New metaphors for learning

Once you start thinking in terms of metaphors for learning, you find them everywhere.

At the beginning of this year Mariana Funes, Frances Bell and I had a paper published about the use of the rhizome as a metaphor for learning. Our research findings were that this can be a problematic metaphor for learning, depending on how it is understood and interpreted.

Mackness, J., Bell, F. & Funes, M. (2016). The Rhizome: a problematic metaphor for teaching and learning in a MOOC. 32(1), p.78-91 Australasian Journal of Educational Technology.

Then at the Networked Learning Conference in Lancaster last month, Caroline Haythornthwaite suggested that we need new metaphors for networked learning. She went through the many metaphors that are already used. I blogged about this at the time, but here is her presentation again from which these two images/slides below are taken.

This week, or maybe it was last week, I noted on Twitter that Thomas Ryberg, one of the organisers of the Networked Learning Conference, used patchworking as a metaphor for learning in his PhD dissertation and Frances Bell has often written of knitting as a metaphor for learning and tweeted a link to her blog post. Donna Lanclos added to this discussion by tweeting a link to an article by Katie Collins who writes about needlecraft metaphors for academic writing. The Materiality of Research: Woven into the Fabric of the Text: Subversive material metaphors in academic writing.

Also at the Networked Learning Conference, Sian Bayne asked us to think about learning in terms of space. Although she didn’t use the word metaphor, there were plenty of them in her keynote, smooth and striated space, fluid and fire space, code/space. I blogged about this at the time too. 

I have recognised space as a metaphor for learning before, when I visited the Sensing Spaces exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2014. At the time I felt we could learn a lot from how architects think about space.

This week Stephen Downes has used the metaphors of time and space to talk about how we might perceive changes in learning brought about by the internet, digital and connected learning.

http://www.downes.ca/presentation/384 

This was an interesting talk. Stephen pointed out that our education system is geared to linear, time-oriented, objectives and outcomes driven ways of thinking and learning. He suggested that space metaphors might be more appropriate for learning in a digital age, referring us to Carrie Paechter’s metaphors of space in educational theory and practice.

The space metaphor aligns well with my own interest in emergent learning and viewing learning environments as being on a spectrum between prescribed and emergent learning.

I can also see connections to Nick Sousanis’ and Ian McGilchrist’s work.

In his book Unflattening Nick Sousanis warns against becoming stuck in the ‘flatlands’ and not being able to see the whole picture. In a recent post about this book I wrote:

The book is about the narrowness and flatness of our vision and thereby of our understanding of the world around us. It is a plea for seeing beyond the boundaries of our current frames of reference, beyond the limitations of text, beyond the borders of the ‘flatlands’. It is a plea to imagine otherwise, to find different perspectives and new ways of seeing.

Ironically this week Nick Sousanis reported that a library in France couldn’t categorise his book.

This is another example of the dominance of linear thinking which want to fix ideas into ordered categories. Matthias Melcher has developed a think tool for overcoming this categorisation problem where an idea/object must be allocated to just one category. In his tool it is possible to assign an idea to multiple categories. He explains how it works in this video and I have described how I have used it in another blog post.

Ian McGilchrist is also concerned with the narrowness or in Sousanis’ terms ‘flatness’ of our thinking. He puts this down to attentional asymmetry of the hemispheres of the brain and the dominance of the left hemisphere, which focuses attention, unlike the right hemisphere which sees the whole picture.

McGilchrist has also highlighted the importance of metaphor. In this article he is reported as arguing that

“…. metaphor is a primal facet of human thought, that it “is the only way of understanding anything.”

In August I will be attending a 4-day course  in which I am hoping to learn more about Ian McGilchrist’s views about the relationship between these different ways of thinking and the future of education. I know his next book will be about education and will have the Title – The Porcupine is a Monkey.  Like Stephen Downes, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Sian Bayne and Nick Sousanis, Ian McGilchrist writes about the need for new ways of thinking.

“My suggestion is that we need a whole new way of thinking about the nature of reality, one that understanding the way our brain works can help us achieve.” (McGilchrist, 2014, The Porcupine is a Monkey)

Thinking in terms of metaphors seems an interesting way forward.

If space is a becoming what kind of spaces do we need for learning?

The second keynote at the Networked Learning Conference 2016 was presented by Sian Bayne. The title of her keynote was Campus Codespaces for Networked Learning, which she framed around the question ‘Do we need other ways to think about networked learning space?’

So like Caroline Haythornthwaite, (see post about her keynote), Sian was pushing us to think about networked learning in a different way, with a specific focus on ‘space’. Of course Caroline has also published about learning spaces:

Haythornthwaite, C. (2015). Rethinking learning spaces: networks, structures, and possibilities for learning in the twenty-first century. Communication Research and Practice, 1(4). doi:10.1080/22041451.2015.1105773

Did they talk to each other before the conference, I wonder, or was it pure serendipity that their concerns for the future of networked learning seem to be similar?

Sian’s argument is that we need to get away from the idea that the architecture of a university is the authentic space making distance education a less authentic space. She said that sedentarism is still driving universities.

Sian talked in turn about

• smooth and striated space,
• networked, fluid and fire space
• code/space

She first wrote about smooth and striated space way back in 2004, basing that paper on the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari (1988) about the limiting effects of hierarchical, striated spaces (see list of references).

Slide 10

However smooth spaces are not necessarily utopias, as Frances Bell, Mariana Funes and I found in some recent research.

Mackness, J., Bell, F. & Funes, M. (2016). The Rhizome: a problematic metaphor for teaching and learning in a MOOC. 32(1), p.78-91 Australasian Journal of Educational Technology.

But notions of smooth and striated space are useful for thinking about how we might need to reconsider learning spaces. Is a MOOC a smooth or a striated space? Is a conference a smooth or a striated space?

Sian then went on to talk about bounded, networked and fluid space and the permeability of boundaries. All these spaces are important. She told us that distance students can have ‘campus envy’, i.e. they believe that the on campus students get a better deal, that the face-to-face bounded experience is somehow more authentic, which is not necessarily the case. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side and absence can make the heart grow fonder, but her students think of the campus as ‘home’. My experience is that meeting face-to-face in a physical space adds value to connection, so I think I understand where Sian’s students are coming from.

Bounded space, networked space and fluid space are all defined by the relative stability of their boundaries and the relationship between elements. Unlike Etienne Wenger’s work on landscapes of practice and the importance of boundary crossing , Sian asked us to consider space in Mol and Law’s terms (1994) – as being fluid, that is, the boundaries are not permanent.

Slide 20

I particularly liked the notion of ‘fire space’ – here but not here, presence and absence. I am now thinking about this in terms of Absent Presence, which I have blogged about before.  Absent presence in online interaction.

Sian’s argument is that we should offer students topological multiplicity. All these spaces are important. This resonates with my own research using the footprints of emergence, where we argue that prescribed learning spaces are no less important than emergent learning spaces. The need for each and the balance between the two will be determined by the context.

Finally Sian talked about code/space. I suspect that this is where her current research interests lie, whereas mine remain in the effects on identity and becoming of the multiplicity of spaces available to learners. But I was intrigued by the idea of code/space.

Slide 33

Code/space is not coded space. Coded space is space which is not dependent on code, but code space depends on code. For distance students if the code fails, then they are disconnected and no longer at University. Disconnection was a topic discussed by Frances Bell, Catherine Cronin and Laura Gogia in their interesting and enjoyable symposium – Synergies, differences, and bridges between Networked Learning, Connected Learning, and Open Education

Ideas of space, becoming, disconnection, connection, metaphor, code, algorithms, collective well-being and different ways of knowing were threads running throughout the conference. It will be interesting to see if they are followed through in the next conference in Zagreb, Croatia, 2018, and how much our thinking and ideas will have moved on.

I will be following Sian and her team’s research to see how these ideas about space for becoming develop.

NLC2016: Sian Bayne keynote references (posted by Sian on Twitter)

Bayne, S., Gallagher, M.S. & Lamb, J. (2013). Being ‘at’ university: the social topologies of distance students. Higher Education 67(5): 569-583.

Bayne S. (2004) Smoothness and Striation in Digital Learning Spaces. E-Learning. 1(2): 302-316.

Carvalho, L., Goodyear, P. and de Laat, M. (eds) (2017) Place-based Spaces for Networked Learning. Abingdon: Routledge.

Cormier, D. (2015) Rhizo15 http://rhizomatic.net/

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum.

Dodge, M. and Kitchin, R. (2005) Code and the transduction of space. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 95(1), 2005, pp. 162–180.

Hannam, K., Sheller, M. & Urry, J. (2006). Editorial: mobilities, immobilities and moorings. Mobilities, 1(1), 1-22.

Kitchin, R. and Dodge, M. (2011) Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.

Knox, J. (2016) Posthumanism and the MOOC: Contaminating the Subject of Global Education. Abingdon: Routledge.

Lamb, J. (2016) ‘Away from the university’. http://www.james858499.net/blog/away-from-the-university

Law, J. & Mol, A. (2001). Situating technoscience: an inquiry into spatialities. Environment and Planning D. (19), 609-621.

Mackness, J. & Bell, F. (2015) Rhizo14: A Rhizomatic Learning cMOOC in Sunlight and in Shade. Open Praxis, 7(1): pp. 25–38

Mackenzie, A. (2002) Transductions: Bodies and machines at speed. London: Continuum Press.

Matthews P. (2015) ‘YikYak’. http://drpetermatthews.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/yikyak.html

Mol, A. & Law, J. (1994). Regions, networks and fluids: anaemia and social topology. Social Studies of Science, 24(4), 641-671.

Pearce, N. (2015) ‘The YikYak lecturer’. https://digitalscholar.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/the-yik-yak-lecturer/

Reticulatrix (2013) ‘#EDCMOOC: School’s out’ https://reticulatrix.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/edcmooc-schools-out/

Ross, J. & Sheail, P. (2015) Campus imaginaries and dissertations at a distance. Society for Research into Higher Education Conference, 9-11 December 2015. https://www.srhe.ac.uk/conference2015/abstracts/0166.pdf

Sheller, M. & Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38, 207-226.

Thatcher, J., O’Sullivan, D. & Mahmoudi, D. (2016) Data colonialism through accumulation by dispossession: New metaphors for daily data. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. DOI: 10.1177/0263775816633195

Further thoughts about our presentation: 10th Networked Learning Conference 2016

This week Jutta Pauschenwein and I presented a paper Visualising Structure and Agency in a MOOC using the Footprints of Emergence Framework at the 10th Networked Learning Conference in Lancaster, UK. Here are the slides for our presentation.

On their own these slides do not make a lot of sense, so we have added notes, which you can see by going to the Slideshare and clicking on Notes. Or here is a PDF with the notes: NLC2016-slides-notes-mackness-pauschenwein

We were pleased that our session generated a few comments and questions. Helen Crump commented that she had used the Footprints Framework in the past and found it interesting. You can see Helen’s footprint here.

I don’t remember the exact questions we were asked at the end of our presentation, but there was some discussion about whether it is realistic to think you can get an alignment between the teacher’s design intentions for a course and the learners’ experiences. Jutta responded to this saying that she wasn’t trying to get an alignment, more to know where there is misalignment, so that she can adapt her course.

We were also asked whether it would be possible to use the Framework with large numbers as in MOOCs. In Jutta’s MOOC, 49 learners  (out of 460) voluntarily drew footprints, without any input other than a video. Normally we would recommend a one hour workshop as a minimum for introducing the Framework to new users. For a long time we have wanted to create an electronic version of the Footprint drawing tool, which would not only allow learners to draw and share them more easily, but would also collect written comments and reflections on the factors and automatically score the footprints for further analysis. For this paper we did this manually. So there is still plenty of scope for development, which is needed if we want to use the Framework with large numbers of users.

I don’t know if other paper authors do this, but I usually try and anticipate the questions we might get. This time, before the conference, I gave the paper to a friend asking for potential questions that might arise from the paper. Although these questions were not asked at the conference, I will share them here (and my answers) as I found them useful in preparation for our session. So here they are:

1. What does structure and agency mean?

For our work ‘structure’ means how a learning design balances openness and structure and how this balance is implemented in relation to the interactivity it enables.

‘Agency’ means the extent to which learners are enabled to develop their capability for effective action on their own terms; how the environment enables them to explore, establish, network and present themselves, their ideas, aspirations and values through writing and presence.

2. Why are structure and agency appropriate lenses to study learner experience and teacher/designer role?

Structure and agency are particularly appropriate lenses to study the learner experience and teacher/designer role in the context of MOOCs, because MOOCs are changing the shape of structure and agency in open online learning environments and these changes are beginning to affect more traditional learning environments – as we see in practices such as the flipped classroom. MOOCs are complex learning environments, in which the structure may be very loose/open and in which learners may have considerable autonomy. Ashwin (2012) has argued that research into teaching and learning interactions in Higher Education has consistently looked the interrelationship between structure and agency. He also argues that there has been a tendency in research to separate the learner experience from the teaching experience. Like him, we believe that a holistic view is needed to understand the learning experience in MOOCs.

3. What is the relationship of structure and agency to the clusters in the footprints model?

In this paper we consider structure and agency in terms of the Footprints of Emergence Framework. The Framework takes a holistic view of learning in prescribed and open learning environments recognising the interrelationship between structure and agency and how they influence each other. In this framework 25 learning characteristics are organised into four clusters. Two of these clusters – open structure and interactive environment, relate to the design or structure of the learning environment, and two to learner agency.

4. Did the MOOC participants really understand the footprints tool?

It is difficult to know this without interviewing them. Experience with the Footprints has shown that ideally users are introduced to the Footprints through a workshop and that when this is done, it doesn’t take long for people to understand how to use them and draw a Footprint. But the value of the footprints is in the depth of reflection that they can invoke if discussed. Interviews were not part of this research but will be for future research. One of the difficulties has been in translating the Footprint characteristics explanations into German. What we do know is that participants voluntarily drew and shared their footprints, learning how to do this by watching a video.

5. How can you be sure that the cluster elements are as influential in shaping the learning experience as you claim given the importance of autonomy and self-determination of the learner?

The cluster elements are intended to reflect the learning experience, rather than shape them. They are based on our own experience of learning in open and prescribed environments and of our knowledge of educational research and educational theorists. When we designed the Footprints of Emergence Framework and worked on the factors, we considered them to be a palette. In other words, we did not say that they were the definitive list of characteristics that describe the learner experience. We offered them as a palette of characteristics which could be selected from or which could be replaced by other characteristics. Our experience has shown that these 25 factors provide a rich picture of the learning experience, but a designer using the footprints drawing tool is free to add or take out factors.

6. Emergent learning is not predictable as you say and the participants were asked not to be too precise about positioning their responses when drawing footprints – doesn’t this make the footprints tool a very crude and approximate way of measuring the efficacy and effectiveness of the learner experience?

The Footprints of Emergence Framework is not intended to measure the efficacy and effectiveness of the learner experience. Principally it is intended as a tool for promoting deep reflection on the learning, design or teaching experience. But in our research we realised that if we scored the Footprints retrospectively and objectively, then it is possible to compare footprints and begin to explore the balance between structure and agency, prescription and emergence. Reflection is never a precise measure. 

7. How much credence can we give to the scores given the observation in Q6?

As much credence as any evaluation tool. The factors were scored against a given range independently by each of us and then compared. We used a scale of 1-30 for the spectrum of prescribed learning to the edge of chaos. Any disparities (which were minimal) were discussed and then the final score agreed. The scores in themselves are not important. The patterns that the scores might reveal are of more interest. We are confident that the patterns that emerge through this process, can inform us about the balance between structure and agency, but do not see this as a precise measure. All we can say here is that the majority of MOOC participants had an emergent learning experience and that the MOOC design was successful in assuring a balance between structure and agency.

8. Isn’t there a risk that given the sample who drew the footprints – largely students on a course run by one of the researchers – that the data was biased to how the students perceived the intentions of the researcher?

Yes and that is acknowledged in the research. What is needed is to interview the participants who drew footprints, and ideally these interviews would be carried out by a researcher not known to the participants. Past experience in earlier stages of the research when the drawing tool was used with individuals has shown that interviews are needed to ensure that the final footprint drawing is an accurate representation of the users’ experience. This research using the Footprints of Emergence Framework at scale is in its early stages. Future research will include interviews of participants.

Networked Learning 2016: Do we need new metaphors?

The question in the title of this post was raised by Caroline Haythornthwaite in her keynote presentation for the Networked Learning Conference 2016. Metaphor became a theme which ran through the conference, following this opening keynote.

I found this a difficult presentation to follow at the time. It was very densely packed with information, delivered fast and the slides contain a lot of text, so I am grateful to Caroline for immediately posting the link to her presentation, giving us an opportunity to go through it all again. https://haythorn.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/haythornthwaite_nlc2016-pptx.pdf

Caroline discussed many metaphors for networked learning including new ones that might help us reconsider where we are and where we are going next in terms of networked learning. By the end of her presentation after she had taken us through a whirlwind of many possibilities, she asked the question (Slide 52), ‘What are the implications for networked learning if we use metaphors that relate to new working conditions?’ e.g. Gig learning and Uber learning.

A quick search on Google suggests that the implications might be that we see more posts like this ‘5 skills of the Gig Economy’ by Joseph Aoun.

Metaphors are powerful, even essential to our understanding. Iain McGilchrist in his book on how the left and right hemispheres of the brain influence how we perceive the world around us, has written:

Metaphoric thinking is fundamental to our understanding of the world, because it is the only way in which understanding can reach outside the system of signs to life itself. It is what links language to life. (McGilchrist, 2009, p.115)

Metaphors help us to think differently, see alternative perspectives and ‘unflatten’ our thinking (Sousanis, 2015). An example of a metaphor used by both Caroline (Slide 4) and Nick Sousanis (p.18 in his book) and taken from Lakoff and Johnson is reframing ‘argument as a dance rather than war’.

In my own recent work, with Frances Bell and Mariana Funes (2016, p.80) we have written that metaphors need to be treated with caution.

Lakoff (1992) points out that metaphors are asymmetric and partial and Morgan (1997) writes of metaphors, “in creating ways of seeing they tend to create ways of not seeing” (p. 348). Metaphors shape the way we see and the way we act, they enact a particular view and can be “self-fulfilling prophecies” (Lakoff & Johnson, 2008, p. 132).

By using the Gig metaphor to create a list of skills, what skills do we exclude? What do we fail to see?

These questions about the pros and cons of metaphor relates to another theme that ran through the conference; the meaning of ‘open’. I hope to think about this in more depth in a further post, but Richard Edward’s work (referenced in Sian Bayne’s keynote and her presentation with Jen Ross) discusses the relationship between openness and closedness (Edwards, 2015). He writes:

….all forms of openness entail forms of closed-ness and that it is only through certain closings that certain openings become possible and vice versa (p.3)

So in any form of discussion about new metaphors it will be necessary to consider the limitations of the metaphor. These are complex issues. Roy Williams (@dustcube on Twitter), who was not at the conference but who has seen Caroline’s presentation, wonders if we avoid engaging sufficiently with complexity because it is too much for us; we are like people who are hungry for ideas, but keep walking quickly past the chocolate-ideas shop, because we think they might be ‘too rich’ for us.

I would have liked to have spent a bit more time in the chocolate shop, maybe with a workshop (or similar) after Caroline’s keynote to play and experiment ‘with possible metaphors to guide us on the way forward’ in these changing times (Haythornthwaite, 2016).

References

Bayne, S. (2016). Campus Codespaces for Networked Learning. (Keynote May 10, 2016, 10th Networked Learning Conference)

Edwards, R. (2015). Knowledge infrastructures and the inscrutability of openness in education. Learning, Media and Technology, (June), 1–14. doi:10.1080/17439884.2015.1006131

Haythornthwaite, C. (2016). New Metaphors for Networked Learning. (Keynote May 10, 2016, 10th Networked Learning Conference)

Mackness, J., Bell, F., & Funes, M. (2016). The Rhizome: a problematic metaphor for teaching and learning in a MOOC. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 32(1), 78–91. doi:10.14742/ajet.v0i0.2486

McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and his Emissary. The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. New Haven, London: Yale University Press

Sousanis, N. (2015). Unflattening. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press

Networked Learning Conference 2016 starts today

Tomorrow (Tuesday) Jutta Pauschenwein (@jupidu) and I will give a presentation at the Networked Learning Conference 2016 in Lancaster about the work we have done together using a visualisation tool, Footprints of Emergence, to try and understand more about how learners and course designers experience the relationship between structure and agency in a MOOC.

We have been working with the Footprints of Emergence framework for a number of years. The framework was developed in collaboration with Roy Williams and Simone Gumtau in 2012 and over succeeding years we have published papers and run workshops about it – even one at Lancaster University a few years ago.  I included references to our papers in my last post – Presenting at the 10th Networked Learning Conference, Lancaster.  Jutta has used the framework extensively with learners and teachers at her institution in Graz, Austria.

The Footprints of Emergence drawing tool requires users to reflect deeply on 25 characteristics of open learning environments (factors), which are organised into four clusters.

Learners consider how prescribed or emergent their experience was in relation to each of the factors and indicate this by placing a point on the relevant line on the template. This process results in a ‘footprint’.

Here are some examples of footprints which we have collected over the years on our open wiki – http://footprints-of-emergence.wikispaces.com/home

Footprints have been drawn not only by learners, but by teachers, designers and researchers, both for formal and informal learning experiences. Jutta, for example, has recently travelled extensively in Argentina and Chile and used the footprints to reflect on her emergent learning experience of travelling alone. See https://zmldidaktik.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/reflecting-emergent-traveling-experiences/

In this research Jutta used the Footprints of Emergence framework to help her design a MOOC – Competences of Global Collaboration –  and then asked the MOOC participants to draw footprints as part of the final evaluation process. Our paper has now been published on the Networked Learning site, as have all the papers. See http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/abstracts/mackness.htm

Later this morning we will head over to Lancaster for the start of the conference at midday. Amazingly for this part of the world the sun is shining and there is not a cloud in the sky. Jutta and I have had a great weekend together in the sun, talking about footprints and a whole host of other things. Here is Jutta’s post about this – https://zmldidaktik.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/emergent-learning-in-the-lake-district/ 

Presenting at the 10th Networked Learning Conference, Lancaster

In a couple of weeks I will present a paper with Jutta Pauschenwein at the 10^th Networked Learning Conference in Lancaster, which is very convenient as it is less than half an hour from my home. I think this image below will be the first slide of our presentation, but we are still working on it. The abstract of the paper has been published on the Networked Learning Conference site. Abstract

The conference is using https://sched.org to help participants organise themselves and decide which sessions they want to attend. I have just spent a bit of time exploring this and it is very easy to use, which is helpful. I have already decided my schedule.

I have also spent some time today, looking at the presentation that Jutta and I will be giving. Jutta will arrive here from Graz, Austria on the Thursday before the conference. We will spend the Friday working on finalising this presentation, and also catching up on other projects and then over the weekend, if it is fine, we will be walking in the Lakes and maybe cycling. I hope Jutta will like the Lake District, but I suspect she will think it a mini version of Austria :-). We will hopefully have plenty of time to talk, which there never seems to be enough time for at conferences, but maybe this conference will be different.

Our presentation relates to on-going research into emergent learning and the use of the Footprints of Emergence Framework developed collaboratively with Roy Williams and Simon Gumtau in 2011/12 (see references below). This is a drawing tool for reflecting on learning experiences in any learning environment, but particularly complex open learning environments such as MOOCs. It can be used by learners, teachers, designers or researchers. The results are always interesting and often surprising. Over the years we have collected examples on an open wiki – https://footprints-of-emergence.wikispaces.com/ . The Networked Learning Conference papers are limited to 8 pages, so we put the footprint drawings related to this presentation on the wiki here.

This is not the first time that Jutta and I have worked together. We met in the Change11 MOOC run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens and then again in a course run by Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner in which we were both online participants. Bev has just posted a video about this year’s courses. And then in 2014 Jutta invited Roy Williams and me to be the keynote speakers at her e-learning conference in Graz, where she and I met in person for the first time. It was a very enjoyable experience and the preparation for it meant that Roy and I thought through our research into emergent learning even further. Jutta published our paper and I blogged about the presentation here.

Jutta has been enthusiastic about the Footprints of Emergence Framework from the start and uses the footprints a lot, both personally and with her students. In our presentation for the networked learning conference we will explain how she used them with participants and teachers in the Competences for Global Collaboration MOOC, which she has now run twice and how this has informed our thinking about the balance between structure and agency in open, online learning environments.

We welcome questions either here or at the conference and are both looking forward to discussions and the whole event.

Update 28-04-16

Jutta has also written a blog post about our presentation, in German See https://zmldidaktik.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/vortrag-bei-der-networked-learning-konferenz-in-lancaster/ 

References

Williams, R., Karousou, R., & Mackness, J. (2011). Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(3). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/883

Williams, R. T., Mackness, J., & Gumtau, S. (2012). Footprints of Emergence. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(4). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1267

Williams, R., & Mackness, J. (2014). Surfacing, sharing and valuing tacit knowledge in open learning. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxlbGVhcm5pbmd0YWcyMDE0fGd4OjUyNGIwOTJiZTMzZjhlNjM

NLC2016 Hotseat notes: Boundaries and Limits of Networked and Connected Learning

The second Networked Learning Conference 2016 Hotseat was a much quieter affair than the first, but none the worse for that. The topic, facilitated by Sonia Livingstone was – Boundaries and Limits of Networked and Connected Learning 

Sonia posted 4 topics for us to discuss:

1. Experience of networked and connected learning, their boundaries and limits
2. Limits to connectivity – how much of it do we (students, teachers) really want, and what are the demonstrable benefits?
3. Risks of connectivity and what kinds of privacy or control or independence could be lost if everything is connected
4. Educators’ roles: should we as educators respect students’ concerns to limit or bound learning networks, or should we strive to overcome them?

Experience of networked and connected learning, their boundaries and limits

Discussion in this thread was wide ranging. Sonia’s research is into 13-14 year old young people’s networks and how they manage connections between home, school, their community and elsewhere. She has found that there is some resistance from teachers, parents and students, who want to maintain boundaries and that connections across home and school can become ‘classed’ leading to inequality in learning experiences.

There was discussion about the need to balance connected learning (dialogue and collaboration) with individual or independent learning (silence and contemplation). Too much connectedness is not conducive to learning. Participation can be experienced as suffocation. Private, off-grid, solitude and contemplation are key factors in learning and disconnection is a part of learning that needs to be rediscovered. Identity is an issue.

By the end of the thread we were no nearer determining how students can take control of their learning in and out of school in formal and informal learning.

Limits to connectivity – how much of it do we (students, teachers) really want, and what are the demonstrable benefits?

The point was made that technically there are no limits to connectivity, although physically connectivity can be variable according to bandwidth and geography. The manipulation of Facebook, Twitter and Google in controlling what we see can limit connectivity and digital literacy should include critical questioning of platforms and assumptions. Sonia’s research has revealed that younger people are more willing to change platforms than older people and younger people are more willing to use adblocker software. It was suggested that building digital connections across the age range would be beneficial.

Risks of connectivity and what kinds of privacy or control or independence could be lost if everything is connected

The question was raised of whether (with increasing visibility and traceability online), privacy is any longer possible. This led to consideration of the role of surveillance and monitoring and some discussion of Jose van Dijck’s book The Culture of Connectivity. I spent some time reading around this and writing my contribution to the discussion, but made the mistake of writing it in Word and then copying and pasting it into the forum. To my dismay it copied as an image which meant that none of the links worked – so I am attaching it here. Post about Jose Van Dijck’s work . The point made by van Dijck and Sonia, which was significant for this discussion, is that there is a difference between connectedness and connectivity. Connectedness is social participation. Connectivity is mediated by systems platforms.

Sonia pointed out that in their connections and connectivity young people are at risk of a double whammy of surveillance. In connectedness they are at risk of surveillance from teachers and parents; in connectivity they are at risk of surveillance from the state. I suspect we are all at risk in these ways, not just the young.

Further risks of connectivity were thought to be risks from unknown default settings and terms of use and the risk of context collapse when people try to maintain connectedness in different online spaces.

Mariana Funes pointed us to Dave Egger’s novel ‘The Circle’ and Michael Harris’ book – ‘The end of absence. Reclaiming what we’ve lost in a world of constant connection.’ These books address the question of what would be lost if everything is connected – the loss of lack, the loss of absence and the loss of a non-performative life.

Educators’ roles: should we as educators respect students’ concerns to limit or bound learning networks, or should we strive to overcome them?

This question was not really taken up and discussed other than to say that the answer would be dependent on resolving the tension between learning agency and autonomy, and the teacher’s need to intervene. It will be a matter of progression, topic and context, but learners need uncertainty to become radical sceptics.

 

The next Hotseat dates are: December 6-12, 2015 

Facilitator Steve Wright: What have the ANTs ever done for us? Packing your cases to follow the actors….

 

Selected references and further reading

Livingstone, S. & Sefton-Green, J. (2016, in press). The Class. Living and learning in the digital age. Nyu Press

Livingstone, S. (2015, June 11th) How the ordinary experiences of young people are being affected by networked technologies [Blog post] Retrieved from:http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-the-ordinary-experiences-of-young-people-are-being-affected-by-networked-technologies/

Livingstone, Sonia (2014) What does good content look like?: developing great online content for kids. In: Whitaker , Lynn, (ed.) The Children’s Media Yearbook 2014. The Children’s Media Foundation , Milton Keynes, UK, pp. 66-71. ISBN 9780957551824

An Agenda for Research and Design, A research synthesis report of the Connected Learning Research Network. Retrieved from http://dmlhub.net/wp-content/uploads/files/Connected_Learning_report.pdf

Connected Learning. An Agenda for Research and Design. http://dmlhub.net/publications/connected-learning-agenda-for-research-and-design/

Loveless, A. & Williamson, B. (2013). Learning Identities in a Digital Age: Rethinking creativity, education and technology. Routledge

Strathern, M. (1996) Cutting the Network. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 517-535. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034901

Light, B. (2014). Disconnecting with social networking sites. Palgrave Macmillan

Mejias, U. A. (2013). Off the Network. https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/pdf/off-the-network

Michael Harris (2014) The End of Absence. Reclaiming what we lost in a world of constant connection

Dave Eggers (2013). The Circle. http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/blog/post/the-circle-totally-transparent

Jose van Djick – Social Media and the Culture of Connectivity – https://youtu.be/x-mdi63Zk58

Facebook told by Belgian court to stop tracking non-users http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34765937

Barry Wellman (2002).  “Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism.” Pp. 11-25 in Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches, edited by Makoto Tanabe, Peter van den Besselaar, and Toru Ishida. Berlin: Springer-Verlag http://calchong.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/LittleBoxes.pdf

Implementing pbl online as a collaborative learning strategy for teachers: the cole https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256476854_IMPLEMENTING_PBL_ONLINE_AS_A_COLLABORATIVE_LEARNING_STRATEGY_FOR_TEACHERS_THE_COLE

Jaap Bosman (2015. Nov 7. Blog post) Connecting and StillWeb https://connectiv.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/connecting-and-stillweb/

Caulfield, M. (2015. Oct 17th. Blog post) The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral http://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/

Claxton, M. (1998). Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less. Fourth Estate; New Ed edition

Bohmian Dialogue – http://www.david-bohm.net/dialogue/dialogue_proposal.html

Absent presence in online interaction

Source of image and more about Callum Innes whose work Exposed Painting Green Lake is currently on show at the Manchester Art Gallery Absent Presence Exhibition

What does it mean to be ‘present’ online? Presence, according to Oxford Dictionaries Online is defined as ‘a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen’ and by Cambridge Dictionaries Online as ‘a ​quality that makes ​people ​notice or ​admire you, ​even when you are not ​speaking’.

Is it possible to be noticed online if you are not visible and don’t speak?

I am intrigued by the idea of ‘absent presence’, the idea that we may be able to enhance our presence by being absent. My father always used to say ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ as he set off on his long trips away. I’m not sure I agree, but can absence have a positive impact on presence? I think we would readily accept the more obvious cases of the past having presence in our lives, departed loved ones being present and so on.

Source of image

The suggestion that our presence may be stronger through being absent in lived time is more counter-intuitive for many of us, particularly in an age of hyper-connectivity and digital distraction where many people work hard at being continually present; where personal relevance is for some equated with the number, reach and always on, always present, always accessible, nature of our digital connections.

Like many others, particularly those who were young in the 60s, I have, in the past, explored meditation, yoga and other ways of avoiding distraction, stilling the mind and getting to know myself through solitude and contemplation. But that was not to be my path. My path was marriage, motherhood, work and increasing busyness and I loved it. Solitude, contemplation and coming face-to-face with myself in ‘stillness’ was harder than busyness in many ways and I was happy to leave that path whilst my family grew up.

A few years ago I came back to thinking about solitude and contemplation and its place in learning, through a set of unexpected circumstances. I attended a four-day face-to-face course which was ‘full-on’ from morning to night. Every minute of the day was timetabled and social events were arranged for the evenings. I found it overwhelming. The course leader asked me why I wasn’t saying anything or making much of a contribution, since he thought I had plenty that I could contribute, but the cacophony of voices and relentless activity silenced me. I simply could not find my voice. The next year I attended the course again, but this time I attended it from a distance as an online participant. What I discovered was that the distance allowed me to find my voice and establish a presence in the course. I was distant present. The course was designed so that online participants were projected into the face-to-face space via a synchronous video link, but the distance afforded a time difference, which meant that I didn’t have to join the room/course until midday. I had the whole morning to occupy a different quieter space, to walk, think and write in solitude. When I joined the course online at midday, I felt much more present than I had at any time during the previous year’s face-to-face experience. This started me thinking about the role of distance, solitude and contemplation in my learning and identity formation; the role of absence; the role of different spaces in online interaction and learning.

In those earlier days of online connectedness, I valued the distance and the asynchronicity it afforded. I didn’t have to respond immediately in an online discussion, I had time to think. I could choose how visible I wanted to be, whether to post a photo of myself. I could hide my reactions and feelings more easily and so on. But as time has gone on, this distance seems to be shrinking as everything becomes more synchronous; distance and privacy are losing out to public as the default. I find myself increasingly trying to maintain the distance I found so valuable in the early days of my online experience, but it is a dilemma.

I am aware of and value the advantages of online connection, of being able to find the information I need at the click of a button. Some of my closest connections are the result of online interaction, but my question is do I need to be always online for them to ‘see’ me or for me to ‘see’ them? I don’t think so, or I hope not. I value them not for being always available and always visible, but for ‘who’ they are, their depth of character, their integrity, their wisdom, their patience, tolerance and many other characteristics which have nothing to do with their online influence, their popularity, the number of Twitter followers they have, the number of friends they have on Facebook, the number of comments they get on their blog, or their instant availability. Some of my most valued online connections are the least visible. Effectively they are ‘absent’ to much of the online space. They are in a different space, a quieter space, and judging by what they say when we are in contact, a more reflective and contemplative space. Their presence is all the more evident for their absence.

Footnote

These thoughts have been sparked by this week’s Networked Learning Conference Hotseat (Boundaries and Limits of Networked and Connected Learning ) hosted by Sonia Livingstone and in particular by a post made by Mariana Funes who drew our attention to a book by Michael Harris

(2014) The End of Absence. Reclaiming what we lost in a world of constant connection

This led me to this video where Michael Harris talks about his book.

Boundaries and Limits of Networked and Connected Learning

The second Networked Learning Conference Hotseat starts on Sunday 8^th November and will run until the 14^th. This time it is facilitated by Sonia Livingstone, a Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics, who has found in her research with 13-14 year old young people in which she follows their networks at home, school and elsewhere, online and offline, that they are concerned about increased connection between home, school and elsewhere, wishing to maintain boundaries. She introduces and says more about her work in her Welcome message in the Hotseat.

Sonia then goes on to ask 3 questions, giving each a separate thread.

1. My questions for this hot seat are about the limits to connectivity – how much of it do we (students, teachers) really want, and what are the demonstrable benefits?
2. What are the risks of connectivity and what kinds of privacy or control or independence could be lost if everything is connected?
3. Should we as educators respect students’ concerns to limit or bound learning networks, or should we strive to overcome them?

Some reading to inform this discussion

Livingstone, S. & Sefton-Green, J. (2016, in press). The Class. Living and learning in the digital age. Nyu Press

An Agenda for Research and Design, A research synthesis report of the Connected Learning Research Network. Retrieved from http://dmlhub.net/wp-content/uploads/files/Connected_Learning_report.pdf

Loveless, A. & Williamson, B. (2013). Learning Identities in a Digital Age: Rethinking creativity, education and technology. Routledge

Strathern, M. (1996) Cutting the Network. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 517-535. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3034901

Livingstone, S. (2015, June 11th) How the ordinary experiences of young people are being affected by networked technologies [Blog post] Retrieved from: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-the-ordinary-experiences-of-young-people-are-being-affected-by-networked-technologies/

Roles for Educators in MOOCs

In the first Hotseat of the series for the Networked Learning Conference 2016, Mike Sharples asks a series of questions to promote discussion about massive open social learning. All the discussion questions were interesting and there was some overlap between threads, but for this post I would like to comment on some of the responses to Mike’s question:

What are the appropriate roles for educators (in MOOCs)?

12 people engaged in this discussion. I will be referring to their ideas but not citing them in this post. If you want to check who said what then the discussion forum is open.

Mike Sharples’ question referred to educators, but sometimes people were talking about educators, sometimes about teachers and the two words were often used interchangeably. The difference in meaning between these two words was not discussed, presumably because people didn’t think there was one or it wasn’t sufficiently important.

Going through the forum posts it is clear that we didn’t come to any conclusions. It was recognised that MOOCs, with their massive numbers of learners have raised questions about who is the teacher in a MOOC, can anyone be a teacher, whose role is it to facilitate discourse, whose role is it to scaffold learning and so on. It was also recognised that in MOOCs the teacher/educator’s role is likely to be distributed, either through a team of teachers or between learners, and that there are multiple roles that a MOOC teacher/educator could adopt (See references to Downes below). The argument was made that in a MOOC the learning environment has been reshaped by technology and needs multiple educators. Interestingly I could cite any number of MOOCs in which there is just one educator (i.e. it has been designed and set up by just one person), and this doesn’t only apply to xMOOCs. If we agree that one person alone cannot effectively teach/educate large numbers of learners at the same time, then are we assuming that, in the absence of teaching team, we are relying on learners to educate/teach each other?

This question of course led to a discussion about what is knowledge and who has it. What is the role of the teacher/educator in negotiated learning, social constructivism and situated learning? Are moderation and facilitation roles enough? A view was put forward that moderation is needed to monitor and manage abuse and facilitation is needed for orchestrating interactions, but what more does a MOOC educator need to do? What about knowledge and truth? What is the teacher’s role in the construction of knowledge in MOOC learning? Is it the MOOC teacher’s role to be a conveyor of authoritative facts and knowledge?

There was some discussion about authority and it was suggested that authority impacts negatively on learner autonomy, which in connectivism is a key characteristic of learning in MOOCs. The idea that a teacher is an authority was questioned (the reason given was that authority is imposed), but the teacher can (and should?) have expertise (expertise is not imposed, but recognised). The role of power and authority in the social construction of knowledge was acknowledged. Of course this discussion could apply to any teaching environment, not just MOOCs. I was left wondering whether separating authority from expertise is straightforward.

We didn’t really get to grips with the question of whether the teacher is ‘redundant’ in a MOOC. Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s CoI framework (see reference list below) and the importance of ‘teacher presence’ was referenced but not discussed, I suspect because the thread was about roles of educators/teachers, rather than about who is the teacher in a MOOC.

In reflecting on this forum discussion, I think that in focussing on roles, we never really got to grips with the question of who is the teacher in a MOOC and whether and why we still need teachers. It was suggested that teachers will never be erased from society but if that is true, what is it that teachers do (and here I mean trained teachers, or career teachers, as opposed to say parents as teachers), that others don’t or can’t do?

I enjoyed the week’s discussions even though I don’t feel much further forward in understanding the teacher’s role in MOOCs. However, looking back through my notes I see that I wrote: ‘A teacher is more than a collection of roles. A teacher has an identity – it’s something about who the teacher is and how the teacher is perceived by learners, as well as what the teacher does – it’s something about the relationship between teacher and learner’. If teaching as a profession is not going to ‘disappear’ (see Biesta’s paper in the reference list) and MOOCs are not going to disappear, then future teachers (those being trained now) will have to understand not only the MOOC environment and the roles they might need to adopt within the MOOC environment, but also have a clear idea of who they are and what they stand for. I was once asked in an interview for a teaching post to explain my teaching philosophy, what I believe in and what I stand for as a teacher, but that was long before MOOCs. Is this a question that MOOC teacher/educators need to be able to answer?

A number of references to literature were made in the forum which show how wide-ranging the discussion was (see below).

A date for your diary: The next Hotseat in this series:

November 8-18, 2015 Sonia Livingstone: Boundaries and Limits of Networked and Connected Learning

References

Biesta, G. (2013). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappearance of the teacher. Phenomenology & Practice, 6(2), 35–49. Retrieved from https://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/pandpr/article/viewFile/19860/15386

Can Mill’s empirical account of arithmetic be defended against the criticisms of Frege? 

Common Core Math is Not the Enemy

Downes, S. (2010). The role of the educator. Retrieved from: http://www.downes.ca/post/54312

Downes, S. (2013). We don’t need no educator: The role of the teacher in today’s online education. Retrieved from: http://www.downes.ca/presentation/311

Edinburgh University. Manifesto for teaching online 2015. Retrieved from https://onlineteachingmanifesto.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/manifesto-for-teaching-online-2015/4

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Kop, R., & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning,9(3) Retrieved from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/523

Kop, R., Fournier, H., & Mak, S. F. J. (2011). A Pedagogy of Abundance or a Pedagogy to Support Human Beings ? Participant Support on Massive Open Online Courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(7) pp. 74-93. Retrieved from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1041/2025

Laurillard, D. (2012). Teaching as a Design Science: Building Pedagogical Patterns for Learning and Technology, NY: Routledge

Niaz, M. (2000). The Oil Drop Experiment: A Rational Reconstruction of the Millikan–Ehrenhaft Controversy and Its Implications for Chemistry Textbooks. 37 (5). Pp. 480-508. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Retrieved from: http://www.umich.edu/~chemstu/content_weeks/F_06_Week4/Mullikan_Erenhaft.pdf

Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend

Ross, J, Sinclair, C, Knox, J, Bayne, S & Macleod, H. (2014). Teacher Experiences and Academic Identity: The Missing Components of MOOC Pedagogy. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, vol 10, no. 1, pp. 57-69. Retrieved from: http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/files/17513228/JOLT_published.pdf

Salmon, G. (2011). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.