1. Media Education within the Socio-Cultural
Ecology at the example of at-risk learners
Klaus Rummler
London Mobile learning Group
University of Bremen
Educational Media Ecologies: International Perspectives
University of Paderborn
27 March 2012

2. Concretely
Socio-Cultural Ecology and its backgrounds at
the example of some of the at-risk learners'
usage patters of mobile technologies.
– Why use „ecology“?
– How are ecologies defined?

3. Socio-Cultural Ecology as a basic
framework
● triangular relation between
– individuals' agency,
– socio-cultural and technological structures
– and relating cultural practices
(Pachler, Bachmair, Cook 2010)

4. Agenda
● Common principles of (media) ecologies
and their
● meaning and relation to education (Bildung)

5. Traditional concepts of ecologies
● Media Ecology
(McLuhan, 1964; Postman, 1985)
● Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child
development
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979)

6. Not to be mentioned
● Human and Social Ecology (Human- und Sozialökologie)
– Interface between sociology and natural sciences to describe society as
also depending from biological and physical determinants.
(Becker et al., 2000)
● Cultural Ecology (Kulturökologie)
– General relationship between human beings / cultures / society and the
environment (physical nature as biology, geology or meteorology)
(Steward, 1955; Naess, 1973; Odum, 1994)
● Semiotic Ecology
– Conceptual, systematic method for analysis of rooms as environments
[…] to understand ecological systems, in particular person-culture-
systems (Lang, 1997; Kull, 1998; Sonesson, 2001)

7. Media Ecology
● Toronto-School (McLuhan, 1964; Postman, 1985)
– The communicative environment of individuals or society is the
ecology itself
– Ecological environment is communication lead, dominated or
mediated by media resp. technology
– Communication as (a primal state of the) ecosystem which is
spoiled by technology
– Relationships between humans / nature (+ communication) &
media to the relationships between humans, things (cultural
objects)
– Mediatization: modification of communication as the basic
practice of how people construct the social and cultural world
– 'ecocinema', 'ecomedia', 'green film': nature being remixed,
resurfaced, revisualized or sonified through media environments

8. Ecological model of child
development
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979)
– Ecosystem as the whole
material and social
environment of humans
– Systematic entanglement
of family, home, school,
community and society

9. Younger models of ecologies
Ecology as a relation between learners and
their surrounding physical and structural world,
e.g.:
– The classroom as an ecological system
(Bowers & Flinders, 1990)
– Ecology of resources
(Luckin, 2008)

10. Classroom as an ecological
system
(Bowers & Flinders, 1990)
– Impact on schools' particular climate and culture
– Semiotic ecology + Media ecology
– Information ecology (Nardi & O'Day, 1999)
● system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a
particular local environment
– Learning ecology (Brown, 2000)
● „An ecology is basically an open, complex, adaptive system of
comprising elements that are dynamic and interdependent.“

11. Ecology of resources
(Luckin, 2008)
Learner Centric Ecology of Resources
– „a set of inter-related resource elements, the
interactions between which provide a particular
context“
● Static dimension;
through which the resources can be identified and
categorized,
● Dynamic dimension;
that describes the organizing activities that activate the
resources.

12. Recent concepts of ecology
● Digital Media Ecology
(Hug, Lindner & Bruck, 2006)
– „relationships between new forms of education,
mediated communication and cultural production as
constitutive of a unitary media ecology“
● New cultural and media ecology
(Gieseke, 2002)
● Media & Social Ecology (Medienökologie)
(Ganguin & Sander, 2006; Lange & Lüscher, 1998)

13. Media & Social Ecology
(Medienökologie)
(Lange & Lüscher, 1998)
● Ecology is used in two different meanings:
– Description for life-worlds that are meaningful for the development of
people as biological, physical and social beings
– Used for analysis of the relationships relevant for the development
between organisms and their life-worlds.
● Human ecology: life-worlds that are relevant for the
development of individuals, communities and societies
● Social ecology: relationships of individual people to their
influencing wider social networks and systems. Incl. material,
symbolic resources, restrictions
● Media & technology still intruders and not part of the ecology

14. Baacke's Media Ecology
● Relationship between individuals and media in
their respective spacial life-worlds and zones
– four-concentric onion skin scheme
● ecologic centre
● ecological nearby space
● ecological cutout
● ecological periphery
(Ganguin & Sander, 2006)
● Question where to put
virtual spaces.

15. Side notes / essentials
● The system - The natural
– It's not so much about *nature*
– Ecologies's nature is to be stable
– Ecologies as *systems that are about to change*
– Ecologies are (if we want to speak of anything
natural) subject to change by nature
● In contrast to Mediatization
● Vocabulary to grasp the „relation between
materiality and information“ (Fuller, 2005)
– Triangle: processes and objects, beings and
things, patterns and matter

16. Ecologies are ...
● Ecology as technical, social, cultural or spacial system
– Components of the ecology cannot be deconstructed or be taken apart
● Interdependant and inter-related factors, components, relationships
– Provision of rich, versatile, open, experiencable media environments and
opportunities to children for their development and critical reflection in all zones
(Zacharias; Baacke)
● Organisation of balance and correspondence of experiences with the
phenomena and structures in the real world as central task for pedagogy
(ecology of experiences or ecology of play and learning)
– Mutually correspondent triangular relationship between individuals – media –
contemporary (environment) (Zacharias, 1999)
● Responsibility (Bachmair, 2008; Zacharias, 1999)
– Commitment to protect e.g. from economic exploitation
– Sustainability in the use of resources, providing spaces and options to renounce

17. Bridging the gaps...
● Results:
– Cultural practices of school learning and cultural practices
of media acquisition take place in different worlds or in
different ecological zones / spheres.
– The cultural definitions of media in the context of
entertainment and formal learning in the context of school
have led to contradictory forms of learning. (Bachmair)
● Tasks:
– Identify structural relations between school and everyday-
life (Bachmair, 2008)
– Break the strict barriers between the socio ecological
zones in relation to school and media

18. At-risk learners
● Lifestyle with distance to school
– Marginalised groups, digital divide, socio-economic
inequality
– PISA: boys, migration backgrounds, ISCED 2A
● Drawing an even stricter line between school and
leisure time
– Spaces of uncertainty (Unbestimmtheitsräume)
(Jörissen & Marotzki, 2009)
– Disempowered sites (Brabazon, 2000)
– Alternative spaces beyond assiduous school learning

19. Usage pattern: online video
● Online video platforms like YouTube and
their archived, user-generated & shared videos
do provide meaning and have impact and
implications for at-risk learners' formal and
informal learning.
● Teachers encourage the
use of videos for preparation
● Teachers foster the bridging
of everyday-life and school

20. Video genres for school learning
● Subjects: Biology, Physics, Economy, Politics,
English, Geography, Chemistry and Maths
● 62% of the pupils use videos to prepare for
exams, presentations and papers
● Subject-matters:
photosynthesis,
nitrogen cycle,
chromosomes,
immunology,
atom power, …
(Rummler & Wolf, 2012)

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