Open Access Journals at Aalborg University
Not a member yet
6616 research outputs found
Sort by
Networked Learning as a Framing of Society
Get PDFThe main purpose of this paper is to explore the idea of conceptualising networked learning, not as a kind of human activity, but as a way of viewing human activities. The hope is to promote collaborations and connections between the field of networked learning and other fields, in ways that may ultimately transform, mutate, and hybridise the fields. To achieve this, four metaphors of society is outlined. These are named the biosphere, the distorted reality, the community, and the market. The metaphors serve as foundations for four different framings of society that directs attention and raises questions about learning. It is noted that by combining several frames, it may be possible to approach networked learning in a more thoughtful, nuanced, and well-balanced way. It is also noted that the use of frames could make it possible to move beyond what has been called the impasse of ideology in the field of networked learning
Barriers to organisational development in higher education lifelong learning initiatives
Get PDFFrom an economic human capital perspective, higher education lifelong learning initiatives should include the professional development of individuals as well as organisational development. This indicates the dissolving of boundaries between individual and organisational development and that successful professional development occurs at both individual and aggregated levels. Based on the networked mode, higher education institutions could be closely linked to their surrounding society, embracing a two-way relationship with a hybrid character, including multiple connections with branches and/or organisations. In such initiatives, formal education and informal work-related tasks are blurred and both are emphasised as equally important. In focus are collaborative features and the idea to link theoretical reasoning to authentic organisational problems. To offer higher education lifelong learning for organisational development, Mid Sweden University initiated a project called BUFFL in collaboration with eight organisations belonging to an established network of banks and insurance companies. This paper aims at reporting barriers to organisational development in higher education lifelong learning. It answers the following research question: Which barriers could be identified when implementing a hybrid and networked approach to higher education lifelong learning for organisational development? A case-study-inspired approach was conducted. In total, 328 registrations from the collaborating organisations were documented in the BUFFL courses. In addition to open-ended questions and Likert scale questions in the course evaluations, the methods also included conversations with leading representatives of the collaborating organisations. Although several barriers were highlighted in line with the innovation resistance theory, the main barrier seems to be that no organisation applied lifelong learning as a tool for strategic organisational development. The study suggests that a crucial barrier breaker to reduce or eliminate the main barrier is a course on strategically managed competence development for leading representatives of participating organisations. A combined focus on individuals and organisations could also stimulate leading representatives to take a holistic approach to the organisation’s competence development. This includes increased responsibility to ensure that investments in the competence area are beneficial for the organisation. Bringing company-relevant data as input to the courses could ensure the establishment of strong links between theoretical perspectives and work-related practices
Activity Centred Signature Pedagogies for the Creation of Digital Educational Publications
Get PDFIn this paper, we draw together three sets of ideas to create a framework for understanding and improving the networked creation of digital educational artefacts. We combine ideas on learning networks and networked learning, activity-centred analysis and design (ACAD) and signature pedagogies. Focusing on establishing a framework for understanding the network practices, the participation of people from different professions and the nature of learning in doing, the paper explores the possibility of constructing a framework that can be customised to the needs of specific professions or of industry-specific multi-professional networks. The case on which we focus, and which we use to inform, illustrate and sharpen some of the argument, is that of digital educational publishing – specifically, the activity of the educational publishing company Systime. However, we see the framework as applicable to a much more extensive range of situations. Consequently, the paper contributes to wider theoretical and practical work on the creation of digital educational artefacts. It also contributes to thinking more deeply about assumptions and practices involved in professional knowledge-building networks: especially where participants develop what we describe as a ‘reflexive designerly disposition’, capable of improving what a network achieves and how it functions
Hybrid learning environments: It’s all about ecology
Get PDFTechnology-enhanced learning has been part of higher education health contexts for nearly three decades, but since the recent Covid-19 pandemic specific challenges emerged, requiring learning design reconfigurations to facilitate continuity of student learning. The pandemic calls for a deeper understanding of how technology can promote connections, active participation and knowledge building in higher education health contexts. Identifying what is currently occurring and considering potential innovations requires a move towards a nuanced understanding of the ecology of complex elements contributing to productive networked learning in these contexts. This multiple-case study doctoral research project includes four undergraduate health courses at a New Zealand university, in the disciplines of nursing, social work, and bioscience. Drawing on the Activity Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD) framework, the research explores the influence of course design elements, such as social arrangements, learning space formats, learning tasks, on learning activity, taking a systematic approach to the analysis. In this paper, we report on initial observations and interviews with students involved in diverse hybrid learning environments, in order to identify how innovative learning designs are supporting students' agency and active engagement
Data stories: speculative methods for researching digital surveillance in higher education
Get PDFHigher education systems have always involved monitoring through data collection, assessment, and evaluation, shaping the intellectual work, and tracking the bodies and activities of students and teachers. However, surveillance in many higher education settings has become increasingly pervasive and fine-grained as monitoring and data-gathering technologies grow in sophistication and as the quantification and measurement of everything from outcomes to student satisfaction to engagement is increasingly valued in universities. Concerns are growing about negative impacts on learning relationships, exploitative commercial uses of collected student data, discriminatory practices, and even political, social, or physical harm inflicted because of surveillance and monitoring. At the same time, the complex surveillance cultures of higher education make it difficult to disentangle personal and collective responsibility, understand the gap between intentions and impacts, or navigate the significant risks that can come, for some, with speaking about these matters. In 2020, a research project was funded to develop a 'data stories tool to support people working and studying in higher education, particularly learning technologists, to develop anonymous speculative stories about what the future of surveillance in higher education might look like, and to draw out themes, concerns about and hopes for that future. The methodology used to design this tool drew from speculative and co-design approaches. This paper discusses how these approaches were mobilised to produce a space for people to make new meanings around surveillance, and to share these with others in a networked environment, in the form of Participatory Speculative Fictions. It discusses a few of the stories produced, and how they shed light on the potential of speculative methods for working with and possibly reconfiguring networked learning futures
Phenomenology of Practice
Get PDFCathy Adams introduced the 2021 workshop on YouTube https://youtu.be/WTMUhULWyh4
In this video she explains something of the breadth of PoP's applications to research our students or colleagues everyday lived experiences. The workshop's method relies heavily on ideas from phenomenology's originary contributors but the emphasis is not on philosophy, rather learning by doing phenomenology. The workshop begins with a didactic session to cover some of the core phenomenological understandings, taking in questions such as, 'what exactly is lived experience?', 'why pre-reflective?', 'how does phenomenology go about studying the pre-reflective?', 'what is the reduction?', 'what is meant by "wonder in the face of the world"?'. We will explore what a phenomenological research question looks like
Students’ Basic Psychological Needs in Blended Teacher Learning Groups During COVID-19
Get PDFTeacher Learning Groups (TLGs) are social configurations in which student teachers (henceforth: students) learn together with peers, teacher trainers and teachers through social interactions (Doppenberg et al., 2012). Due to the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, blended education has developed quickly. Blended education combines contact learning with distance learning ((Müller & Mildenberger, 2021). This workshop aims to shed light on how blended meetings interfere with the fulfilment of students’ basic psychological needs in TLGs. We also want to find out how to facilitate TLGs to support students’ basic psychological needs in times when social distancing is necessary or when blended education is convenient (e.g., to enhance the accessibility of education)
Symposium 2: A tentative model for sustainable pedagogical digital competence development: Exploring networked learning in an educational development project
No full textThis paper addresses one large university initiative for educational development aimed at further developing educations and teacher competence with a focus on technology-enhanced and lifelong learning. The aim of the paper is to describe and problematize the design of an ongoing project for educational development, Higher Education and Digitalisation (HEaD). It focuses on identifying key components of an educational development project for technology enhanced learning as well as how such a project can be organized to sustain in regular university operations. The article discusses how a project for educational development can create over-time durable infrastructures, organization, policy and motivation for maintaining a continual educational development. In the first phase of the project, a model was developed for how competence development can be conducted sustainably. This model contains two perspectives: (1) an organizational perspective that focuses on the key partners to be involved; and (2) a process perspective that focuses on activities and aims in strategic competence development projects. The tentative model with its two perspectives is described and discussed in this article as a preliminary result. The model includes four identified key entities and their roles in pedagogical digital competence development; academic departments and their faculty, educational developers, infrastructure and IT-department and the pedagogical research unit. Further, a process model based on existing support structures, complemented with activities that can be sustained after the HEaD project ends is presented
Symposium 1: Relationality, Networked Learning and Árbediehtu- traditional Sámi knowledge
No full textThe purpose with this paper is firstly to investigate whether an Indigenous, multidimensional, relationally intertwined onto-epistemology is present in a policy document regarding árbediehtu, traditional Sámi knowledge. The policy identify knowledge claims the Sámi parliament in Sweden wants to pass on to future generations, and is the closest to a Sámi produced curriculum we get in a Swedish context. A four-dimensional relational framework where relationality is unpacked through resonance theory by Hartmut Rosa is utilised as an analytical tool. Secondly, implications for Networked Learning, especially as occurring in remote Sámi language education, are elaborated on. The findings show that the framework can be helpful for understanding and describing a multidimensional relational onto-epistemology as relationships in the policy can be identified on three of the four dimensions in the framework. The last dimension involves the self and is mainly a reflexive tool. However, as the discussion initiated in the concluding section indicates, implications for Networked Learning and remote Sámi language education is not the only take-away. An unpacked understanding of relationality offers a glocalised as-well-as theoretical approach, which is important both locally and globally as issues of sustainability call for the development of a new social contract. According to resonance theory, resonant relationships are transformational, leading to the conclusion that a relational approach can lead to an increased understanding of learning and knowing, and a sense of self-efficacy and a stronger identity, all important aspects in transformational education. Further, the study is an example of how a national graduate school, GRADE, can offer epistemic space when researching digital technologies in education
Big Data in online education: Who produces value and who reaps the rewards?
Get PDFFrom classifying learners to predicting learner behaviour, the application of Big Data in online education has been vast. Besides the potential benefits of Big Data in education, it is necessary to critically engage with some ethical and social challenges that Big Data presents to the field of online learning. The increasing use of big data by large institutional actors and corporations raises questions not only about data privacy and ownership, but whether this data is used to genuinely improve learner and teacher online learning experiences, or primarily for commercial profits and institutional benefits. When addressing ethical concerns regarding the use of Big Data in education, critiques often follow a reasoning that is in line with corporate interests and neoliberal logic of marketization of education. Given the importance of the pursuit for democratic online education, the need for critical perspectives in the field is ever-more essential. This research tries to critically address the role and impact of Big Data on labour relations and economic fairness in online education by examining both corporate and institutional data practices in online learning. The study puts forward a provisional theory of the use of Big Data in two large online learning platforms (Coursera and Blackboard) using critical grounded theory. The core category of Exploitation of the learning community, the three constituent concepts; the Vendor-Institutional Complex, Use of learner generated value for profit, and the Behavioral monitoring and engineering; and the sustaining category, the Magic Trick, were the foundational blocks for developing an emancipatory theory that addressed ethical issues of economic fairness regarding the use of big data in online education