This document provides an overview of Russell Francis's doctoral thesis investigating the implications of media change for learning. The thesis explored how learners are appropriating new media to support learning through two design experiments and an ethnographic study of advanced learners. The ethnographic study identified six genres of practice used by learners and attempted to develop conceptual tools to understand new media literacies. The thesis argues that media convergence has decentralized formal education and learners now need new media literacies to design personal learning environments leveraging online resources.

1. The Predicament of the Learner in the New Media Age: an investigation into the implications of media change for learning Russell Francis Supervised by Professor John Furlong and Professor Anne Edwards Oxford University Department of Education Introductory overview The implications of media convergence for learning, literacy and the future of education has become the topic of much speculation and debate in recent years. This investigation attempts to ground and inform the wider debate drawing on socio-cultural and activity theory ways of thinking, aspects of the new literacy studies and the findings of three empirical investigations. It explores the predicament of the learner in an age during which an emergent web-based ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins, 2006) supported by networked computers and interactive new media is converging or colliding with a top-down ‘culture industry’ (Adorno,1975) model of education that has evolved around the medium of the book. Two design experiments explore initiatives that attempt to accommodate young peoples’ engagement with digital sub-cultures into classroom based learning activities. The first explores the use of the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) in a British comprehensive school, the second explores the use of Revolution (a modified version of a multiplayer online role playing game) with groups of ‘home schooled’ students and a group from an American high school in the teacher Education Lab at M.I.T. during an overseas institutional visit. Both highlight that in order to understand the real implications of media change for learning and literacy we need to look beyond formal educational contexts and start to explore how learners, left to their own devices, are creatively appropriating web-based tools and resources to advance personalised learning agendas. The main study, the Agency of the Learner in the Networked University, employs ethnographic methods to investigate the practices of advanced independent learners who enjoy unrestricted access to the Internet in their study rooms. I argue that micro-genetic analysis of students’ digitally mediated practices can provide a grounded insight into advanced new literacies in action. Six distinctive genres of practice are explored in the findings chapters. For each genre an attempt is made to develop conceptual tools or heuristics for identifying emergent tensions and contradictions and conceptualising some of the new media literacies (Jenkins et al., 2006) required to negotiated the fault lines of media convergence. The final discussion draws on insights from the three empirical studies to engage with wider debate and conceptualise the predicament of the learner in the new media age. The argument emphasises the shift in the locus of agency for regulating learning as the central issue that has wide ranging implications for educational policy and practice. It demands that we accept the decentring of formal education as an inevitable consequence of media convergence and consider how educators might foster the new media literacies that young people now need to design personal learning environments and leverage the resources, distributed expertise and collective intelligence available on and through the Internet. This research was funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) Research questions Lead question: what are the implications of media change for learning and literacy? Data collection and analysis was guided by three more questions: In what ways are students appropriating new media to advance course-related study and self-education? What tensions or contradictions emerge when digital tools are leveraged to mediate learning activities? What skills or new media literaciesdo college students need in order to learn effectively in the networked university? New Mediational Means Methodology: Cognitive Anthropology on the Cyberian Frontier Unlike the bulk of research in mainstream ‘E-learning’ journals this study was not focussed on a specific piece of ‘educational software’ that might be used in a formal educational context. Rather the aim was to ‘follow the learner’ (Facer et al, 2003) as they design radically personalised mediascapes to support advanced knowledge work and start to creatively appropriate web-based tools and resources to expand learning opportunities. Following the learner involves adherence to two methodological protocols. Firstly, it demands that we study students’ use of digital tools and resources in informal contexts (invariably their study rooms). Secondly, it demands that we study the actual practices of students as they attempt to use a variety of digital tools to address authentic learning needs in everyday life. Insights gained are later probed through follow-up interviews and retrospective virtual ethnography. The study is thus conceived as a cognitive anthropology in the tradition of Bateson (1972), Rogoff (1990), Lave (1984), Hutchins (1995) and Holland (1998) informed by post-Vygotskian theory (Wertsch, 1998; Säljö, 1999; Pea, 1985; Moll, 1997; Edwards, 2005; Engeström, 2006; Nardi, 2002; Bruner, 1991; Gee, 2003; Holland, 1998) and focussed on micro-genetic analysis of students’ digitally mediated practices. Practices mediated by digital tools are understood in context with respect to the ecology of the students study rooms and the college environment and llongitudinally with respect to individual’s personal history of computer use, personal goals and emerging identities. Data collected through the use of multiple qualitative methods is used to describe, interpret and categorise these practices. The over-arching aim is to identify the tensions and contradictions emerging as a result of media change and develop conceptual tools and resources, building on those inherited from the sociocultural tradition. Overview of Findings Chapters The Learner as Designer explores how advanced learners design personalised learning environments to facilitate advanced knowledge work. This involves the art of designing cognitive ecologies – or extended cyborg minds (Clark, 2003) - that regulate attention from the outside (Vygotsky, 1978; Engeström, 1987), delegate cognitive chores to a host of quasi-intelligent agents, and facilitate access to the distributed intelligence of other minds via computer mediated communication tools. Building on the work of Kress (2003) and the New London Group (2000) the art of mindful design is identified as the most fundamental new media literacy. Creative Appropriation of New Meditational Means explores learners actively seek out and leveraging new meditational means, sometimes ‘against the gain’ – in ways not intended by the designers – (Bakthin, 1981; Wertsch, 1995) to gain an advantage in various academic games and advance personalised learning agenda independently of the resources made available by centralised computer services. Learning with others through new media: explores how learners use social software to cultivate, nurture and mobilize (Nardi, 2002) what pace Moll et al, (1992) I call globally distributed funds of living knowledge. It then illustrates some of the ways students are actively leveraging the distributed expertise available through their extended personal networks to break away from dependence on life-world communities of academic practice (including course-mates and tutors) and develop more robust distributed peer learning communities.that they take with them as they move across institutional contexts and geographical boundaries. Folkbildning(Säljö, 2004) in the networked university explores various ways students are appropriating participatory news media to extend opportunities to engage in informal educational conversations that proceed in a blended manner on and off-line. It shows how participatory tools like ‘E-mail a friend’ or the ‘most blogged’ tool on the New York Times site ‘infomate’ (Zuboff, 1998) a range of everyday educational conversations on topical current affairs issues. [chapter not included in thesis submitted 2007. Revising for publication]. Group Life: Learning through participation in online affinity spaces (Gee, 2003) explores how students leverage the collective intelligence of distributed communities of anonymous others through various modes of participation, including intent lurking, in online affinity spaces supported by services like Yahoo Groups and Academici. Identity and Agency in Virtually Figured Worlds, adopts a personal historic perspective. Building on the work of Turkle (1998), Gee (2004), Bruner (1991) and Holland et al (1998) I offer new conceptual tools that can be used to understand how learners are bootstrapping themselves towards the actualization of a projective identity through serious play in virtually figured worlds; quasi-virtual contexts that shape their sense of who they are and who they might become . Of all the chapters I believe this provides the deepest insights into the future of (self) education. In the final chapter, I argue that we need to re-conceptualise the journey through higher education as ‘self-making’ (Bruner, 1991) activities directed towards the actualisation of a projective identity (Gee, 2003) as shown (above). Such a move helps us overcome a false dichotomy between formal (accredited) and informal (intrinsically motivated) modes of education in new mediascapes.. Further, it suggests how advanced learners are negotiating the fault lines of media convergence, transforming the quasi-virtual contexts of their own learning and development and seeking out new opportunities to literally be the people they aim to become. This raises the question: are we witnessing the decentring of the traditional university in the everyday experience of university students and formal education more generally? © Russell Francis 2010, Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 . First presented at Department of Education Research Conference October 2007

2. Selected Bibliography Bruner, J. S. (1991). Self-Making and World-Making. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 25(1), 67-78. Buckingham, D., & Scanlon, M. (2003). Education, entertainment and learning in the home. Buckingham: Open University Press. Burton, R., & Brown, J. S. (1988). Skiing as a Model of Instruction. In B. Rogoff & J. Lave (Eds.), Everyday Cognition: Development in Social Context (pp. 139-150). Cambridge MA / London: Harvard University Press. Clark, A. (2003). Natural-born cyborgs: why minds and technologies are made to merge. New York: Oxford University Press. Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2000). Multiliteracies literacy learning and the design of social futures. London: Routledge. Crook, C., & Light, P. (2002). The Cultural Practice of Study. In S. Woolgar (Ed.), Virtual society? : technology, cyberbole, reality (pp. 153-175). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edwards, A. (2005). Relational Agency: Learning to be a resourceful practitioner. International Journal of Educational Research, 43, 168-182. Edwards, A., & D'Arcy, C. (2004). Relational Agency and Disposition in Sociocultural Accounts of Learning to Teach. Educational Review, 56(2), 147-155. Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding. Helsinki, Helsinki:. Engeström, Y. (1996). Development as breaking away and opening up: A challenge to Vygotsky and Piaget. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 55(126-132.). Engeström, Y. (2005). Knotworking to create collaborative intentionality capital in fluid organisational fields. Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams, 11, 307-336. Facer, K., Furlong, J., Sutherland, R., & Furlong, R. (2003). ScreenPlay: Children and computing in the home. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Francis, R. J. (2006). Towards a theory of a games based pedagogy (Audiovisual Web Presentation). Paper presented at the Transforming Learning Experiences: JISC online conference. Retrieved from http://www.online-conference.net/jisc/content/Russell%20Francis/index.html Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. London: SAGE. Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, Mass. ; London: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006a). Convergence Culture: when old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H. (2006b). Fans, bloggers, and gamers : exploring participatory culture. New York: New York University Press. Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M., & Robinson, A. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: Comparative Media Studies Programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jones, S. (2002). The Internet Goes to College: How students are living in the future with today's technology: Pew Internet and American Life Project. Lankshear, C., & Knobel, M. (2003). New Literacies: changing knowledge and classroom learning. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Livingstone, S., & Bober, M. (2004). UK. Children Go Online: Surveying the experience of young people and their parents. London: London School of Economics. Livingstone, S. (2002). Young people and new media : childhood and the changing media environment. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE. Moll, L., C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of knowledge for teaching: using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31(2), p. 132-141. McMillan, S. J., & Morrison, M. (2006). Coming of age with the internet: A qualitative exploration of how the internet has become an integral part of young people's lives. New Media Society, 8(1), 73-95 Moll, L., C., Tapia, J., & Whitmore, K. F. (1997). Living Knowledge: the social distribution of cultural resources for thinking. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions : psychological and educational considerations (pp. 139-164). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nardi, B. A., Whittaker, S., & Schwarz, H. (2002). NetWORKers and their Activity in Intentional Networks. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 11, 205-242. New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social Futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92. Pea, R. D. (1997). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions : psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: cognitive development in social contexts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sefton-Green, J. (2004). The 'End of School' or just 'Out of School'? ICT, the Home and Digital Cultures. In C. Durrent & C. Beavis (Eds.), P(ICT)ures of English : teachers, learners and technology (pp. 162-174): AATE. Sefton-Green, J., & Buckingham , D. (1998). Digital Diversions: Children's Creative Uses of New Technologies. In J. Sefton-Green (Ed.), Digital diversions : youth culture in the age of multimedia (pp. 179). London: UCL Press. Somekh, B. (2004). Taking the sociological imagination to school: an analysis of the (lack of) impact of information and communication technologies on education systems. Technology Pedagogy and Education, 13(2), 163-181. Snyder, I. (Ed.). (2002). Silicon literacies : communication, innovation and education in the. London: Routledge. Tobin, J. (1998). An American otaku (or a boy's virtual life on the net). In J. Sefton-Green (Ed.), Digital diversions : youth culture in the age of multimedia (pp. 106-127). London: UCL Press. Turkle, S. (1997). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. London: Phoenix. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind : a sociocultural approach to mediated action. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Wertsch, J. V. (1998). Mind as action. New York ; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society : the development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner & E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA. London: Harvard University Press.