The digitally literate learner and the appropriation of new technologies and media for education

The digitally literate learner and the appropriation of new

technologies and media for education

Inaugural Lecture by John Cook

Learning Technology Research Institute, London Metropolitan University, 3 February 2009

Download slides:http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook

Structure1. Traditional opening jokes 2. Key processes for education and learning 3. Digitally ‘literate’ learners 4. Open research questions 5. Outside-in/inside-out challenge6. Appropriation7. Mobile learning 8. Road-map Please turn your mobile phones …

• …on! • My mobile number: XXXXXXXXXXX

• It is ‘tradition’ not to have questions at an inaugural!

• But text me questions & your name

• Then at the reception I’ll come and talk or txt u bk

Traditional opening jokes

• Professor of Technology Enhanced Learning

• Researching the meaning for this title in the UK context!

Why is Technology Enhanced Learning better than Sex?

• You don’t usually get divorced if your spouse interrupts you in the middle of it.

• If you get tired, you can stop, save your place and pick up where you left off.

• You can finish early without feeling guilty. • You can get rid of any viruses you catch with a

£30 program from McAfee• And if you're not sure what you are doing, you

can always ask your tutor.• With a little coffee you can do it all night.

On with the ‘serious’ lecture now!

Key processes for education and learning

• Democracy can be viewed as the possibility for equity of access to essential conceptual, cultural, social resources (Kress, 2008).

• Interaction, criticality and meta-cognitive thinking are key processes for education and learning

Cook, J. (2002). The Role of Dialogue in Computer-Based Learning and Observing Learning: An Evolutionary Approach to Theory. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2002 (5). ISSN:1365-893X [www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/5]

The ‘magic’ triangle

Designing Learning Environments

• “ …in a learning environment, we get a complex set of relationships between how a learner thinks, i.e. cognition, how the learner interacts with teachers and peers, and the various media and resources that are available to support learning. The institution and society in which the learning takes place will also exert an influence on learning in more subtle ways.”

• Cook, J. (2002). The Role of Dialogue in Computer-Based Learning and Observing Learning: An Evolutionary Approach to Theory. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 5. Paper online: www-jime.open.ac.uk/2002/5

RLO-CETL• Designing multimedia

learning resources and learning objects (RLO-CETL)

• For web and mobile phones: any time any place learning

• For example for Study Skills, Business Studies and Sports Science

How to reference

• Avoids plagiarism

• Used extensively London Met & TVU etc

• Demo

“For example, in the case of Hanna, the learning objects are very helpful as they give guidance and provide extra help if she doesn’t understand something. She likes online, anytime access, as she can access them when she wants, and in the comfort and privacy of her own home. She likes reading from textbooks, but likes the animations in the learning objects, as they break up the learning

material and keep you interested. ”

“the second cohort appeared to have a deeper and more coherent

learning experience as a result of the introduction of the RLOs.”

[Play clip]

Digitally ‘literate’ learners

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)

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.

David Livingstone (2009)

• Education involves the presence of a teacher …

• Mentors and informal learning.

• Intentional self-directed or collective informal learning

• All of the above terms are of course contested!

David Livingstone (2009)

• Findings to date intentional informal learning – it far exceeds rates of participation in further

education courses– not very closely related to either levels of

formal education or participation in further education

– unlike participation in further education does not diminish greatly with age.”

Parent

Rugby union fan

Kids

E-Learning project leader

ResearchSelf taught bassplayer

PhD students

John

Play5 aside football

Formal and/or informal learning

HE

LIFE

WarningFormal learning did this to me!

7 years later & informal learning!

7 years later & informal learning!2 years ago!!

5 months ago

Open research questions

• Do the digitally literate engage in the educational processes as defined above?

• Is there anxiety because educational practitioners, managers of intuitions and policy makers feel the need to respond to rapid technological change?

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 2008a, p. 6).

“… students are driving the changes. Can

UK institutions keep up? ” Harriet Swain : Dawn of the cyberstudent

“… research shows that two years ago, people aged 16-18 spent four to five hours a week on the net. Now it's the same amount each day."

Victoria Neumark: Choose your weapon

University Challenge in Guardian 20.01.01

“… a world without barriers. Where learners expect their own technology to interface with yours”.

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.”

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).

• 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’?

Outside-in/inside-out challenge

• As we can see from the forgoing debate there has been a see-sawing between– vertical to horizontal structurings of power– from hierarchical to participatory

• Is this about to change?

Cook, Pachler, Bachmair and Adami (2009)

Cultural practices involving new digital media can be brought into the educational institutions

feed back into the digital world at large

Appropriation

Health warnings!

NOT talking about misappropriation

Can texting damage your health? As

always there is more to it than meets the

eye …

NOT about criminal appropriation, as in ‘you’re nicked’!

• Appropriation is the processes related to the development of personal practices with digital technology and media (Cook and Pachler, 2009).

• But this can lead to problems: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TDtFrD-Ol4 @ 2 min 10 secs

Key components of a socio-cultural ecological

approach to mobile learning

Patchler, N., Bachmair, B., Cook, J. and Kress, G. (in preparation). M-Learning. Springer. Due Autumn 2009.

• Stages of appropriation are – interaction– assimilation– accommodation– change.

• They are based on the work of Piaget (1955) and Dourish (2004).

(Cook, J., Pachler, N. and Bachmair, B. (under review). Appropriation of Mobile Phones and Learning. )

Mobile learning

Learner story

“Well we were walking around and observing the theatres of the event and trying to get the most images [that] we could get, and videos, and even sounds. We tried first to observe with our own eyes a little, to pick up what we thought was important for our presentation, and for our observation of the event.”

[Play quote 2 clip]

[play Elli clip]

(Cook, Pachler and Bradley, 2008)

CONTSENS

“The information given was underlined by the 'experience' of the area and therefore given context in both past and present.”