My presentation on 'Stewarding and Power in Networked Learning', discussing my research project with Lee Webster -- for Networked Learning 2018, Zagreb, Croatia

1. Stewarding and power
in networked learning
Andrew Whitworth and Lee Webster
University of Manchester
NLC 2018, Zagreb @DrewWhitworth1

2. Stewarding “is a creative process…. facilitating a community’s
emergence and growth” (WWS p. 25)
Etienne Wenger (pictured),
Nancy White and John Smith
(2009): Digital Habitats
What communities do to
create an environment
that supports their learning
needs
Wenger et al describe the role of technology
steward…
Stewarding the digital
habitat

3. Stewards play various roles, including purchasing and
configuring technological tools that the community uses to learn
But it is not just about managing the
technological space and determining its
configuration….
Effective stewarding is also about developing the
capacity for stewarding in other community members

4. Ideally, a responsive digital habitat would evolve through
collaborative learning processes. The community as a whole would be
reflecting on its practices, and an environment created which would
build the capacity for transforming the digital habitat - stewarding - in
a broad range of stakeholders, something called for by Wenger et al
(2009, p. 27). The digital habitat should therefore not just facilitate use
of the habitat, but participation in the ongoing learning processes which
continuously shape the resources available to the community.
(Whitworth 2012, p. 50)

5. • Taught postgraduate course, approx 60
students/year
• Distance learners and on-campus learners
collaborating in assessed online discussion
activities
• There are communicative goals to the activities
(learning course content)— but also instrumental
goals (achieving a good grade)
Our research context

6. To succeed at these tasks (get a good grade), students have to:
• Communicate their experience of the different contexts to
other group members (using a range of media)
• Make collective judgments about the relevance of
particular technologies to the design task….
• both in terms of technological solutions for the
museums…
• …and the creation of a digital habitat that will support
their learning needs in this case

7. The dataset
• Two years’ cohorts (2015-16, 2016-17)
• 20 discussion groups in total
• Around a million words!
• Consent secured from all participants
(Interviews also completed with a sample)

8. The data are an on-the-spot record of how a
series of informal, but collectively validated
judgments were constantly generated by
discussion and how these judgments shaped the
technologies and informational resources each
group drew on to fulfil its networked learning
task.

9. Foucault…
So where does he come into
all this?
Let us consider his view of power — and how it can
be discerned in these groups’ stewarding of their
digital habitat

10. Wenger’s definition of a ‘community of practice’:
negotiation of competence (in Lloyd’s terms — literacy)
The group are
clearly asserting
their freedom to
generate their
own digital
habitat….
…but when their activity
hits the ‘boundary’ that
is defined by the
parameters of the task…
…they choose to conform to what they perceive
as the technological demands of the ‘external’ setting

11. We could see this as (self-)disciplinary power….
… the digital habitat as one of the loci of (tutor)
authority in this setting…
A controlling discourse, one that students
are trying to conform to. See this interview:
There was another girl who was not very active so me and
[Student L] were trying to get her to speak so if she didn’t
appear on [course VLE] we had to find a way to speak with her.
So we started a discussion on Facebook and said “look this is
what’s going on”. Whatever we discussed with her we posted to
the discussion board. There were a lot of times when we told
her to log on and speak and write something because we were
all marked. (our emphasis)

12. But there are two important things going on here….
First, insofar as ‘power’ is being asserted here, it is as a
perception of that power… the tutor presence is implicit
The tutor is not demanding that certain practices be
developed, but the students perceive that he is…. and
each group perceives this slightly differently

13. Second, it is when students resist this perceived power
that practices develop and the digital habitat evolves…
Our own VLE proved to be tricky sometimes. ..I valued that, as a
team, we made use of different ways to communicate, group our ideas
and give shape to our preliminary decision and strategy. Gmail,
Facebook, Google Drive, and the chat room in [course VLE] helped us
explore the use of social media and Web 2.0 tools to better
communicate and write collaboratively.
This interplay of power and resistance is very well illustrated
by the ‘wiki case’.

14. Example: the saga of the wiki [15/White/3]
BB discussion boards are seen as
clunky, so J acts as steward:
“Being very pro-wiki I have created 4 wikis now
to help us with this project…” [12/4/16 23:34]
S (within 45 minutes) validates this judgment:
“I think the wikis are very reasonable and feasible. I think
wikis just assist us finishing our designs, we may not
need to put massive efforts on wikis, but it helps us to
build ideas.” [13/4/16 00:15]

15. S goes on to explain that:
“Because [lecturer] said on the [task] description 'One final
point though — please remember, only what appears on this
board can be graded. If you use any other discussion medium
as a group, that's fine, but you'll need to post some kind of
summary of that 'external' discussion here if it is to be allowed
for in the grade.’ “ [13/4/16 00:15]
Constraint on digital habitat imposed — but not a limiting one as
they are still free to (and do) use the wiki instead.
This is not a constraint on the learners’ generating their own context;
but a call for the students to collectively develop information literate
practice in this context. (Inclusivity — information management)
S has reminded his fellow group members of this call.

16. C says:
“Thanks for this J - you have made me smile as I nearly said
in one of my earlier posts could we have a wiki (with your
name next to it!). Not only do you like a good wiki....we all like
a good wiki now.
Anyway they look good. However can I ask how you do the
colour for the text, I tried last time and never succeeded and if
I am going to be green, then I need to sort that out now.
Looking forward to hearing how to do this (I am sure it is really
easy and I am just being stupid).” [13/4/16 05:56]

17. J replies:
“No worries C :) There is a button that has a 'T' on it
with a small triangle indicating a drop
down menu on the top row of tools. If you click on that
triangle the colour menu will appear and
the text colour can then be changed. “ [13/4/16 21:30]
Following the selection and validation of the wiki as a tool,
here the stewarding role extends to technology coaching.
Conventional skills, yes, but it shows they are not
neglected within the group as members help each other
learn how to steward the environment they are configuring
around them.

18. But it doesn’t end there.
Prompted by a reminder about the activity parameters (but not a
demand to do things differently) J worries that the wiki posts
will not ‘count’ in assessment….
if it comes to it I think it may have to be the case that each one of
use will have re-post our wiki contributions on a thread. If we go
back to the wikis we can actually track the edits we have each
made and we can perhaps note at the top the date that it was
posted on the wiki. How do we feel about that? I'm sorry, feel a
bit guilty that I lead us down the wiki path without realising the
fruits of our labour would not be seen but at the same time I feel
it made the discussion a lot more effective that the threads would
have done! [21/4/16 17:45]

19. By the following day (22/4/16) all the wiki posts have been
copied and pasted onto the BB board by student J, with
colour coding (the red colouring is theirs)…
Post:
RE: Pasted from wiki - second museum choice
Author: [S]
I voted for National History Museum because there may have some
points for us to design but I am also thinking about The Acropolis
Museum which has a lot of advance technological applications. It is
more modern than the NFM. Climate change exhibition hall also has
some innovative applications as well. Maybe we can get some
inspirations from Acropolis Museum and Climate change exhibition
hall then apply some for the NFM.
[24/4/16 19:33]

20. Power/knowledge?
It is a ‘vulgar’ reading of Foucault
(Kendall & Wickham. p.55) to suggest
that power and knowledge are the
same thing…
Power is non-stratified, local, unstable
and flexible; knowledge is stratified,
stable and segmented.

21. The power that has been invested in this setting through the
pedagogical design of its information landscape by the tutor is
simultaneously resisted by the group…..
it is this resistance that then contributes to the formation of
knowledge and, consequently, proto-practices.

22. The research sheds light on how HE institutions can enfold information/ dig
It is about supporting the learning
community and its negotiation of
what it means to be competent
or literate in the community
context
…as opposed to the university context
and its definition of what ‘digital literacy’
and ‘information literacy’ mean
In fact it is that definition that constitutes a boundary object for this
community — something which does not constrain, but facilitates
their learning in this case.

23. –Drew Whitworth (drew.whitworth@manchester.ac.uk)
- Lee Webster (lee.webster@mbs.ac.uk)
Thank you!