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Using theory to review and to plan the blending of mobile learning into practice

by University West of England.

1,315 views

The presentation will be structured as follow. The talk will first provide an introduction to the theory behind the Socio-Cultural Ecology (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010) and the notion of ...

The presentation will be structured as follow. The talk will first provide an introduction to the theory behind the Socio-Cultural Ecology (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010) and the notion of User-generated contexts (Cook, Pachler and Bachmair, accepted), which Cook (2009) has refined into an analytical tool called a ‘typology-grid’ (see below). The talk will then demonstrate how the typology-grid has been successfully been used to analyse and learn from the ALPS and conclude by inviting a critique of the typology-grid.

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Notion of ‘ life-worlds ’ recognises the clustering of different factors such as socio-economic background, gender, age/generation, ethnicity, regional background, profession etc. Traditional boundaries of various kinds are being blurred, abolished and they dissolve and disappear. Also, these trends have a lasting effect on meaning-making and learning. In the first third of the last century, individualisation and fragmentation were an emerging dynamic, which led to a discourse around life-worlds (see Schütz 1932; Schütz and Luckmann 1984). Life-worlds have to be constructed by the people themselves and are their own responsibility. A life-world comprises more than just the environment in which people live. Life-world stands for lifestyle and habitus , which depend on people’s individual way of living, which frames their life-course. Life-worlds result from individualization, which has led to fragmented worlds; they have to be configured personally. The responsibility for one’s own lifeworld is to be carried by people individually. People in European countries organise their life-worlds within and by way of stable socio-cultural milieus . Milieus do have the function of individualised life-worlds, which are structured by the hierarchical variable of differentials in income and formal education. This is the traditional social stratification. But there are also other important variables which combines people’s value orientation with the process of modernization of society. Pachler, Bachmair and Cook (2010) recognise seven milieus : established, intellectual, modern performing, traditional, modern mainstream, consumer materialistic, sensation orientated.
The work is framed by a socio-cultural ecology approach developed by Patchler, Bachmair and Cook (2010); this outlines the triangular inter-relationships between structure, agency and cultural practice (see diagram). Specifically, the socio-cultural triangle draws on media and cultural studies and is being used to guide our investigation of the outside-in/inside-out challenge. The main theories are: Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory; cultural studies and media (Hall, 1997) regarding individualised agency within the practices of everyday life. By ‘habitus’ we mean dispositions and action patterns based on appropriated social structures within typical cultural practices. In particular, we are interested in the potential of mobile devices not just to provide, but also to enable the shaping of highly individualised, yet socially and physically connected, culturally differentiated and semiotically rich contexts for learning.
Although he does not use the term ‘context’ in the way we envisage, we draw on Giddens’ (1984, p. 17 ) proposition that “social systems, as reproduced social practices, do not have ‘structures’ but rather exhibit ‘structural properties’ and that structure exists … only in its instantiations in such practices and as memory traces orienting the conduct of knowledgeable human agents”. Structure is, therefore, not simply external to human context and action, a current context is: instantiated in practice; is informed by experience, history, and temporal patterns of behavior (see also; and manifests itself in the form of structural properties through multimodal interaction with media. As a consequence of these structural changes, the nature of learning is changing as mode of meaning making and users are actively engage in generating their own content and contexts for learning. We call this user-generated contexts.
user-generated context for us is conceived in a way that users of mobile digital devices are being ‘afforded’ synergies of knowledge distributed across: people, communities, locations , time (life-course) , social contexts and sites of practice ( like socio-cultural milieus) and structures. Of particular significance for us is the way in which mobile digital devices are mediating access to external representations of knowledge in a manner that provides access to cultural resources. This dynamic digital tool mediation of meaning-making allows users to negotiate and construct internal conceptualisations of knowledge and to make social uses of knowledge in and across specific sites or contexts of learning.
ALPS is a HEFCE funded centre for excellence in teaching and learning focussing on assessment and learning in practice settings. 5 Universities (Leeds, Leeds Metropolitan, Bradford, Huddersfield and York St John) crossing 16 health and social care professions Strongly supported by the NHS Strategic Health Authority and with three commercial partners
Text in blue is possible story of a lesson learned (or an opportunity/question identified) by the ALPS Mobile Technologies project and which has perhaps become a little clearer through use of this typology. The ALPS project showed that one of our assumptions (students being familiar and comfortable with using mobile technology) was not accurate (there was a reasonably large group in 2007 who did not find the technology we were presenting them with easy to use). On reflection it can be seen that this was because students familiarity was with the basic use of mobile devices (texting and phone calls) and not with the more complex smart phone functionality (setting up devices to receive email, installing software, device security, synchronising etc). It was observed that Facebook was heavily used and it is possible that linking the ALPS Suite into a familiar (and heavily used) system such as this may have made it easier for students to accept. However, it should be noted that in earlier pilots students had not been receptive to using Facebook for learning. This leaves open the question of how best to build on students’ familiarity with certain systems/technology whilst not being seen to intrude on their private/personal spaces.
When using the framework for planning it seemed that the most useful outcome was a set of quesitons or issues raised by the analysis which could then be used to help to plan the work. The issues either highlighted possible barriers that would need to be overcome (usually in the cultural practices or structures area) or new ways in which structures or agency (human behaviour) could be used to help the project itself.
We met with John Cook and ran a workshop at which we used the framework for both analysis of work that had been undertaken (ALPS) and to help think about and plan future work (the iPhone rollout and Sable). Here is an example of a page from the analysis of the ALPS work. We produced about 6 pages of analysis. Having done the analysis we then looked for patterns or stories in the analysis that helped to explain decisions that were taken by the project (such as why security was approached in the way we did – hightlighted in green) or lessons learned (places where things did not work as we had expected – example highlighted in blue).
At the same workshop we also used the framework to think about and plan a current project (iPhone project in school of medicine). Again several pages of analysis were produced and the participants reported finding the framework a useful way of looking at the issue. Intervention or innovation using networked mobile device If intervention is radical, means more need to justify the investment…ROI analysis of iphone project Cultural practices We need to bear in mind the difference between surgical and medical wards as a barrier/factor in m-learning Structures *Interesting to see if there is an improvement in students search terms over time? Can we capture some evaluation data straight from the device- census days? Micro dimensions Can we find out what form of conversational threads they have? Can we find out what peer learning/ support/ evaluation of these devices happens on facebook/ twitter/ Ning etc?

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Alan Arnold, Program Leader, Learning Environments at University of Canberra 2 years ago

Using theory to review and to plan the blending of mobile learning into practice Presentation Transcript

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