Mobilities and Ecologies: Reflections on Frameworks for Mobile Learning

Mobilities and Ecologies: Reflections on Frameworks for Mobile Learning
Theo Hug (Innsbruck / A) DGfE-Kongress 2018 │ Symposium SY-I-15 : Challenges for Mobile Learning: Ecologies, Mobilities, and Migration March 19, 2018 1
Theo Hug
Mobilities and Ecologies: Reflections on
Frameworks for Mobile Learning

Overview
 Points of Departure
 Ecological Turn and/or Mobilities Turn?
 Potentials and Limitations of Frameworks of Mobilities and Ecologies
 Challenges for Mobile Learning and Education
 Conclusion

Points of Departure (1) – Understanding M-learning
“Just what is mobile elearning (mLearning)?
It's elearning through mobile computational
devices: Palms, Windows CE machines,
even your digital cell phone.” (Quinn 2000)
http://www.linezine.com/2.1/features/cqmmwiyp.htm
From technology-orientated conceptualizations and definitions …
https://blog.learnlets.com/wp-content/
uploads/2018/02/OfficialClose150W.jpg

… and further technology-orientated
conceptualizations and definitions …
“The fifth Peer Learning Activity (PLA) of the ET 2020
Working Group on Digital Skills and Competences
(WG DSC) […] focused on comprehensive mobile
learning strategies in education and how smartphones,
tablets and laptops can be used to improve teaching
and learning and to help students acquire digital skills
and competences.”
Education & Training 2020 Working Group on Digital Skills and Competences (2017: 2)
https://ec.europa.eu/education/sites/education/files/201708-mobile-learning_en.pdf

… to enhanced perspectives and complex conceptualizations:
mobile learning is not primarily about technology or about delivering content to mobile
devices but, instead,
 “about the processes of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in,
and across, new and ever changing contexts and learning spaces. And, it is about
understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces”
(Pachler et al. 2010: 6)
 “process of coming to know through conversations across multiple contexts amongst
people and personal interactive technologies” (Sharples et al. 2008: 5)
 “learning across multiple contexts, through social and content interactions, using
personal electronic devices” (Crompton 2013: 4)
Further perspectives, conceptualizations, and frameworks?

Points of Departure (4) – M-learning avant la lettre?
Mobile learning as related to
 dealing with clay tokens for administrative purposes
in pre-historic times (cf. MacGinnis et al. 2014)
 social and religious learning with the Pauline epistles,
 distance education by means of portable learning materials,
 stealing or borrowing (loan) exhibitions or circulating artifacts
by means of traveling exhibitions or roadshows,
 learning in the context of field trips and excursions, etc.
How about a definition covering histories and futures, too?
Mobile learning is learning across multiple contexts,
through social and content interactions, using mobile devices.
by © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons,
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
w/index.php?curid=8452539

Interim conclusion as things stand in flux
 old educational paradoxes revisited
 new paradoxes and ambivalences
 new contexts and complexities
Quest for approriate and viable
frameworks in view of complex
and paradoxical constellations.
Turn on ecologies and mobilities
by Sarah Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13585258

Ecologies and the ecological turn
 “The ‘mobile complex’ […] is characterised by an
exciting infrastructure in flux, which is at best only
partially understood in terms of its educational
potential” (Pachler, Bachmair & Cook 2010: 11)
 “[…] a conceptual model in which educational
uses of mobile technologies are viewed in
ecological terms as part of socio-cultural and
pedagogical contexts in transformation” (ibd.: 25)
 “[…] This partial rejection of the economic
imperative behind mobile learning and formal
education we term the ‹ecological turn›.”
(Pachler, Bachmair & Cook 2011: 4)
Source: Pachler, Bachmair & Cook 2010: 25)

Mobilities and the mobility turn
 developing a post-disciplinary concept for a ‘post-
societal’ era, considering a variety of mobilities
that are “materially reconstructing the ‘social as
society’ into the ‘social as mobility’” (Urry 2000: 3)
 hybrid systems of ‘materialities and mobilities’ and
the ‘new mobilities’ paradigm (Sheller/Urry 2006)
 … “mobilizing analyses that have been historically
static, fixed and concerned with predominantly
a-spatial ‘social structures’” (Urry 2012)
http://en.forumviesmobiles.org/video/2012/12/10/what-mobility-turn-467
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhhzOOEY0To
“[…] the new transdisciplinary field of mobilities research encompasses
research on the spatial mobility of humans, non-humans, and objects; the
circulation of information, images, and capital; as well as the study of the
physical means for movement such as infrastructures, vehicles, and
software systems that enable travel and communication to take place.”
(Sheller 2014: 791)

 productive metaphors for the
understanding of contemporary,
mobile and mediated social life
 transversal reasoning and cross-
over combinations
 innovative perspectives inside and
outside academic worlds
 new methodologies
 clarification of concepts and
conceptual relations
Frameworks of mobilities and ecologies:
How about potentials and limitations?
 umbrella terms, shimmering codes
and all-embracing interests
 oscillating between all and nothing
 implicitly supporting neoliberal
ideologies or techno-bureaucracy
 counting on positive connotations,
but passing fad
 self-marketing and conceptual
politics
More turns? Mobilization as ‘mobilizing mobilities’ and/or ecologization?

art literacy, computer literacy, consumer literacy, critical literacy, cultural literacy, cyber-
literacy, data literacy, digital literacy, diversity literacy, ecological literacy, economic
literacy, emotional literacy, environmental literacy, fashion literacy, film literacy, financial
literacy, food literacy, gender literacy, geographical literacy, hacking literacy, health
literacy, information literacy, intercultural literacy, internet literacy, library literacy,
management literacy, mobile literacy, multicultural literacy, multi-literacy, multimodal
literacy, numerical literacy, political literacy, sexual literacy, situated literacy, television
literacy, visual literacy, zoological literacy, etc.
based on various conceptualizations of ‘literacy’
and an ecology of literacies
From the ‘literacification’ of (nearly) everything …

media ecology, information ecology, knowledge ecology, socio-cultural ecology,
community ecology, communicative ecology, ecosystem ecology, general ecology,
historical ecology, mental ecology, philosophical ecologies, theoretical ecology, microbial
ecology, molecular ecology, political ecology, postcolonial ecologies, feminist ecologies,
border ecologies, design ecologies, educational ecologies, hybrid ecologies, liberation
ecologies, infrastructural ecologies, listening ecologies, symbolic ecologies, new
documentary ecologies, wild ecologies, ecologies of affect, ecologies of innovation,
screen ecologies, ecology of ideas, ecology of materials, ecology of leadership,
ecologies of power, ecology of sense, ecology of scale, ecologies of sharing, etc.
based on various conceptualizations of ‘ecology’ –
an ‘ecological turn’ embedded in an ecology of turns?
… to the ‘ecologization’ of everything?

 Linguistic Turn (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Richard Rorty et al.)
 Pragmatic Turn (Ferdinand de Saussure, Richard J. Bernstein et al.)
 Symbolic Turn (Ernst Cassirer)
 Cognitive Turn (Ulric Neisser, Friedhart Klix, Jerome Bruner, Meir Sternberg)
 Interpretative Turn (Richard Shusterman, Kenneth Howe et al.)
 Narrative Turn (Fritz Schütze, Steve De Shazer et al.)
 Cultural Turn (Peter Janich, Doris Bachmann-Medick et al.)
 Qualitative Turn (Klaus B. Jensen)
 Affective Turn (Luc Ciompi, Patricia Clough, Jean O’Malley Halley et al.)
 Spatial Turn (Jörg Döring, Tristan Thielmann, Jörg Dünne, Stephan Günzel et al.)
 Postcolonial Turn (Homi K. Bhabha et al.)
 Gender Turn (Laura L. Frader, Christian Schmelzer et al.)
 Body Turn (Robert Gugutzer, Sibylle Hübner-Funk)
 Pictorial Turn (William J.T. Mitchell et al.)
 Iconic Turn (Gottfried Boehm, Hubert Burda, Christa Maar, Frank Hartmann et al.)
 Medial Turn (Göran Sonesson, Reinhard Margreiter, Sybille Krämer, Siegfried J. Schmidt et al.)
 Social Turn (James Paul Gee)
 Participatory Turn (Jorge N. Ferrer, Jacob H. Sherman)
 Performative Turn (Peter Dirksmeier, Ilse Helbrecht, Walburga Hülk, Judith Butler et al.)
 Semantic Turn (Klaus Krippendorff)
 Semiotic Turn (Jacques Derrida, Peter Engelmann)
 Mobile Turn (John Urry, André H. Caron, Letizia Caronia et al.)
 Sharing Turn (Volker Grassmuck)
 Zoological Turn (Markus Wild et al.)
Some Examples for Turns in Humanities and Social Sciences

Examples for Turns in Pedagogy and Educational Research
 Realistische Wendung (H. Roth, W. Brezinka)
 Anthropologische Wende (F. Bollnow)
 Technologische Wende (F. von Cube)
 Reflexive Wende (H. Tietgens)
 Emanzipatorische Wende (K. Mollenhauer)
 Alltagstheoretische Wende (H. Thiersch, R. Hörster et al.)
 Antiautoritäre Wende (A.S. Neill)
 Humanistische Wende (V. Buddrus)
 Neokonservative Wende (H. Maier, Th. Wilhelm, G.-K. Kaltenbrunner et al.)
 Antipädagogische Wende (E. von Braunmühl u.a.)
 Sozialwissenschaftliche Wende (D. Benner, F. Brüggen, et al.)
 Postmoderne Wende (D. Baacke et al.)
 Critical Turn (I. Gottesman)
 Konstruktivistische Wende (K. Reich et al.)
 Systemtheoretische Wende (N.N.)
 Self-reflexive Turn (G. Tanaka)
 Instructional Turn (D. Hamilton)
 Environmental Turn (Ch. Doelker)
 Empirische Wende (D. Buchhaas-Birkholz et al.)
 Ontological Turn (G.L. Brown)
 Ecological Turn (N. Pachler et al.)
 Complexity Turn (Th. Rucker)
All Korean Traffic signs by P.Ctnt (Own work)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Further reflections on potentials and limitations
 turns as paradigmatic shifts, “arguments on occasion”,
calls for turnarounds or reorientations, location policy
 metaphors broadening horizons and enabling shifts of
perspectives but also creating blind spots
 need for clarification of “metaphorators” (Jaynes 1987),
sources or frames and modes of their application to
new fields, also “material metaphors” (Hayles 2002),
“transcoding metaphors” (van den Boomen 2009)
 considering historic, contemporary and future
constellations of mobilities including “mobiles inside”
and intertwined perspectives of media of ecologies
and ecologies of media
 relating holistic and particularistic views as well as
ideas of a “general ecology” (Hörl et al. 2017) and
epistemologies of “regional” ecologies
Photo: Theo Hug
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/
chemistry/laureates/2016/popular-
chemistryprize2016.pdf

Challenges for Mobile Learning and Education
 explaining and illustrating the relevance of complex understandings of mobile learning
beyond technical user knowledge, “education 4.0” or “ituning” of schools and universities
 enabling awareness of interlaced contexts and forms of contextualization and framing
 cultivating cognitive mobility through mediation between individual experiences and collective
memories and combinations of critical, ecological, computational, and design thinking
 getting a sense of co-evolutionary developments and fostering medial empowerment by
encouragement of balancing acts between immersive and (self-)reflexive dynamics
 understanding de-naturalization of ecologies
as well as embedded power structures in both
dynamics of “naturalization” and “culturalization”
of nested ecologies and mobilities
 being aware of contrary dynamics of digital
inclusion and exclusion and short-term
advantages at the cost of dependence and
submission to techno-bureaucratic systems
of surveillance
Graphic by © Christoph Pirker

An Educational Example:
Mocumentaries and Documentaries
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/02/chinas-surveillance-state-henan-xinjiang-beyond/
http://operationnaked.org/
http://agoodamerican.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTyvLpNpa9E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYg_0Imrnr4
https://londonreal.tv/e/nsa-whistleblower
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=mEq42BDBVWk
https://staatsschutz.at/en/

Conclusion
 mobilities and ecologies are no values
per se – they necessitate contextual
considerations in various respects
 future-oriented developments require
a differentiated approach to historical
and contemporary narratives of mobile
learning including discourse assessment
 educational “ecowashing” of all sorts of mobilities in the service of cyber-
physical systems and the digital economy is no solution – but there are
many digital innovation pathways if any, also for learning and education
Graphic by © Christoph Pirker

References
 Aßmann, S., Moormann, P., Nimmerfall, K., Thomann, M. (Eds.): Wenden. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven auf das Phänomen turn. Wiesbaden: Springer
VS.
 Bachmair, B., Pachler, N., Cook, J. (2011). Editorial. Mobile Learning Towards Curricular Validity in the Maelstrom of the Mobile Complex.
MedienPaedadogik. Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung, Themenheft Nr. 19: Mobile Learning in Widening Contexts: Concepts and
Cases. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21240/mpaed/19/2011.07.09.X
 Büscher, M., Urry, J. (2009). Mobile Methods and the Empirical. European Journal of Social Theory, 12(1): 99-116. DOI: 10.1177/1368431008099642.
 Caron, Andre H. & Caronia, Letizia (2007): Moving Cultures: Mobile Communication in Everyday Life. Montreal / Quebec: McGill-Queen's UP.
 Crompton, H. (2013). A historical overview of mobile learning: Toward learner-centered education. In Z. L. Berge & L. Y. Muilenburg (Eds.): Handbook
of mobile learning (pp. 3–14). Florence, KY: Routledge.
 Hörl, E., Burton, J. (2017): General Ecology. The New Ecological Paradigm. London: Bloomsbury Academics.
 Hug, T. (2015). Mobility and Media Education in a Digital Age: Conceptual Considerations and Perspectives between Media Activism and Adjustment
by means of Learning Technologies. In: Bachmair, Ben & Scott, Howard (Eds.), Digital Mobility - Media education quo vadis?
Special Issue of the Journal - Media Education: Studi, Ricerche, Buone Pratiche. 6(2): 224-247.
 Hug, T. (2015). Microlearning and Mobile Learning. In: Y. Zheng (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Mobile Phone Behavior. (Volumes 1, 2, & 3). Hershey, PA: IGI
Global, pp. 490-505. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8239-9.
 Jensen, O. B. (2009). Flows of Meaning, Cultures of Movements – Urban Mobility as Meaningful Everyday Life Practice, Mobilities, (4)1, 139-158, DOI:
10.1080/17450100802658002.
 Kress, G., Pachler, N. (2007). ‘Thinking about the ‘m’ in m-learning.’ In: Hug, T. (ed.). Didactics of Microlearning. Concepts, Discourses and Examples.
Münster: Waxmann, pp. 139-154.
 Meister, D., Hug, T., Friesen, N. (Eds.) (2014). Educational Media Ecologies. MedienPädagogik. Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung.
Special Issue 24. Available at http://www.medienpaed.com/issue/view/22
 Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., & Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning: Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer.
 Sheller, M. (2014). The new mobilities paradigm for a live sociology. Current Sociology Review, 62(6) 789-11.
 Sheller, M. (2017). From spatial turn to mobilities turn. Current Sociology, 65(4): 623 – 639. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392117697463
 Urry, J. (2000): Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the twenty-first Century. London/New York: Routledge.

Thanks for listening –
it‘s now time for
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