sparse conversation about the use of phenomenology to investigate networked learning. Reasons for the paucity of work in this area are explored, including the nature of questions that phenomenology seeks to engage: to unveil and convey pre-reflective human consciousness. I seek to supplement this gap, as I see it, in the literature by contrasting two arms of my thesis project: one relied on ten in-person encounters with informants and another an online focus group designed to gather information from within the informant's lifeworld. These two methods frame a discussion of the merits, weaknesses and fidelity of my approach to gathering data pursuant to hermeneutic phenomenology, i.e. considering the difference between methods where the researcher is or is not in the informant's immediate co-presence. Gadamer's horizon fusion metaphor is arguably easier to conceive of with informant and researcher co-located, where the setting and conversation is informal, perhaps typical of everyday mobile phone use. Ten such encounters were undertaken and analysed through repeated listening to audio recordings and phenomenological writing. In contrast, the online focus group lasted for three months with seven informants who never met physically. Informed by experience sampling methods, weekly trigger messages were posted for the group to respond to, ideally in situ. Acknowledging that all data is mediated in need of interpretation, the paper reflects on the possible effects of data gathering at varying levels of temporal and interpretive proximity, or 'hermeneutic shades', between the researcher and the phenomena carried within data gathered, helping to condition what weight to afford information from different media. Van Manen's analytical method and goal of writing vocative anecdotes to convey aspects of the essence of a lived experience is considered against examples of direct accounts from the online focus group, one of which, it is argued, fulfils his criteria for phenomenological anecdotes. It is proposed that this demonstrates the potential worth of an online medium to not only supply data for phenomenological writing but arguably even represent phenomena without passing through the hermeneutic/analytical writing process
Development of a Pedagogical Design Matrix for ICT-based Boundary Crossing in Dual VET
Get PDFResearch on networked learning is concerned with finding new and productive ways of connecting people and their practice across boundaries in different contexts. Particularly in dual Vocational Education and Training (VET), there is a need to focus continuously on learning in and between boundaries of domains, practices and the school-workplace contexts. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have been proposed as artefacts that enable mediation and bridge the gap between different boundaries. In this paper, we present findings from a research project aimed at understanding Danish VET teachers’ use of ICT as boundary objects in relation to boundary crossing activities. In the first phase of the research project, interviewed VET teachers pointed to the need for new materials directed at the planning stage in their work with design for boundary crossing. As part of the research project a pedagogical design framework, including design principles and a design matrix that focuses on boundary crossing mediated by ICT-based boundary objects, was developed and tested. While the research project has been designed as a multiple case study, the development and testing of the design matrix has been inspired by Educational Design Research (McKenny & Reeves, 2013). Theoretically, the research project is founded on a sociocultural perspective with research on boundary work, boundary crossing and boundary objects (Akkerman & Bakker, 2012, 2011a, 2011b) and research on mediating artifacts (Henningsen & Mogensen, 2013) as the backdrop. By way of combining four dialogical boundary crossing activities (identification, coordination, reflection and transformation) with four main affordances (documentation, simulation, construction and interaction) of the ICT-based boundary objects, the pedagogical design matrix was developed and tested in three iterations. Selected findings show that the participating Danish VET teachers do not fully realize the potentials of using ICT-based boundary objects in their boundary work. Our data show that the VET teachers designed ICT-mediated activities aimed at boundary crossing through identification, coordination and reflection, whereas data point to no activities directed towards transformation. In terms of ICT-based boundary objects, the VET teachers were mainly focused on ICTs that afford documentation with sparse focus on construction and interaction, and no explicit focus on simulation as boundary activity. In the final discussion we point to possible explanations as to why the VET teachers’ use of ICT in boundary work is relatively limited and we suggest further research
The blockchain university: disrupting 'disruption'?
Get PDFThis paper explores the promise of disruption of higher education offered by latest platform technologies - a combination of mobile applications for connecting teachers and students and blockchain technology for secure transactions of information and money. We start with a brief examination of several generations of technological disruptions arriving from the Silicon Valley with a special focus to educational technology. Showing that these disruptions are primarily focused to furthering capitalist mode of production, we question whether the latest disruption could provide different results. We briefly examine a historical (utopian) attempt at disrupting education described in Ivan Illich's book Deschooling Society (1971). While this analysis firmly belongs into the past, it presents us with important insights about connections between education, technology, capitalism and the environment which are just as relevant today. We proceed with an analysis of the world's first blockchain university - the Woolf University. Advertised as 'Uber for students, Airbnb for teachers', the Woolf University offers the seductive promise of radical transformation of higher education based on cooperative principles. We examine blockchain technology in detail and identify its main novelty - the transfer of trust from people to technologies. We briefly question this transfer, leaving a more detailed analysis for further research. Instead we focus to ideological underpinnings of the blockchain university, as they reflect to teaching, learning, and university administration. We show that further analyses of the blockchain university will be best supported by adopting a networked learning perspective and especially its wide body of knowledge about various (learning) connections. The Woolf University has not even admitted its first cohort of students, and the question remains as to whether Woolf will now adopt the blockchain in such a manner as to radically disrupt 'disruption', or it will simply blend into the existing powerful political, educational and economic structures. Our analysis, which is therefore based on early ideas about the development of the Woolf University, indicates that it has the potentials to offer cooperative learning to students, cooperative employment to academic workers, all the while retaining highest quality of teaching and learning modelled after ancient scholastic principles. On that basis, we conclude that the Woolf University, together with other adaptations of blockchain technology for educational purposes, does offer a lot of potential for fundamental disruption of higher education and should be closely watched in the times to come
Learning in the Wild: Exploring the Practice of Learning in Open, Online Forums
Get PDFThe Internet provides many opportunities for learning from static resources to conversational spaces for questions, answers, commentary and exploration of topics of interest to participants, whether organized as Q&A sites such as Reddit, hashtag communities on Twitter, or knowledge-sharing sites such as Stack Overflow. Yet, there is limited research on how learning is happening in these spaces. This paper reviews literature and studies about learning in open, online forums to begin to synthesize what is known so far, and to set a research agenda addressing the question: How do people learn in open, online forums? The review builds on work by the author and colleagues, exploring what we refer to as ‘learning in the wild’ (in recognition of Hutchins’ “Cognition in the Wild”, and to reflect the ‘wilds’ of online forums such as Reddit). The increasing use and reach of these sites raises questions not only about what is being learned and what motivates participation in such sites, but also what kind of organization and learning practices are emerging. While it may be thought that such learning, taking place outside the bounds of institutional settings, is informal learning, the research suggests a more complicated picture, dependent on conversation, networks, membership in communities, and community practices, needing to be addressed by drawing on multiple disciplinary perspectives
Teacher Reflection on their Agency for Change (TRAC) - A tool for school-based social network learning
Get PDFThis short paper introduces an on-line log for Teachers’ Reflection on their Agency for Change (TRAC) designed to collect data and provide automatic visual feedback on teachers’ social networks. The TRAC tool was developed within a research project 'Making SENse of Teacher Agency for Change with Social and Epistemic Network Analysis'. The project aimed to understand how teachers exercise a form of relational agency defined as a capacity to work purposefully with others within and beyond schools, to support all learners, especially those at risk of exclusion, underachievement or other forms of marginalisation. Teachers’ reaching out to others and mobilising their social networks is an essential part of such agency. The study used Social and Epistemic Network Analysis to examine simultaneously the structural properties of teachers' social networks and the nature of content that flows through them. It also provided network visualisations and feedback to facilitate teachers’ professional reflection on how they use their relational agency to build inclusive school communities. The aim was to support teachers’ professional development by raising awareness about their individual and school network properties and nature of interactions within these networks. Part of the project was the development of the TRAC software that enabled teachers who engaged with a web-based reflective log to receive automatic feedback on their individual networks, as well as on thematic school networks, which were presented by the researchers in school development sessions. Network awareness – one’s knowledge of the resources embedded in their social ties – empowers teachers to improve the social environments of their schools. Provided alongside with the summary of research-based features of social network properties (degrees, diversity and intensity of ties), network feedback was used to facilitate professional and school development towards building inclusive communities. During the project, the TRAC tool was tested in partnerships with teachers and other staff in two schools in Stockholm. The project also had a knowledge exchange component to support relational and collaborative learning resulting from engagement with the network feedback. Network feedback based on the data from these sites was used to make adjustments to the prototype feedback tool. This short paper discusses the implications for future uses with a view towards rolling out research-informed professional reflection to larger numbers of schools and teachers anywhere, through dissemination in network learning community
The ties that bind us as a community: A qualitative reflection on the networked learning research
Get PDFThis manuscript was concerned with the extent to which the definition of the networked learning is manifest in the networked learning research. To this end, it explored how the definition is utilised in the design and application of the research. Technology (mediation and/or facilitation), connections (interactions), and network (community and/or context) were the three categories I explored the networked learning research. While the definition of the networked learning is open-ended in nature, the findings show that the networked learning researchers have enough commonality in their approach to the networked learning
Actor-Network theory and a methodology for inquiring the online/offline of education
Get PDFThe paper explores what the methodological considerations are for a study of educational practice and networked learning in technologically dense classrooms. The approach of the discussed study is informed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005) and the paper outlines the methodological consequences for adopting principles associated with ANT and post-humanist critiques of representational epistemology. The discussion is organised around overcoming an offline/online binary of educational practice and the use of screen recording software for data collection in ethnographic fieldwork in upper secondary classrooms. In this example, ethical ramifications are brought to the fore in relation to post-humanist traditions (Barad, 2003). The paper argues that the uncertainties exposed by troubling the two categories of human and language, by way of ethno-graphy, can serve as resource for a research practice informed by ANT
Building UX design for “cognitive democracy”
Get PDFWe benefit so much from technology but technoscientific infrastructure can also be seen to threaten the complexity of mutual relations, interactions, etc. that are features of democratic society. It is common today to speak of the “tragedy of the commons”, the “unusable” internet – even finding a battery charger on Amazon requires a degree in investigative journalism (Gross), machines that compromise our ability to function without them or that replace us (ML, RBA), epistemic bubbles and echo chambers (Nguyen). Is our technoscientific information age a poison or a cure? It is up to us