This presentation by Sara Bragg (University of Brighton) was part of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) symposium at BERA Annual Conference in London, September 2014. The project, funded by the HEA, offered groups of student teachers to reflect on the increased use of technology in schools to track students and the use of technology by students outside schools. To find out more, read the project report at http://bit.ly/ZCqNq8

1. Promoting reflection on the
digitalised spaces and
cultures of schooling
BERA conference 23-25 September 2014
Institute of Education, London
Sara Bragg
Education Research Centre
University of Brighton

2. Responding to the HEA summit
themes:
• Access and engagement with scholarly and
disciplinary literature and knowledge;
• Questioning accepted ways of doing things;
• Creating space and time for reflection away from
the busyness of school;
• The role of HE in supporting the development of
new practice in response to the changing world
in which we live – AND
• … in enabling emerging professionals to ‘speak
back’ to debates?

3. We need to
talk about
digital
cultures…
but not just
about TEL
or utopian
possibilities
based on
minority
digital users

4. … also
about the
many,
varied ways
digital
cultures,
are making
themselves
felt in
schools…

5. Research perspectives on digital
cultures at home and school:
• the increasing centrality of data and software systems
to processes of teaching and school improvement
(Selwyn 2010, 2013; Grek & Ozga 2008);
• the mundane use of surveillance technologies such as
CCTV (Hope 2009, Livingstone 2014);
• how cybernetic metaphors of networks, nodes and so
on are permeating how we think and talk about
learning (Loveless and Williamson 2013), with
implications for teacher and student identities and
subjectivities.
• digital childhoods – youth mediatised cultures and
moral / affective responses (Hope 2014; boyd 2014;
Miller 2011; Face 2 Face: tracing the real and the
mediated in children’s cultural worlds, PI Rachel
Thomson, ESRC NCRM 2013-14)

6. Promoting reflection on the ‘digitalised
cultures and spaces of schooling’, HEA
2014
Project involved:
• Series of workshops / discussions bringing
together researchers, lecturers and student
teachers specifically around this under-explored
but cross-sector/ subject/ curriculum issue
Outcomes
• Composite vignettes/ materials based on
discussions and Face2Face research project –
see http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/digitalculturesofschooling/

8. Student vignette: Coco’s ‘virtual
schoolbag’
• Aims to raise awareness about students’ ‘virtual
schoolbags’ (Thomson) – here, digital literacies
and practices that are often overlooked or not
understood by schools: Twitter, youtuber
phenomenon, fan writing (wattpad.com),
acceptance of surveillance (eg CCTV), the
decline of Facebook, celebrity stalking,
sexualities …
• … but responses often refer to the ‘risk’ agenda!
• And to ‘front of classroom’ perspectives

9. Student teacher vignette: Alex,
where is the knowledge?
• Possibility here of collective, diverse experiences
speaking back to research agendas? Cf Pat
Thomson on ‘middle work’ and ‘decentring
expertise’
• Eg – explaining unevenness of practices with
reference to incompatible formats, lack of
training, inadequate storage or printing facilities,
student subversion, pressure to get results
stifling curriculum development…
• Contradictory pressures: as a parent I don’t want
my kid online all day as well as all night!
• The retreat from a personal online digital life as a
consequence of fears about ‘professional’
identity

10. Role of HEIs in ITE?
• Space for reflection and ‘playing’ eg ‘Learning in
a Digital Age’ (LIDA) on SKE PGCE:
“It’s a reflective space because of how it’s set up.
Each three weeks, we’d have a lecture… the next
one some kind of non-contact activity, we’d go
away and watch videos, read stuff, and the third
week, everyone would discuss everyone’s
different experiences and opinions, then we’d all
write a 500 word thinkpiece that’s shared on a
blog, I’ve got a lot out of it.”
• Cross-disciplinary encounters and support
“Meeting up was great. I think that is what
professionals need - a space where you can talk
and laugh and be critical - sharing knowledge of
how it is elsewhere is vital... We need to share
this. We need to get out of the slightly myopic
'my school does it like this' way….”

11. Role of HEIs in ITE?
• Potential for networking and professional
development for the future
“Whenever I see someone who knows how to
use something, I take their contact details and
ask if I can contact them if I’m stuck. But a lot of
students don’t do that. They need to know that
they need to build up a network, a black book of
people you can go to. It’s professionalism to
network like that, it’s how you create professional
conduct”.

12. Role of HEIs in ITE?
• Making similar ‘thinking spaces’ part of our
‘offer’ to NQTs from Sept 2014 (inspired also
by P4T)
“In terms of what HE can do, you have the
physical spaces, you have the relationship with
new and open-minded teachers, and you have
a pipeline into research. Maybe that also puts
you into a good position to provide intelligence
in this area and drive policy from the ground
up. It is a valuable knowledge base that could
be mined”.
• Cf Pat Thomson, again – research middle work
and decentring expertise

13. Sara Bragg
Education Research Centre
s.bragg@brighton.ac.uk