This document discusses the concepts of ubiquitous learning versus the value of boundaries in education. It argues that while ubiquitous computing aims to remove all boundaries, boundaries play an important role in education by defining the purpose and appropriate uses of technology. True educational innovation requires acknowledging these boundaries rather than pretending they don't exist. The document advocates for more critically-minded research that questions techno-utopian visions and distinguishes appropriate technology uses and types based on educational goals and values.

1. Ubiquitous Learning Vs. the Value of Boundaries Carlo Perrotta

4. The “conundrum” of educational technology in compulsory education

5. The technology-enhanced classroom in 2011

6. Trying to innovate schools? Source: www.pennyarcade.com

7. I digress...

8. A “broker”

9. 21st century schooling Workforce skills required by employers Project-based and enquiry based curricula Real-life, authentic challenges

10. 21st century schooling Innovation as... Workforce skills required by employers Blurring Project-based and enquiry based curricula Real-life, authentic challenges

11. It didn’t work out Surely a lot of tech Many teachers doing interesting and “innovative” things... But the fundamental features are still the same Technology hasn’t transformed learning

12. Democratic change in an institutional, multi-faceted and highly contested domain... is SLOW! 1974 1944 1912 1992 2010

13. The closure of Becta...signalled a deeper crisis in the British ed-tech community

14. A sense of insecurity and confusion... A “crisis of representation” (e.g. Harvey, 1990) A risk of fragmentation and defensiveness

15. How did this happen? Innovation and “Ubiquity” are part of the problem, as well as part of the solution What are innovation processes? Many have written about it outside of education... However, the more critical voices offer the best insights Winner, 1986; Lefebrve, 1991, Harvey, 1990

16. Innovation... Removing barriers and limits, endlessly A politically and economically charged process

17. Ubiquitous computing Weiser, 1991

18. Ubiquitous learning

19. ubiquity as an “ideal” innovation scenario A scenario in which all boundaries and barriers are virtually absent Innovation: a socio-economic dynamic Technology Ubiquity Cyclic Blurring

20. What is the educational purpose of innovation and ubiquity? A distinction: learning through technology (transformation) Learning with and about technology (how and why technologies are used differently, in different contexts and domains– slow, incremental, negotiated and contested)

21. Educational Innovation as a “conceptual dustbin” 21st century skills Motivate disaffected students Teach Latin Student voice Web 2.0 at school PowerPoint More discipline Neuroscience The cloud innovation “..to encourage a greater degree of innovation” (UK DFE 2010, p10)

22. The value of boundaries The pitfalls of “ubiquity”: Dilution of the educational purpose Blurring within a business-driven rhetoric Failure to acknowledge the boundaries doesn’t remove them, only makes them invisible (Young, 2009)

23. So where do we start? Acknowledging the cultural boundaries between areas of knowledge (Young and Muller, 2010) The bounded nature of human cognition: the cognitive architecture (Mayer, 2003) Bounded and specific uses of ITCs (Cox & Marshall, 2007; Perrotta, under review) self-regulation needs boundaries (Boekaerts & Niemivierta, 2000)

24. Wrapping up... Do we need more critically minded research and practice in TEL? Proudly wearing the values of education on our sleeves, and ready to question the grand visions and the techno-utopian rhetoric (see Biesta, 2010) Adebate about the distinctions, the boundaries and the demarcations between types and ranges of technology use, how these fit with the types and ranges of education we would like to see

25. Thanks! C.perrotta@ioe.ac.uk Carlo.perrotta@futurelab.org.uk @carloper

26. Some references Biesta, G.J.J. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still won’t work. From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 29(5), 491-503. Convery, A. (2009) ‘The pedagogy of the impressed: how teachers become victims of technological vision’ Teachers and Teaching, 15, 1, 25-41 Harvey, D.: The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, Malden (1990) Lefebrve, H. (1991). The Production of Space, Wiley Blackwell, Oxford Winner, L. (1986) The whale and the reactor. Chicago, the University of Chicago Press