lecture on Digital Literacy given to 3rd Year Initial Teacher Education UGs

1. Literacy: Hindsight, Insight
and Foresight
John Cook
October 2012

2. Structure
1. Learning outcomes
2. Introduction to BRILLE & D4DL research
theme
3. Hindsight perspective, with initial questions
and Vygotskian perspective
4. Insight: Augmented Contexts for Development
5. Foresight: Future research could revolve
around the following issues and questions

3. 1. Learning outcomes
By the end of this session participants will:
- Have been exposed to the notion that „Literacy„ and fact
that this is a contested area with calls for a radical
reappraisal of the phenomenon of "literacy".
- Be aware of the Vygotskian view of technology as a tool
like language that can mediate learning in a ZPD.
- Have considered a more contemporary view that takes
a critical account of "literacy“ by examining research in
mobile learning that looks at Augmented Contexts for
Development (research at UWE/BRILLE)
- Have considered and discussed how future research
could revolve around several issues and questions

4. 2. Bristol Centre for Research
in Lifelong Learning and Education (BRILLE)
University of the West of England (UWE)
http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/cahe/edu/research/researchcentre-brille.aspx
• Based in North Bristol, West England, UK
• Originating in a Lifelong Learning Research Group formed in 2002
• Based in the Department of Education
• BRILLE conducts theoretical through to applied research
• Major research theme is Designing for Digital Learners (D4DL)
• http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2435
• Current projects include:
• FP7 BrEaking New Ground IN the SciencE Education Realm. (ENGINEER)
• Previous projects include:
• FP7 MATURE IP
• Leonardo da Vinci programme DISCO I&II the European Dictionary of Skills and
Competencies

5. People
• John Cook
– http://westengland.academia.edu/JohnCook/A
bout
– Professor in Education
– 20 years in TEL research, specialises mobile
learning and social media

6. 3. Hindsight perspective
• Interested in research that develops a
theoretical dialogue between „literacies‟
and technology enhanced learning
• In particular cognitive psychology and
education
• Work of Vygotsky
• Before the above I paint a broad brush
picture of the landscape.

7. Digitally literate learners
Kress (2003) has observed that young
people use new forms of communication
which appear to include layers of meaning
not accessible by „traditional‟ language
skills alone.

8. Digitally literate learners
“… include the ability to understand the power of
images and sounds, to recognize and use that
power, to manipulate and transform digital media,
to distribute them pervasively, and to easily adapt
them to new forms.”
(New Media Consortium, 2005, p. 2, original was in italics)

9. Children’s bedrooms become
media labs
UK children aged 12-15 have an average
of six media devices in their bedrooms
and children aged 8-11 have an average of
four such devices (Ofcom 2008, p. 6).

10. BUT we are seeing fragmentation of
‘literacy’ abilities
• The results of PISA on reading competence
suggest a fragmenting of literacy performace in
terms of social cohesion.
• Except for in a few countries, for example in
Finland, around 18% of 15 year old students
tend to be unable to read texts (OECD, 2004, p.
5).
• This in the sense of comprehension: finding
information in a paragraph, interpreting the
information and reflecting on or evaluating it.

11. The Google Generation provide a
warning here
“…young people demonstrate an ease and
familiarity with computers, they rely on the most
basic search tools and do not possess the
critical and analytical skills to assess the
information that they find on the web.”
JISC and British Library (2008)

12. Web 2.0 and learning?
“… only a few embryonic signs of criticality,
self-management and meta-cognitive
reflection … There is a disparity between
home and school use of IT …)
Becta (2008).

13. Initial Questions
• How can we reconceptualise the ways in
which learning spaces are designed?
• How can we conduct research into digital
literacy and Technology Enhanced
Learning when these momentous changes
are largely taking place out there „in the
wild‟?

14. • LMLG (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, in press)
argue that the context for learning in the 21st
Century has brought about the need to re-
conceptualize or extend theories from the past if
we are to develop an approach to deep learning
design for the present and the future.

15. Augmented Contexts for Development
(Cook, 2010)
• I argue that
– the nature of learning and meaning making is being
augmented by new digital tools and media,
particularly by mobile devices and the networks and
structures to which they connect people;
– our understanding of how to design for these new
contexts for development & learning can benefit from
a re-conceptualisation of Vygotskys work;
– the above leads to notion of Augmented Contexts for
Development.

16. Back to the future
(this will be quick and painless )
www.ukzn.ac.za/cae/pfi/sqd/lev.htm

17. • The “higher psychological processes”, as
Vygotsky termed them, result from a
relation “between human beings and their
environment, both physical and social”
((Vygotsky 1978/1930, p. 19).
• Vygotsky considered “social interactions”
to be those like „to speak‟ as the
transformation of practical activities such
as „to use a tool‟.

18. • The leading processes are that of
internalization and that of the instrumental
use of a tool.
• This happens where “An operation that
initially represents an external activity is
reconstructed and begins to occur
internally” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 56).

19. • Further, the social situation of the external
activity, like the conditions for the use of
tools, is internalized:
– “An interpersonal process is transformed into
an intrapersonal one” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p
57).

20. • “The transformation of an interpersonal
process into an intrapersonal one is the
result of a long series of developmental
events” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 57).

21. Vygotsky proposed the
Zone of Proximal Development
“It is the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level
of potential problem solving as determined
through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers.”
(Vygotsky, 1978/1930, p. 86, my bold)

22. • Vygotsky (1978/1930, p. 90) proposed “that an
essential feature of learning is that it creates the
zone of proximal development; that is, learning
awakens a variety of internal developmental
processes that are able to operate only when
the child is [in] interaction with people in his
environment and in cooperation with his peers.
Once these processes are internalized, they
become part of the child‟s independent
developmental achievement.”

23. 4. Insight:
Augmented Contexts for
Development
(2010)

24. Temporal underpinning of Augmented
Contexts for Development is fundamental
“Attention should be given first place among the major functions in the
psychological structure underlying the use of tools … the child is able
to determine for herself the “centre of gravity” of her perceptual field;
her behaviour is not regulated solely by the salience of individual
elements with it … In addition to reorganizing the visual-spatial
field, the child, with the help of speech, creates a time field that is just
as perceptible and real to him as the visual one. The speaking child
has the ability to direct his attention in a dynamic way. He can view
changes in his immediate situation from the point of view of
activities, and he can act in the present from the viewpoint of the
future.”
(Vygotsky, 1978/1930, p. 35-36, original italics, my bold.)

25. mScape @ Cistercian abbey

26. Elements of Augmented Context
for Development
• The physical environment (Cistercian abbey).
• Pedagogical plan.
• Tool: Visualisation/augmentation oriented approach
creates umbrella „Augmented Context for Development‟
for location based mobile devices (acts as substitute for
„more capable peer‟)
• Co-constructed „temporal context for development,‟
created within wider Augmented Context for
Development through
– Interpersonal interactions using tools (e.g. language, mobiles
etc) and signs
– Intrapersonal representations of the above functions

30. Qualitative analysis: process and explanatory
perspective, looking at the inner features of the
situation (Cook, 2010)
Screen shot of Carl Smith’s
wire-frame movie
reconstruction of Nine Alters
(http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/)
Students interacting @
Cistercian Chapel in
CONTSENS

31. Augmented Contexts for Development
(Cook, 2010)
• Visualisation/augmentation oriented approach.
• Wider Augmented Context for Development
substitutes for „more capable peer‟.
• Inside this wider Augmented Context:
– learners are supported as they co-create „temporal
contexts for development‟
– where the time field of attention becomes detached
from the perceptual field and unfolds itself in time.
• Thus augmenting development and learning.

32. 5. Foresight:
Future research could revolve around the following
issues and questions (from Becta report)
• The demands on teachers‟ time of innovating in this area should not be
understated, particularly if a more bottom-up mode of dissemination is to be
pursued. Periods of brief sabbatical leave could be considered for those
who wish to take leads in Web 2.0 innovation
• Web 2.0 is not exclusively confined to interactions with PC monitors.
Attention should be directed at the development of versatile and learner-
friendly mobile devices. If synchronised with network services, these offer a
valuable opening to extend Web 2.0 pedagogy.
• The tension between Web 2.0 modes of teaching and learning and the
traditional structure of educational practice needs to be confronted. This
applies in particular to the tension between collaborative study and
individual assessment, and also between the imperative for personal
research and the discipline of personal authorship.
• The breadth and depth of security and safety concerns within schools
should not be underestimated. Until practitioners are reassured about these
matters, progress will be halting. This reassurance must involve addressing
practice that relates to the management of peer and teacher intimidation
through Web 2.0 services and the cultivation of a less restrictive approach
to managing selective access to internet sites in school.

33. Questions & Discussion

34. References
• Becta (2008). Web 2.0 technologies for learning at KS3 and KS4:
Learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in and out of school. June).
Available from:
http://archive.teachfind.com/becta/research.becta.org.uk/upload-
dir/downloads/page_documents/research/web2_ks34_summary.p
df , accessed 23/10/12
• Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Phones as Mediating Tools Within
Augmented Contexts for Development. International Journal of
Mobile and Blended Learning, 2(3), 1-12, July-September. PDF
available download:
http://www.mendeley.com/download/public/7293303/4169531183/
bc70de880a4f7a7dff633120efcc8e8f1221a0c6/dl.pdf
• JISC and British Library (2008)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/01/googlegen.aspx,
accessed 10 January 2009

35. • Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in a New Media Age. London: Routledge.
• New Media Consortium (2005). A Global Imperative – the report of
the 21st century literacy summit. (p. 2, original was in italics).
Available at
http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/globalimperative.pdf, accessed
10th January, 2009.
• OECD (2004) Messages from PISA 2000. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/19/34107978.pdf
• Ofcom (2008) Media Literacy Audit - Report on UK children‟s media
literacy.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubr
ss/ml_childrens08/, accessed 5th September 2008.
• Pachler, N., Bachmair, B. and Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning:
Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer.
• Vygotsky, L. (1978 / 1930). Mind in society. The development of
higher psychological processes. Edited by M. Cole et al.,
Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.