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Spaces, places and
technologies: a
sociomaterial perspective
on students’ experiences
Martin Oliver
London Knowledge Lab,
UCL Institute of Education
ioe.academia.edu/MartinOliver
25/02/15
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ELESIG NW: Spaces, Places & Technologies
Overview
“Digital literacies as a postgraduate attribute” project
Sociomateriality
Project methodology
Some themes from the work
Implications
Based on work undertaken with Lesley Gourlay and others
Slides will go up on Slideshare, and be linked to from academia.edu
References included at the end of the presentation
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The project
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Digital Literacies as a
Postgraduate Attribute?
JISC Developing Digital Literacies Programme
Led by Lesley Gourlay
http://diglitpga.jiscinvolve.org/Design Studio: http://tinyurl.com/q92jhzh
iGraduate survey / Focus groups / multimodal
journalling in year 1
Case studies across three areas in year 2:
Academic Writing Centre
Learning Technologies Unit
Library
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Digital literacy defines those capabilities which fit
an individual for living, learning and working in a
digital society
(Beetham, 2010)
Access
Skills
Social practices
Identity
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Digital Literacy is the awareness, attitude and
ability of individuals to appropriately use digital
tools and facilities to identify, access, manage,
integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create
media expressions, and communicate with others,
in the context of specific life situations, in order to
enable constructive social action; and to reflect
upon this process.
(Martin & Grudziecki, 2006: 255)
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Belshaw’s Eight Elements of Digital Literacies
(2011)
Cultural
Cognitive
Constructive
Communicative
Confident
Creative
Critical
Civic
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Drawing upon the frameworks outlined above, we
propose as a definition of digital literacies:
the constantly changing practices through which
people make traceable meanings using digital technologies.
Within this broad definition, specific aspects of
digital literacies can be investigated and explored
further, understood as in many ways offering a
continuity to our understandings of literacies in
general as social practice.
(Gillen & Barton, 2010)
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Moving on
Taxonomies of skills, assumed to be stable,
generic, measurable and transferable
Cognitive, attitudinal, and attributes
Attached to an idealised view of learner to be
‘produced’
How to explore complex, situated, mediated
meaning-making practices?
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Sociomateriality
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How should we understand
the roles of technology?
Removing the agency of texts and tools in
formalising movements risks romanticising the
practices as well as the humans in them; focusing
uniquely on the texts and tools lapses into naïve formalism or techno-centrism.
(Leander and Lovvorn, 2006: 301)
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If you can, with a straight face, maintain that
hitting a nail with and without a hammer, boiling
water with and without a kettle... are exactly the
same activities, that the introduction of these mundane implements change 'nothing important'
to the realisation of tasks, then you are ready to
transmigrate to the Far Land of the Social and
disappear from this lowly one.
(Latour 2005: 71)
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Stuff and spaces
Humans, and what they take to be their learning
and social processes, do not float, distinct, in
container-like contexts of education, such as
classrooms or community sites, that can be conceptualised and dismissed as simply a wash of
material stuff and spaces. The things that assemble
these contexts, and incidentally the actions and
bodies including human ones that are part of these
assemblages, are continuously acting upon each
other to bring forth and distribute, as well as to
obscure and deny, knowledge.
(Fenwick et al, 2011: vii)
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The campus is best thought of not simply as a constraint but, to borrow Brown and Duguid’s phrase, as a ‘resourceful constraint’ (Brown & Duguid 2000: 246), one it would be premature to write off and which those developing distributed learning need to take seriously. […] The campus – or more generally, the co-location of learners, teachers, labs, class-rooms, lecture theatres, libraries and so on – refuses to lie down and die.
Those seeking to develop distributed education should understand the support a campus setting gives the educational process and should be prepared for the necessity to find new ways of providing that support in a distributed education context.
(Cornford & Pollock, 2005: 181, 170)
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Rather than starting analysis from a space out of
which objects move, this approach aims to map
mobilities and the ways in which spaces are
moored, bounded and stabilised for the moment, and the specific (im)mobilities associated with such
moorings. We might take such spaces for granted –
as, for instance, universities – but a mobilities
analysis would examine the ways in which such
spaces are enacted and become sedimented
across time.
(Edwards et al, 2011: 223)
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We recognise space as the product of
interrelations; as constituted through interactions,
from the immensity of the global to the intimately
tiny. […] We recognise space as always under construction. Precisely because space on this
reading is a product of relations-between, relations
which are necessarily embedded in material
practices which have to be carried out, it is always
in the process of being made. It is never finished;
never closed. Perhaps we could imagine space as
a simultaneity of stories-so-far.
(Massey, 2005: 9)
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Activity part one:
Where do you do your work?
Sketch a map of the places you do your job, or
study, or write
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Methodology
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Survey
Using existing data from iGraduate
Evaluation of student satisfaction
Patterns of student preferences
Superficial
“We don’t like how the VLE looks”
Very little to build understanding or challenge
preconceptions
What could we learn from this…?
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Focus groups
PGCE, MA students, PhD students, Online
masters’ students
Mapping exercise, leading to discussion of what,
where and when of studying
Difficulties recruiting PGCE students due to
logistics of school placements
Pros and cons of videoing focus groups: are we
studying people or practices…?
Identification of useful themes that informed design of subsequent work
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Journaling
12 students recruited from the focus groups
3 from each of the four groups (PGCE, taught masters,
taught masters at a distance, Phd)
Distance students interviewed via Skype
Given iPod touch
4 Members of staff
Interviews took place over 9-12 month period
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A structured sequence of interviews
A digital ‘biography’, exploration of current
practice, guidance on data generation
Students capture images, video and other forms of
documentation to explore engagement with
technologies for study
2-3 further interviews, building student analysis of
data via presentations
Progressively focused discussions
General experience; use of VLE, library; production
of assessed work
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First interview: develop your maps…
Explanation of maps (whilst drawing)
Talking through personal histories of use of technologies
Second interview: bring us images of…
Present and talk through why they were taken and what they mean
Focus on VLE, library, coursework
Subsequent interviews
Brought along presentations to discuss
Increasing responsibility for interpreting, not just generating, the data
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Rich body of data
Images, videos and presentation a powerful stimulus for discussion
Grounding interviews in specific practices, not decontextualised generalities
“Interview plus” (e.g. Mayes, 2006), similar to work undertaken on other projects exploring learners’ experiences of e-learning
Phased thematic analysis
First pass: disproving generalisations
Second pass: links to exising theoretical ideas
Third pass: development of new ideas (e.g. orientations)
Subsequent passes: refinement (e.g. spaces, resilience)
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Ethical considerations
Project secured institutional approval
Specific ethical considerations – confidentiality and anonymity
Sharing personal, private experiences
Images included other people (staff and children)
Managed through curation by participants, their choice of pseudonym, checking early publications with participants
Incentivisation / bribery
Long-term, time-intensive; what’s an appropriate recompense?
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Activity part two:
Show your map to someone else
Are there spaces in common?
Are there some spaces that are different?
Why?
Does this tell you anything about what you need
in order to work/study/write successful?
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Themes
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Not the student
experience…
No evidence that the student experience is singular
Marked differences in experiences and priorities across the four groups
Coping with whiteboards and staff room politics of access;
Using the VLE to access materials;
Working with library databases;
Using the VLE to create a sense of community (…and Skype behind the scenes…)
…etc
Differentiation and management of practices
across professional, personal and study
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No useful taxonomies
Office tools (primarily Microsoft, plus Google docs and Prezi)
Institutional VLEs (Moodle and Blackboard)
Email (institutional, personal and work-based)
Synchronous conferencing services (Skype, Elluminate)
Calendars (iCal, Google)
Search engines and databases (including Google, Google Scholar, library databases, professional databases such as Medline, etc),
Social networking sites (Facebook, Academia.edu, LinkedIn) and services(Twitter)
Image editing software (photoshop, lightbox)
Endnote
Reference works (Wikipedia, online dictionaries and social bookmarking sites such as Mendeley)
GPS services
Devices (PCs at the institution and at home, laptops including MacBooks, iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and E-book readers).
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Orientations towards
technology
Curating
Fluent use, drawing together diverse resources, with practices ‘moored’ to devices and spaces of the learner’s choosing
Combat
Successful use, but a sense of precariousness; technologies that can’t quite be trusted
Coping
Scraping by, abandoning technologies and looking for other ways (with assistance) to get the job done
Not types of student, but types of practice.
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Patterns of staff working
Office work
Home work
Peripatetic work
Which practices were the institution willing to…
Acknowledge happen?
Support, financially or technically?
Benefit from?
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Sally’s complex studying
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Juan’s essay writing journey
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How Juan worked
Walking the stacks to browse and collect texts
Back and forth to desk with a computer, browsing electronic texts
Skim-reading to shortlist
Wanted measured reading and annotation later, in other spaces
Walked to another institution
Used girlfriend’s ID and password to log in to their network
Printed articles for reading on a printer that allowed double-sided printing
His sense of the library as a successful study space involved connecting it to another library, another institution’s computer networks and printers, and his girlfriend.
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Gertrude’s home and office
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My laptop lives on the end of that coffee
table. And it lives there because that's where the
electricity socket is, um, and that's where I spend
my evenings. Um, laid there with the laptop on my lap, um, doing a variety of stuff...I might be
shopping, I might be reading, again, my Kindle
might make it into the sofa, it might not. I might
read there. I might be answering emails. I might
be responding to things. Sometimes I might even
write there.
The office as a site of destructive testing
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Yuki’s sense of freedom
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Juan’s sense of place
Where I live it could be, you could be in a town sort
of anywhere and you wouldn’t really necessarily
notice. Whereas you come in here and you come
over the Waterloo Bridge and you see St Pauls and the Houses of Parliament, you know, you’re in
London, you’re doing something again. You know,
this is where people do important things and that,
kind of, thing and it gives it a reality. […] It focuses
me a little bit on that.
(Juan, Interview 3)
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Louise’s creation of
connections
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When I took some photos at the Globe I couldn’t
believe how easy it was to transfer into the
computer. It was just as easy as a digital camera
and the quality pretty impressive as well. So and then I can just copy them into my Interactive
Whiteboard.
(Louise, interview 3)
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Faith’s struggle to enter
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Our staff room was equipped… one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven… seven computers now we
can use and only one of them attached with a
printer. So, […] everybody wants to get to that computer where you can use the printer. […] So, six
student teachers tried to use other computer. So, it,
kind of, sometimes feels a bit crowded. And when
the school staff want to use it, well, okay, it seems
like we are the invaders, intruders?
(Faith, interview 2)
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Juan’s struggle to separate
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I like having a break between things and that kind of thing. And the same very much I think between home and university. […] When you’re in one thing then you’re there and you’re in that moment for a while and then you might change to sort of another one. […] Without too much work, I could do all of this [at home], you know, but I choose not to because I like the change. And I like the movement maybe as well, so it is, yes, it’s an important thing I suppose for there to be these sort of, these areas of not necessarily nothing, but of distinction, clear distinction between them.
(Juan, interview 1)
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Sally’s creation of barriers
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This is my portable hotspot on my phone, and I’m
using it to connect my internet, and I can’t use the
encryption on it because the computer was too
old to use the encryption, so in other words, I then had to come up with a scary name so that nobody
in my local area would, like, use my connection, so
I called it Trojan Horseman because that’s, like, I’m
some kind of scary hacker or something, so I
thought, if that’s an example of me... and I put an
O in so it looked, do you know what I mean, that
looks really dodgy, you wouldn’t click on that would you.
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Boundary marking is not about putting a fence
around a field, but about marking the relations that
can be made in specific enactments.
(Edwards et al, 2011: 231)
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Activity part three:
Look at your map again. Are there particular
spaces where:
You feel comfortable and in control?
It’s a struggle to work successfully?
You’ve excluded them (i.e. they’re missing!)
because you don’t want to work/study/write there?
What does this tell you about agency,
infrastructure, privacy, etc?
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Implications
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For policy
A persuasive narrative
We may think managers like numbers, but don’t underestimate the power of a good story
Enrolling students behind initiatives
Who gets to speak on behalf of students?
What do they say on their behalf?
Working with generalisations
The value of counter-examples
Use-case scenarios
Will this policy work for people who…
Do these estates/IT plans work for…
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For research
A really rich approach to generating evidence
Also fun!
The value of engagement with theory
Connecting institutional change initiatives with wider
debates and concerns
Useful concepts to sharpen interpretation (e.g.
identity, boundaries, mooring, etc)
‘Follow the actors’ – even when these aren’t human
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Bringing meaning back in
Deeper, more meaningful engagement with
students’ experiences than students allow
Celebration of diversity, rather than homogenizing it
The generation of new ideas about digital
literacy
Space and place, resilience
Construction and management of identities –
personal, professional, academic
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For practice
A useful process in terms of understanding the
students’ experience
A sanity check on what we’re asking students to
do
Available as materials that can be used in
workshops
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/page/692941
57/Introducing%20Spaces%20and%20Places
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References
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Beetham, H. (2010) Review and Scoping Study for a Cross-JISC Learning and Digital Literacies Programme. JISC, www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/funding/2011/04/Briefingpaper.pdf
Belshaw, D. (2011) What is ‘digital literacy’? A pragmatic investigation. Doctoral Thesis, Durham University. Available online: http://neverendingthesis.com/doug-belshaw-edd-thesis-final.pdf
Cornford, J. & Pollock, N. (2005) The University Campus as a ‘resourceful constraint’: process and practice in the construction of the virtual university. In Lea, M. & Nicoll, K. (Eds), Distributed Learning: Social and cultural approaches to practice, London: RoutledgeFalmer, 170-181.
Edwards, R., Tracy, F. & Jordan, K. (2011) Mobilities, moorings and boundary marking in developing semantic technologies in educational practices. Research in Learning Technology, 19 (3) 219-232.
Fenwick, T., Edwards, R. & Sawchuk, P. (2011) Emerging Approaches to Educational Research: Tracing the Sociomaterial. London: Routledge.
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Gillen, J. & Barton, D. (2010) Digital Literacies: a research briefing by the Technology Enhanced Learning phase of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme. London: London Knowledge Lab. Available online: http://www.tlrp.org/docs/DigitalLiteracies.pdf
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Leander, K. & Lovorn, J. (2006) Literacy networks: following the circulation of texts, bodies and texts in the schooling and online gaming of one youth. Cognition and Instruction 24 (3), 291-340.
Martin, A., & Grudziecki, J. (2006). DigEuLit: concepts and tools for digital literacy development. Innovation in Teaching And Learning in Information and Computer Sciences, 5 (4), 249 -267.
Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: Sage.
Mayes, T. (2006) The Learner Experience of e-Learning: Methodology Report. Available online: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/lex_method_final.pdf
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