To accompany the presentation at the University of Huddersfield, 7th September 2015 This paper explains what media-enhanced learning is and how it disrupts existing, overly simple, dichotomies and media, space and learning.

1. Finding new spaces through media
enhanced learning
Andrew Middleton
Head of Academic Practice & Learning Innovation LEAD, Sheffield Hallam University
@andrewmid
TEEEFest 2015 University of Huddersfield 7th September 2015 Finding New Spaces through
Media-Enhanced Learning
Media- Enhanced Learning Media- Enhanced Learning Beyond the
dominance of text
What do I mean by Media-enhanced learning?
Academia exists in spaces that are dominated by text. We should not dismiss text and its
academic tradition
But we should consider possibilities beyond text to enhance or transform the learning space
We should look at how the learning space (or learner’s context for learning) can be
extended by:
• Playing with time and making judgements about synchronous and asynchronous
media interventions
• Playing with place and making judgements
• Playing with social, on and off line, to understand learning as being conversational
• Playing with personal, on and off line, to understand learning as being ultimately
about self-construction and self-regulation
• Playing with the visual world, how we can represent ideas and knowledge as
authentic problems
• Playing with the aural world to appreciate the power of voice in forming identity
and finding meaning
We will look at this space and how it is being used by academics – including you!
Learning and teaching thrives along its contextualised and complex
continua in the Third Space
The concept of media-enhanced learning relates to space
In fact it challenges simple binary notions of space
For example,
We often talk about
• Formal or Informal spaces, for example classrooms and cafes respectively…

2. • Physical or virtual environments…
• Facilities the university provides or facilities the student provides for themselves e.g.
PCs or BYOD
• We talk about activity and passivity e.g. arguments about whether lectures and
‘content’ are good or bad
These binaries are unhelpful because they miss what is really important:
Learning and teaching thrives along its contextualised and complex continua in
the Third Space
Dimensions of media-enhanced learning
We’ll be looking at the various qualities of different media and how they are used in
higher education
This is about possibilities
Keep an eye on the “C” words!
Dimensions C’s - Qualities of media-enhanced learning
Voice clarity conversation conviction
Smart capability creativity connectivity
Social media communication collaboration
Mobile connection context
Video capture curation cognition co-operation
Play control content clips convincing
Image collection construction
Project co-production challenge community
A ‘concrete’ authentic learning experience
…But first, what is the need?
Need
Why do we need media-enhanced learning?
We need to,
• engage and satisfy our students more deeply – appeal to intrinsic motivation
and develop learning identity (a sense of becoming);
• Recognise the Global Learning Space: the diversity of subjects taught in higher
education, their signature pedagogies, enriched by the authenticity of the global
context – and therefore reflecting the diverse contexts of learners, graduates and
disciplines;
• connect ways of learning to make use of the learner’s lifewide experience and
develop employability and resilience by understanding flexibility and agility as
graduate attributes- develop digitally capable, media literate, flexible and agile
thinkers;

3. • remove ourselves from the constraints of a pre-digital learning landscape
to optimise teaching and learning – practice outside of pre-digital constraints.
Now we are going to look at practice and possibilities picking up on some of those ‘C’
words
Practice and Possibilities
How are media-enhanced learning approaches being used?
How are you using media-enhanced learning
Conversation
Conversation
feed in, feed back, feed forward
Value of the ‘digital voice’ – who are we talking about? – there is great value in the
voices of academics, student buddies and mentors, employers, clients, ‘publics’
Media-intervention: orientation (scene setting), motivation (from extrinsic to intrinsic),
challenge (setting high expectations and valuing real world complexity), reflection (using
media to develop and support critical thinking)
Qualities: clarity, conviction, discourse
Promoting identity, interactivity, high expectations
Examples
• Employer briefing
• Public comment
• Client stories
• Audio feedback
• Student podcasts
Capture and co-operation
Digital Video
Capture and co-operation – video as an accessible ‘making’ media, finding and flipping
(EBL, PBL), heightening meaning through real word connection
‘Gathering’ evidence – using the smart device as a ‘vacuum cleaner’ sucking in the gritty
world around us (lifewide as context for learning)
Camera or screen capture – Go out or stay in!
Time and movement – video suggests animation, process, function and time are
important
Multi-dimension team-based projects – co-operative learning
Application of learning – don’t write an essay this time, show me what you know
Examples
• Field trips

4. • Patient stories
• Scene setting
• Expert voices
Collection and construction
Digital Image
Gathering and construction(ism)
Digital narratives - storytelling
Evidence - sense making
Symbolism – an alternative language
Openendedness – an idea presented visually has space for the learning to make their own
connections and sense
Representation – a picture is worth 1,000 words
Witness – the act of photographing and being present
Examples
• Capturing whiteboards, post its, slides
• Note making in active learning
• Illustrating projects
• Infographics
• Poster assignments
• Storyboarding
• Digital storytelling
Co-production
Thinking about collaborative co-construction as a framework for learning - group work, and
methods such as,
• Enquiry-based learning– research different dimensions of a group project
• Problem-based learning– working together to investigate and prove different
solutions to an authentic problem
• Project-based learning – meaning application of learning through scaffolded and
clearly constrained task-based activity
• Learner-generated content/context (Garnett) – the shift is from a content-centric
idea of learning to a learning in context view of learning
• Self-direction – the individual or group interpret the brief and make it their own
• Self-determinism – the learner constructs, executes and reflects on their (e.g.
Experiential Learning, Heutagogy)
Examples
• Write a journal article
• Create a multimedia presentation
• Build a class wiki

5. • Peer review academic work
• Social bookmarking
Content control - Play
Thinking about teaching built around concepts, and the use of clips and how we can now
provide new ways of accessing ideas and knowledge.
Rich, authentic and immersive – multimedia, believable, concerted commitment and
concentration over time
Reusable ‘ready mades’ – DuChamp i.e. association, juxtaposition, challenging
representation
Easy to embed – conceptually driven active learning
Global context – representations are diverse
Self-paced – access and control this at will
Examples
• Flipped classroom concept clips
• Audio summaries
• YouTube content
Social Media for Learning framework*
*Beckingham & Middleton – see Smart Learning book
How learners can construct personal learning networks and develop autonomous
approaches to their study
Socially inclusive
• supporting and validating learning through mutually beneficial, jointly enterprising and
communally constructive communities of practice;
• fostering a sense of belonging, being and becoming;
• promoting collegiality.
Lifewide and lifelong
• connecting formal, non-formal and informal learning progression;
• developing online presence;
• developing digital literacies.
Media neutral
• learning across and through rich, multiple media.
Learner-centred
• promoting self-regulation, self-expression, self-efficacy and confidence;
• accommodating niche interests and activities, the ‘long tail’ of education.

6. Co-operative
• promotes working together productively and critically with peers (co-creation) in
self-organising, robust networks that are scalable, loosely structured, self-validating,
and knowledge-forming.
Open and accessible
• supporting spatial openness (without physical division);
• supporting temporal openness i.e. synchronously and asynchronously;
• supporting social openness i.e. democratic, inclusive;
• supporting open engagement i.e. in terms of being: geographically extended, inclusive,
controlled by the learner, gratis, open market, unconstrained freedom, access to
content (Anderson, 2013);
• being open to ideas.
Authentically situated
• making connections across learning, social and professional networks;
• scholarly;
• establishing professional online presence and digital identity.
Smart Learning
Convergence and disruption - multiplying emerging possibilities
• Rich digital media –disrupts dependency on text
• User-generated media - disrupts provided content model
• BYOD - –disrupts provided technology model
• Mobile learning – disrupts provided classroom model
• Open learning –disrupts formal models of delivery
• Social media for learning –disrupts one-to-many model
Commons – liminality
Creativity, commons, openness, disruption, change
It’s students who learn! Learning is unbounded
• Wherever they are – formal, informal, non-formal, moving from one context to
another
• Whoever they are with – on their own, inspired or challenged by peers, tutors,
family, friends, work mates…
• Whenever they are ready – ultimately it is up to the student – but we can make
the learning space richer
• However they determine
• Time and space neutral: rich, accessible, just-in-time
Media interventions

7. Media interventions
A way of framing engagement and learning with media,
• How are you orientating the learner to the course, module or task?
• How are you motivating the learner by appealing to their curiosity and need for
wellbeing? Or how are you moderating extrinsic drivers?
• How are you framing and setting high expectations to challenge your students?
• How are you facilitating critical and reflective thinking?
You may be providing media content or involving students in generating media content
Thank you
@andrewmid
a.j.middleton@shu.ac.uk
http://melsig.shu.ac.uk
http://www.slideshare.net/amiddlet50