Lancaster conference presentation
•Descargar como PPTX, PDF•
0 recomendaciones•256 vistas
The Tweeting Zone
Recomendados
Recomendados
Más contenido relacionado
Destacado
Similar a Lancaster conference presentation
Similar a Lancaster conference presentation (20)
Último
Último (20)
Lancaster conference presentation
- 1. 1 Noreen Dunnett Digital Education Consultant
- 2. 2 Research question Can the social media platform Twitter provide a space or framework, within which learners might re-negotiate boundaries between different learning contexts and create one common learning zone or personal learning environment? 2
- 3. 3 Scope of presentation • The changing nature and definitions of new learning spaces or environments • The potential for using Twitter to re-negotiate the boundaries between the different settings in which people learn. • The nature of the learning space provided for them by Twitter, in terms of its affordances or characteristics • The way in which identities and roles were re- negotiated in Twitter by the research group. 3
- 4. 4 Liminal space - a rite of passage, in which a person moves from one state of being to another (Cuthell et al, 2011) 4
- 5. 5 Affordance …the actionable properties between the world and an actor (a person or animal… (Gibson 1977, 1979) …whether the user perceives some action is possible… (Norman 2004) 5
- 6. 6 Personal Learning Environment ‘…an environment where people, tools, communities and resources interact in a loose kind of way (Wilson et al 2009). 6
- 7. 77
- 8. 8 Moderation by researcher 8 Moderator
- 9. 9 ‘…spaces and places are emergent and not predetermined or preformed. They come into being in their enactments.’ (Al Mahmood 2008:12) 9
- 11. 11 Internal academic/institutional lexis General teacher/educational lexis Conversation 1 Formal content, grammar, orthography, social networks, electronic communications online networking presence stage and online life back stage digital accountability inclusive classroom ethos children with EAL and diverse needs diversity and individuality lesson plans Conversation 2 Informal W.C/CIE module assessment appendix brief self-study tasks diversity diary WC presentation Referencing SEN Portfolio placement mixed EYFS/KS1 class mixed Y4 and Y5 class EAL differentiate to meet needs culturally diverse QCDA ref NC and inclusion 11
- 12. 12 Purposes of tweeting Purposes of communication No of tweets % of tweets Formal Conversation Informal Conversation Formal Conversation Informal Conversation Negative feedback 0 2 0 4% Praise/positive feedback 3 4 6% 8% Self-disclosure 7 1 14.5% 2% Seeking information 3 2 6% 4% Sharing/providing information 11 10 23% 21% Solidarity 4 4 6% 6% Seeking reassurance 2 8 4% 16.6% Providing reassurance 6 2 12.5% 4% Status report/achievement 12 6 25% 12.5% 12
- 13. 13 Protocols 13
- 15. 15 Betweenness centrality 15 • The number of times an actor connects pairs of other actors who would otherwise not be able to reach each other • Number of connections no more valuable than ONE good connection • Actors high in ‘betweenness’ are able to act as gatekeepers controlling the flow of resources
- 16. 16 Roles in the online community Reassurance and support Practical help Express solidarity and share experiencesBetweenness centrality 16
- 17. 17 KB’s network “It [Twitter] has played a huge role in my learning on the PGCE. I have found many useful people/groups to follow in the world of education and have accessed many of their resources in order to improve my own teaching practice.” 17
- 18. 18 Conclusions • Emergent learning spaces such as Twitter allow learners to make connections and contacts within learning networks. • The lack of learned conventions or defining characteristics in Twitter enable affordances such as the hash tag to be used to define context, purpose and roles within it. • Twitter allows learners to create PLEs through a network of contacts, whose diverse perspectives become part of a process of making connections. • Twitter does seem to act as a ‘bridge’, providing the space for a PLE and allowing boundaries between different learning contexts to be renegotiated. 18
- 19. 19 Future work • More detailed analysis of how knowledge from different contexts and perspectives creates the contradiction in an activity system or set of activity systems which leads to learning • An exploration of the role which tutors might play in the Twitter learning ecology to ensure ‘critical engagement’ and allow students to achieve transformative learning • An evaluation of the influence of other activity systems and media on the learning experience of students using such technological platforms of Twitter 19
- 21. 21 Tutor tasks • What does using Twitter and similar tools mean in terms of my social networking and conduct beyond the classroom? • What does term ‘openness’ in professional practice mean to you? • What does the term ‘reflexivity’ add to the debate about ‘professional accountability’ • Key terms – success criteria, key vocabulary, learning objectives 21
Notas del editor
- [Can the social media platform Twitter provide a space or framework, within which learners might re-negotiate boundaries between different learning contexts? How do learners use Twitter to create a successful personal learning environment? ]
- In order to answer those questions my presentation will discuss: The changing nature and definitions of new learning spaces or environments The nature of the learning space provided by Twitter, in terms of its affordances or characteristics The potential of Twitter for re-negotiating the boundaries between the different settings in which people learn. The way in which identities and roles are re-negotiated in Twitter My interest in the concept of ‘space’ and ‘environment’ in the learning process began with a recognition, as Al Mahmood in 2008 and Fenwick, Edwards and Sawchuk in 2011 point out, that technology is prompting a review of notions such as space and time and their effect on learning. Space has been conceptualised by Tuan 2001, as the experience of ‘the relative location of objects and places’. In online spaces, time and distance are experienced differently and this affects people’s sense of relative location or place. According to Tuan 2001, Place is a type of object, it has physicality. Dourish 2006 defined place as ‘coming after space and being layered on top of it.’ In the disembodied, virtual context the spatial metaphor provides a means to understand and structure action, such as learning. As long as learning space is regarded as the equivalent of place, trainee teachers are likely to find boundaries between home, placement school and educational institution persist. Wilson, Liber et al 2009’s concept of dominant design describes this tendency for a particular system or design to gain prevalence in a particular area, making it difficult to deviate from and thinking then tends to become confined by it. Thinking about teaching and learning in formal contexts such as universities has traditionally been confined to a face-to-face delivery model, in a specific, dedicated physical context such as classroom or lecture theatre. The learning which is valued by the current assessment regime is assumed to take place in lectures and seminars, with the lecturer’s perspective given the maximum value in the learning process. Recent moves towards online learning, in the form of institutional virtual learning environments/VLEs such as Blackboard and Moodle) still tend to follow the dominant design, with teachers/lecturers/tutors being presumed to hold the dominant perspective in the acquisition of knowledge. However, with technology now capable of supporting more and more sophisticated and complex ways of acquiring knowledge, communicating and collaborating with learners, space can no longer to be considered the equivalent of ‘place’. Consequently, according to Massey 2005, the boundaries separating traditional academic places from the work place, home and the myriad of online ‘spaces’ on the Internet, will have to be ‘dismantled’, ‘renegotiated’ and ‘recreated’. The role of the formal education system in this new environment will need to change to produce competent, independent learners who can create their own personal learning environments to bridge the gap between their informal and formal learning.
- Learners will need to find ways to navigate ‘in, through and in-between’ these spaces, to inhabit liminal spaces1 in which they can be transformed, to quote Cuthell, Cych et al. 2011 ‘by acquiring new knowledge, new status and a new identity in the community’. As Tu et al point out, they will need to learn how ‘to project positive social digital identities to become network community learners’. Could Twitter possess the attributes or affordances (Norman 2004) which would enable it to act as a bridge ‘for mediating knowledge exchange between different cultural activity systems...’ (Mazzoni and Gaffuri 2009:8)? Does Twitter, as Star and Griesemer (1989) posit, act as a ‘boundary object’, a common zone bridging the gap of knowledge between school placement, university and home and allowing boundaries to be overcome between these different systems? Are Twitter’s affordances acting as scaffolding between the knowledge and competencies of the university environment and a new work environment such as a school placement? My research is informed by a hybrid theoretical framework combining connectivism, a theory largely developed by George Siemens in 2005 and Stephen Downes in 2006, and activity theory as expounded by Engstrom in 1987. As I don’t intend to discuss these two theories in detail today I would now refer you to the handouts and to my paper which give some of the key ideas. However what is important about both these theories is the emphasis they place on the value and importance of diverse perspectives in the learning process. Multiple perspectives allow more actively engaged and independent learners to work through the contradictions between different identities. Inherent contradictions between perspectives lead to innovation and transformation in an activity system. Learning happens in networks, where connection can be made between different concepts, opinions and ideas accessed from multiple sources. Online learning communities are seen as activity systems which enable us to look at individuals in context and thereby analyse the social structures of these environments. Hash tag communities are an example of the sort of social structures which emerged in the Twitter activity system and will be discussed later in the presentation. Both connectivism and activity theory also allow for changing roles and relationships in such systems. In activity theory, diversity of perspectives in networked systems is seen as a source of contradiction, which in turn, leads to transformation or learning. Turning back to the idea of Twitter acting as a ‘bridge’ or ‘learning zone’ and its affordances acting as scaffolding, I began to wonder if this scaffolding could be usefully framed as a personal learning environment or PLE, which may help learners to navigate these different activity systems.
- Whilst learners have had the means to create such an environment for some time, tools to achieve this have become more ubiquitous and accessible. Rather than the institutional VLE, which is teacher-led and designed, with a limited range of perspectives available, the PLE allows learners to co-ordinate connections between a range of people, tools and materials. The PLE, unlike the VLE, is not a technological platform but a practice or process devised by the learner.
- This diagram shows my attempt to model this PLE, which I envisaged as a hybrid version of Engstrom’s activity theory model, shown here as a network of activity systems, each overlapping the Twitter activity system, which provides the ‘bridge’ or common learning zone. Pause to allow people to take in diagram after each activity system Click slide once more for Outcome So what the role did the social media platform Twitter play in the personal learning environments of my research group, who were trainee teachers on placement in primary schools in Lincolnshire? The group consisted of the tutor and 26 trainee teachers enrolled on the flexible route of the postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) at a University college in the Midlands. Flexible route trainees were only required to attend the formal education establishment for one day a week with the rest of their time spent in their placement school. This resulted in limited contact between peers and with the tutor. For such trainee teachers, it can be challenging to apply and integrate knowledge learnt in the training institution, with the practical, situated learning taking place in the busy, fast-moving environment of the primary school classroom. Irwin and Hramiak’s 2010 study confirmed the sense of isolation trainees find at the very time when support, expert knowledge and the opportunity to reflect on new learning is need. Equally challenging for trainees is to negotiate their changing role from learner, to teacher, from expert to apprentice as they move from lecture hall, to school classroom, to online environments such as Twitter. The formal education system does not encourage or provide a framework for learners to bring together the formal skills and knowledge they acquire with that which is gained in informal contexts such as the Internet, home and activities such as sport, part-time work and youth organisations. However, Dunlap and Lowenthal’s 2009 paper discusses the kind of ‘just-in-time’ communication which Twitter provides for learners in situations such as placements. In my research I used ethnographic action research as the guiding methodology, with the data generation methods being largely qualitative, and collected through participant observation, survey and interview. For full details of my approach and methods of data collection I refer you to my paper.
- As can be seen in this next slide, alongside help with the functionality of Twitter, I tried to model the kind of behaviour I thought might be helpful to the learners’ experience – note here encouragement and hints on how to follow people and find people to follow
- Al Mahmood argues that ‘…spaces and places are emergent and not predetermined or preformed. They come into being in their enactments.’ As an ‘emergent space’ Twitter’s practices have been formed not by its creators but by the users’ intentions (and there is a full discussion of this in my paper). The use of the hash tag is one such example of user appropriation of the Twitter environment, and has now become one of Twitter’s basic functions. Potts and Jones (2011) examined the way in which communities emerged around these hash tags, because they allow communication between participants with similar interests by making tweets visible to them. The #bgpgt hash tag, used by my research group, created a sense of community by acting as a filter through which individuals could bond with fellow trainee teachers. It acted as a permeable boundary but also gives a sense of identity to those using it.
- One participant commented, when he left the course TWEET 1 – click once Whilst he recognised this permeable boundary ie his ability to remain part of a ‘network’ despite no longer being a participant in the PGCE course or within the physical boundaries of the educational institution, the learner felt the necessity to ask for permission to continue contributing to it. However, this illusion of a bounded community had drawbacks as people are not sufficiently aware of privacy issues or surveillance by others as can be seen by this tweet TWEET 2 – click slide The use of their hash tag by others outside of their community seemed to affect their sense of what Hill 2002 calls a ‘shared and psychologically safe space’ (Hill, 2002). Returning to Al Mahmood’s theory that spaces and places come into being through their enactments, I wanted to look closely at enactment in Twitter which occurs through a constant stream of dialogue. I also wanted to look at the effect of the Twitter context on that dialogue. Although Engstrom 1999 saw the combination of activity theory and discourse analysis as somewhat problematic, for reasons I go into in more detail in my paper, I did not distinguish between the data itself and the context. Both the activity in which participants are engaged but also the language they are using to achieve their object was important. One of my objectives was to ascertain whether the context established certain expectations of the kind of talk which is appropriate (Wetherell 2001). In order to look more closely at the ‘context’ I also performed some limited social network analysis with the participants of the #bgpgt community. [SLIDE 11 and 12]
- However, if we look first at some of the linguistic data acquired, we can see how participants were engaged in a range of different discourse communities, often simultaneously – that is to say, in the same ongoing ‘conversation’ (despite the ‘conversation’ feature not existing in Twitter at the time of the study). This opportunity enabled the trainees to rehearse their emerging ‘teacher’ role, by using the specialist terminology of the primary classroom but also mixing it with the academic language of their training institution.
- On this second slide you can see some of the purposes to which the trainees put Twitter, using it to share and provide information, seek reassurance and report status and achievement.
- My interview with the tutor revealed some tensions with the changing roles and identities of her students. She had given no specific protocols about the use of Twitter, beyond the injunction to use it for ‘professional talk’ However, she was clearly conflicted about the level of control and involvement, describing her role as "... a policing role ...they also need directing back ...I felt that they needed to feel somebody was watching.” But also stating "I wanted them to talk to each other…wanted to be able to stand back and let it happen” These inherent contradictions, between the tutor’s perspective of the role of Twitter for her cohort and the way the cohort actually used it, are what Engstrom refers to as leading to innovation and transformation in an activity system. The trainee teachers were happy to share some aspects of the tutor role amongst themselves. This lack of distinction between ‘newcomers, novices or peripheral participants and old timers and masters’ was both a concern and a benefit for the tutor “I wonder why they want to be knowledge providers …what makes them feel that they can be that person?” “…the fact that they’re able to ask each other, allows me to see when they’re getting it wrong as well and I can intervene more quickly.” In order to examine these changing roles and identities in more detail I used social network analysis and activity theory to analyse how the structure of the #bgpgt community was facilitating such shifts in knowledge sharing and provision.
- We can look at this model, adapted from Engstrom’s Activity Theory model, to represent the relationship between the network/community created in Twitter by the trainee teachers, the roles they took on and how that affected the object and ultimate outcome. In order to examine these changing roles and identities in more detail I used social network analysis and activity theory to analyse how the structure of the #bgpgt community was facilitating such shifts in knowledge sharing and provision.
- My interview with the tutor revealed some tensions with the changing roles and identities of her students. She had given no specific protocols about the use of Twitter, beyond the injunction to use it for ‘professional talk’ However, she was clearly conflicted about the level of control and involvement, describing her role as "... a policing role ...they also need directing back ...I felt that they needed to feel somebody was watching.” But also stating "I wanted them to talk to each other…wanted to be able to stand back and let it happen” These inherent contradictions, between the tutor’s perspective of the role of Twitter for her cohort and the way the cohort actually used it, are what Engstrom refers to as leading to innovation and transformation in an activity system. The trainee teachers were happy to share some aspects of the tutor role amongst themselves. This lack of distinction between ‘newcomers, novices or peripheral participants and old timers and masters’ was both a concern and a benefit for the tutor “I wonder why they want to be knowledge providers …what makes them feel that they can be that person?” “…the fact that they’re able to ask each other, allows me to see when they’re getting it wrong as well and I can intervene more quickly.” In order to examine these changing roles and identities in more detail I used social network analysis and activity theory to analyse how the structure of the #bgpgt community was facilitating such shifts in knowledge sharing and provision.
- In this diagram the relative size of the nodes is used to show that DD (red), KB (blue) and MW (green) have the greatest degree of betweenness. The roles which these participants played are shown in their tweets. A large percentage of MW’s tweets were reassurance or esteem support for others. CLICK ON SLIDE DD provided a large proportion of the practical help such as locating resources and giving information, a role which might be more usually associated with a tutor in a traditional learning space, again more normally a tutor role. KB gave status reports on her progress with tasks or on placement. Her role seemed to be to share experiences and express solidarity with others. This was a more traditional peer role, within a learning community.
- KB, was a key actor in the #bgpgt network, and had an extensive range of connections to a range of professional organisations and individuals, as can be seen in this diagram (the red lines show connections which were reciprocal). CLICK SLIDE AGAIN Here is an example of KB interacting with one of these connections. In addition to her role of providing solidarity and sharing experiences, she was a useful bridge from the smaller network of the #bgpgt community to her wider network However, as she comments – CLICK SLIDE AGAIN
- Emergent learning spaces such as Twitter, as described in theories such as connectivism, have come to incorporate both virtual and physical contexts, in which learners make contacts within learning networks and where overlapping activity systems contribute to a ‘liminal’ space’ where connections can be made between knowledge from diverse perspectives and sources leading to transformative learning. The lack of learned conventions or defining characteristics, in the Twitter learning ‘zone’ or activity system, provide learners with the ability to develop their own affordances such as the hash tag and @reply to define their own ‘context’, in order to achieve their object. This same absence of conventions mean that roles are also up for re-negotiation as was demonstrated in my study. Learners are not only learners, they are also experts, information givers and providers of support. The role of the traditional tutor has not been satisfactorily re-negotiated in this new learning ‘space’. This is certainly an area for future research and work. Twitter allows learners to create a personal learning environment through the creation of a network of contacts. These contacts give learners access to a range of perspectives and become part of a process of making connections between academic knowledge and day-to-day experience. And finally, Twitter does seem to act as a ‘bridge’ or common learning zone, providing a space or framework for a PLE. Boundaries between different learning contexts are re-negotiated by learners when they participate in changing roles and are given opportunities to take part in and make connections between different discourse communities and activity systems which overlap and co-exist.