The document discusses literacy and technology enhanced learning from three perspectives: hindsight, insight, and foresight. It provides context on the BRILLE research center and discusses how Vygotsky's work on tools as mediators and the Zone of Proximal Development can provide insight into augmented contexts for development using mobile technologies. Future research questions are proposed around issues like balancing traditional assessment with collaborative learning supported by new technologies.
The document discusses project-based learning (PBL) and compares traditional teaching methods to PBL. It notes that PBL engages students through hands-on exploration of real-world problems, allows students to investigate issues and topics through projects, and fosters abstract thinking. PBL uses authentic assessment, extends learning over time, and develops 21st century skills like collaboration. The roles of teachers and students shift, with teachers facilitating learning and students taking a more active role. PBL has roots in constructivist learning theories advocated by thinkers like Dewey, Piaget and Vygotsky.
This document introduces a conceptual framework for a problem-based learning (PBL) model that incorporates 10 critical 21st century skills (10Cs) enabled by information and communication technologies, as well as the 6 pillars of 21st century learning. The 10Cs include critical thinking, communication, collaboration, creativity, connectivity, critical reflection, cross-cultural competence, co-responsibility, critical consciousness, and knowledge construction. The 6 learning pillars are learning to know, learning to be, learning to do, learning to live together, learning to transform oneself and society, and learning to give and share. The proposed PBL framework uses a set of interacting processes to facilitate curriculum design focused on generating solutions to sustainability problems through reflection and action
This document is Terry Anderson's CV presented as a Wordle tag cloud. It discusses Anderson's views on distance education, including that education must improve quality and appeal while empowering student control. It advocates boundless access to open educational resources, connections, and learning opportunities using technologies like open courses and open access journals. However, it notes opportunities also exist to waste time or harm privacy, and boundaries may be needed to manage information and guide productive use. Overall, the document emphasizes embracing open, online opportunities to improve and reform education through open scholarship and networks.
This document discusses three generations of technology-enhanced pedagogy in Edmonton schools: (1) behaviourist/cognitive models focusing on individual learning of content, (2) constructivist models emphasizing group learning and social construction of knowledge, and (3) connectivist models centered around networked learning and lifelong learning in complex contexts. It argues that effective 21st century education requires elements of all three pedagogical approaches and discusses barriers to technological adoption as well as recommendations for overcoming those barriers.
The document discusses learner-generated contexts, which are contexts created by learners interacting together with a common, self-defined learning goal, rather than being consumers of contexts created for them. It proposes a research agenda to develop context-based models, realign informal and formal learning, and challenge consumption and creation relationships in learning. Key questions are raised about how technology and pedagogies have changed and could further change to better support learner-generated contexts.
New Visual Social Media for the Higher Education ClassroomRochell McWhorter
Authors: Julie A. Delello and Rochell R McWhorter
This chapter examines how next-generation visual social platforms motivate students to capture authentic evidence of their learning and achievements, publish digital artifacts, and share content across visual social media. Educators are facing the immediate task of integrating social media into their current practice to meet the needs of the twenty-first century learner. Using a case study, this chapter highlights through empirical work how nascent visual social media platforms such as Pinterest are being utilized in the college classroom and concludes with projections on ways visual networking platforms will transform traditional models of education.
This document discusses using Activity Theory as a framework for understanding human-computer interaction, particularly in an educational context in South Africa. It first provides an overview of Activity Theory and its key concepts from Vygotsky and Engestrom. It then describes a case study where the author used an online questioning environment in a postgraduate education course to help students develop critical thinking skills. Activity Theory is proposed as a lens for analyzing how the introduction of this new computer-based tool transformed both the classroom activity system and the students' and instructor's roles within it. The document concludes by arguing Activity Theory is valuable for conceptualizing learning as a social process mediated by tools, rather than something that occurs solely in an individual's mind.
Laru, J. & Järvelä, S. (2004). Scaffolding different learning activities with...Jari Laru
Laru, J. & Järvelä, S. (2004). Scaffolding different learning activities with mobile tools in three everyday contexts. In P. Gerjets, P. A. Kirschner, J. Elen & R. Joiner (Eds.), Instructional design for effective and enjoyable computer-supported learning. Proceedings of the EARLI SIGs Instructional Design and Learning and Instruction with Computers (pp.11-21). Tübingen: Knowledge Media Research Center.
What shapes what? Technologies and their relationship to learningMartin Oliver
Although there is a considerable body of work that explores educational uses of technology, and highly developed accounts of what learning is, surprisingly little research in education has asked what technology is, or what its relationship to learning consists of. When these matters are considered at all, they tend to be framed in technologically deterministic ways, with technology either 'causing' or at the least 'offering' and 'constraining' learning. In this talk, I will provide an overview of this way of framing technology and identify problems that follow from it. I will outline alternative positions that could be adopted, including Communities of Practice, the Social Construction of Technology and Actor-Network Theory, and discuss their points of connection to this debate. Using examples drawn from a JISC-funded project on digital literacies, I will draw out the implications of these positions for research.
The presentation will be structured as follow. The talk will first provide an introduction to the theory behind the Socio-Cultural Ecology (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010) and the notion of User-generated contexts (Cook, Pachler and Bachmair, accepted), which Cook (2009) has refined into an analytical tool called a ‘typology-grid’ (see below). The talk will then demonstrate how the typology-grid has been successfully been used to analyse and learn from the ALPS and conclude by inviting a critique of the typology-grid.
1. The document discusses the shift from traditional professional development to connected, self-directed professional learning through online networks and communities.
2. Key aspects of connected learning mentioned include learning through collaboration and interaction, making connections to develop a learning network, and learning as a social process that occurs within communities.
3. Different types of online communities that can support professional learning are discussed, including personal learning networks for individual connections, communities of practice for collaborative knowledge-building, and professional learning communities for local, job-embedded collaboration.
This document discusses connected learning and professional development for educators. It describes how professional development needs to change with new technologies that allow educators to connect globally. Connected learning communities are proposed as a new model, including local professional learning communities, personal learning networks of online connections, and bounded global communities of practice for deeper connections. Educators are encouraged to leverage these networks to collaboratively create and share knowledge.
This document provides an overview of constructivism and its relationship to technology, cognitive function, and learning styles in education. It discusses key constructivist theorists like Piaget and Vygotsky and their varying perspectives. It also explores research on cognitive load theory and working memory, the benefits of guided discovery learning over minimally guided instruction, and models of learning styles like the Felder-Silverman learning styles model. The role of technology in constructivist classrooms is examined, noting how tools can provide sensory-rich environments for students to actively construct knowledge, with teachers as facilitators.
Developing Metaliterate Citizens: Designing and Delivering Enhanced Global Le...Tom Mackey
Presented at the Conference on Learning Information Literacy across the Globe in Frankfurt am Main, Germany 10th of May 2019. Metaliteracy is examined as an empowering pedagogical framework that advances learners as informed consumers and original producers of information.
This document discusses how emerging technologies are impacting education. It notes that technologies are becoming more ubiquitous, networked, mobile, and able to take advantage of cloud computing. Learning is shifting towards personalized, mobile, and location-aware models. Pedagogy is also changing to be more social, experiential, and contextual. Boundaries between formal and informal learning are blurring. New skills and models of education will be needed to effectively harness technology for learning.
This document introduces the theory of connectivism as a new learning theory for the digital age. It summarizes that previous learning theories like behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism were developed before technology significantly impacted learning. Connectivism incorporates principles of networking, complexity theory, chaos theory, and self-organization and sees learning as a process that occurs within shifting environments, not under individual control. It proposes that the ability to recognize connections between fields and ideas is a core skill and that maintaining connections is needed for continual learning.
Constructivist learning theory suggests that people learn by attaching new knowledge to existing ideas through interactions and experiences rather than repetition. The annotated bibliography examines how constructivism applies to digital learning. Several sources discuss how constructivist principles promote active learning, inquiry, problem-solving and collaboration using technologies like computer-mediated communication. Constructivism sees the teacher as a guide helping students make their own connections, rather than a presenter of information.
1) Dr. Alec Couros presented on academic collaboration and learning in a networked age, discussing how Web 2.0 tools can transform research, teaching, and service if academics build serious online presences.
2) The document discusses openness in education, arguing knowledge should be free and distributed through communities of practice, and that education benefits from open source experiences.
3) Couros shares lessons learned from open teaching practices like open access courses and shared resources that immerse students in greater learning communities focused on connections over content.
1. The document discusses using a Hybrid Social Learning Network (HSLN) to explore concepts, practices, designs, and smart services for networked professional learning. A HSLN combines formal and informal social structures through a "50-50 partnership" between people and machines.
2. Examples of social machines discussed include a tweet that led to an open source virtual organism project, the Reading the Riots analysis of social media during the 2011 London riots, and the Zooniverse citizen science platform. Smart services like Confer and KnowBrian were co-designed with UK health sector workers to support their professional learning.
3. Future work involves evaluating the impact of tools like Confer on professional learning and generalizing design
- The document discusses informal learning in the workplace and opportunities for educators.
- It introduces the concept of a "Zone of Possibility" (ZoP) which uses social web technologies to support readiness for digitally mediated work-based practice and entrepreneurship for city regeneration.
- A ZoP app and Confer tool are presented which were developed to support situated conversations and working groups across different locations through features like video capture, annotation, and discussion.
In this paper we define the notion of the Hybrid Social Learning Network. We propose mechanisms for interlinking and enhancing both the practice of professional learning and theories on informal learning. Our approach shows how we employ empirical and design work and a participatory pattern workshop to move from (kernel) theories via Design Principles and prototypes to social machines articulating the notion of a HSLN. We illustrate this approach with the example of Help Seeking for healthcare professionals.
Cook & Santos. Using Hybrid Social Learning Networks in Work Place Learning and Plans to Roll-Out in HE. Institute for Learning Innovation and Development (ILIaD) Inaugural Conference, 3 November 2014, University of Southampton.
Using the Participatory Patterns Design (PPD) Methodology to Co-Design Groupware: Confer a Tool for Workplace Informal Learning
Edmedia 2016, June, Vancouver, Canada: https://www.academicexperts.org/conf/edmedia/2016/papers/48568/
John Cook, CMIR, UWE Bristol & Learning Layers team
The Internet-mobile device enabled social networks of today stand accused of being so called 'weapons of mass distraction' or worse. However, we point out that modern fears about the dangers of social networking are overdone. The paper goes on to present three phases of mobile learning state-of-the-art that articulate what is possible now and in the near future for mobile learning. The Learning Layers project is used to provide a case of barriers and possibilities for mobile learning; we report on extensive initial co-design work and significant barriers with respect to the design of a mobile Help Seeking tool for the Healthcare sector (UK). We then provide an account of how the Help Seeking tool is being linked to a Social Semantic Server and report on a follow-up empirical co-design study.
Literacy session: Hindsight, Insight and Foresight John Cook. Workshop 'Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and cultural transformations' Alpine Rendez-Vous, within the framework of the STELLAR Network of Excellence. December 3-4, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. #telc09 #stellar2009,
A presentation sharing some of my sabbatical work with the EU LearningLayers project, draws upon Cook (2013)
Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Phones as Mediating Tools Within Augmented Contexts for Development. International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning, 2(3), 1-12, July-September. Link to paper http://goo.gl/NFWnSZ
The document summarizes a one day seminar that explored how social media and mobile devices can be used to design augmented contexts for learning. It provided examples of past projects that used mobile tours to enhance field trips in various subjects. Attendees heard about how these mobile tours promoted active, location-based learning by giving varied perspectives and collaborative tasks. Studies indicated the tours engaged students more and helped learning by providing historical and spatial context. The presentation concluded mobile technologies have potential to transform learning when designed carefully as augmented contexts.
1) The document discusses a study on the use of mobile technologies by primary school children in 5 schools in North East Lincolnshire.
2) It outlines the socio-cultural ecology framework for understanding mobile learning and the notion of user-generated contexts.
3) An initial analysis found increased parental engagement, greater creativity in curriculum, and new literacies emerging through giving students 24/7 access to mobile devices.
Two case studies are described that used design research to explore how mobile devices and social media can support informal learning. The first case involved developing location-based mobile tours to support task-conscious learning about urban education and language learning. Evaluations found the tours promoted active learning. The second case involved developing a "people tagging" tool within a social network for a career guidance organization to help people find expertise within the organization. Both cases showed promise but raised issues about scaling the approaches to support learning on a larger scale.
The document summarizes a presentation by John Cook on how institutions can scaffold mobile learning to bring informal learning contexts outside the institution into formal learning inside the institution. Cook discusses challenges like how to integrate learning on learner-selected platforms outside of class into institutional learning. He presents examples from a project involving mobile apps for urban education and Cistercian abbeys that enhanced learning experiences. Cook argues institutions must recognize how learners already learn informally with new digital media and help learners configure their own "Mobile Waves" to meet learning needs both inside and outside of class.
John Cook Research Profile For D4DL SIG visit to & talks with the DCRC/REACT hub @ Pervasive Media Studio, Watershed, May 22nd 2013: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/8427
This document discusses Vygotsky's theories on the temporal nature of learning and the zone of proximal development. It presents a case study analyzing student interactions within an "augmented context for development" during a mobile learning activity at a Cistercian abbey. The analysis suggests students co-constructed an understanding by linking the physical abbey ruins and a 3D visualization on their mobile devices. The author proposes the concept of an "augmented context for development" to extend theories for modern deep learning design, and outlines questions for future research.
This document presents the concept of Learner Generated Contexts (LGC) as a potential framework to support more effective use of technology in learning. LGC views context as defined by a learner's interactions across physical and virtual spaces over time, rather than being confined to a single location. It proposes that learners can now take greater agency in creating their own learning contexts through technologies that enable sharing information and collaborating online. The document discusses shortcomings of current educational models and argues that a context-based model organized around learner-generated contexts could offer more participatory and democratic learning experiences.
Ariane König and Nancy Budwig: ISCN Working Group 3: Integration of research...ISCN_Secretariat
This document summarizes discussions from the ISCN WG3 working group on integrating research, learning, operations, and civic engagement at universities. The working group's objective is to explore challenges and criteria for success in developing innovative approaches to transformative learning. Key topics discussed include using the university as a stage for transformative learning, obtaining student perspectives, and a case study of an integrated sustainability program at the University of Siena. The group also discussed challenges to designing programs and learning tools to address complex sustainability problems.
This document provides a rationale and scope and sequence for a 6-week unit on the global environment movement. The unit aims to develop students' understanding of environmental threats like deforestation and climate change since the 1960s, and the responses of governments and organizations. It will do this through lessons incorporating visual images and strategies like comic strips, posters, documentaries, and a graphic organizer. The unit is meant to engage students in considering notions of responsibility regarding the environment and thinking critically about its significance and continuity/change over time.
Authentic learning involves engaging students in solving real-world problems in collaborative ways that mimic professional practices. Technology now enables various forms of authentic learning through simulation, remote instrumentation, digital archives, and online communities. It allows students to engage in sustained, collaborative problem-solving of complex, ill-defined problems from multiple perspectives, culminating in polished products. This helps students develop valuable skills for their future careers and motivates learning through relevance.
Emerging Technologies and Effective Learning.Louise Wigan
Discussion about Dick Ng'ambi's research regarding the effective use of emerging technologies for maximising learning in higher and lower education institutions.
Enjoy!
A workshop
Please join us for our half day workshop hosted by CEMP and C&J 'Doing Education on Screen'. The programme for the day is below and on the flyer attached. We plan to record the session and we will also be live note taking here for those who cannot join on the day: https://padlet.com/afeigenbaum/6tps05n1hc0eeznw
Keynote presentation for the Education Leaders Forum - New Zealand. Abstract: The COVID pandemic has thrown back the curtain on a great deal of what needs to be improved or addressed in our current education system, including a high degree of inequity across all areas, especially access to onlinelearning.
The responses we saw during the 2020 lockdowns promised some transformative action and outcomes. But slowly we’ve seen a ‘return to the old normal’ mindset. The ‘big ideas’ that were evident have faded into obscurity as the old patterns of thinking and acting take over.
Inaugural Lecture
John Cook
Date: Tuesday 3rd of Feb, 2009
Time: 6pm
Venue: Henry Thomas room, Holloway Road, London Metropolitan University
Introduced by Brian Roper, Vice-Chancellor London Metropolitan University
Are Wikis and Weblogs an appropriate approach to foster collaboration, reflec...Christian Schmidt
Authors version of a paper about my PhD project and the work of my colleague Mathias Krebs. the final version was published in the proceedings of KCKS 2010.
Project-based learning (PBL) is an instructional approach that engages students in learning essential knowledge and life-enhancing skills through an extended, student-influenced inquiry process structured around complex, authentic questions and carefully designed products and tasks. PBL references theories that support experiential and hands-on learning. It provides opportunities for students to gain skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving that prepare them for further education and careers in a changing world. The document provides examples of technology tools that can support PBL approaches in the classroom by facilitating research, collaboration, and assessment of student work.
Introduction to ‘Socio-Cultural Ecology’ and User Generated Contexts. ALT-C Workshop: Navigating Through the Storm – Using Theory to Plan Mobile Learning Deployment. #altc2010
Giving talk Wednesday 10th Sept 2014 to visitors to UWE from Shenyang Aerospace University (China). Slides are up and includes ideas UWE-led ideas on Hybrid Social Learning Networks. Why? To meet the challenge of the ‘unfilled’ potential of the Internet. Provide equity of access to cultural resources (broadly defined) as a democratic right. #LearningLayers
The document summarizes a paper presented at the International Mobile Learning Festival 2014 about designing a mobile help seeking tool. It argues that modern concerns about social networking being distracting overstate the issue, and that insights can be gained from historical examples like 17th century coffeehouses. It then discusses how the paper builds on Vygotsky's 1930s work to design a mobile help seeking tool through co-design with the healthcare sector in the UK, linking it to a social semantic server.
This document discusses an interdisciplinary project focused on innovation, creativity, and access to cultural resources through digital technologies and social media. It highlights six principles of the project, including designing for digital learning and using design-based research approaches. The document also lists some technology and industry partners involved in applying the project's research in fields like health care, construction, and museums.
The document discusses sustainability for mobile learning under conditions of societal and cultural delimitation, proposing a conceptual framework and practical tools. It argues that sustainability is a relational category rather than a static definition, and suggests using conversational and discursive procedures to specify and realize sustainability of innovative mobile learning. The document also examines tools that could be used within a conversational framework to help achieve sustainability.
This document discusses sustainable mobile learning scenarios. It defines mobile learning as learning that takes place across various contexts using mobile devices. Mobile learning allows for just-in-time learning and communication in context. The document then discusses how learning is transforming with trends like collaborative knowledge building and informal learning. It proposes using scenarios as curricular units that arrange media, teachers, students, and situations. Sustainability is discussed from both an environmental perspective of conserving resources, as well as a systems perspective of sustaining mobile devices, jobs, communities and knowledge over time.
The document discusses the Designing for Digital Learners (D4DL) research group at UWE Bristol. The group conducts interdisciplinary research on technology enhanced learning using social media, mobile devices, and more. It lists six principles that guide the group's work: 1) equitable access to cultural resources is a democratic right, 2) mobile phones are new cultural resources, 3) users actively generate their own learning contexts, 4) appropriation is key to recognizing mobile devices as cultural resources, 5) significant potential for social/mobile learning in informal and professional contexts, and 6) social/mobile can design transformative learning contexts. Examples are given for several principles.
This is the large version. A very cut down version was presented at my Inaugural Lecture on 5 March 2014, Bristol, UK which is now on YouTube: make some coffee and take a peek? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWnyfqOxR6E
Reconceptualising Design Research for Design Seeking and Scaling. Short position paper by Cook and Bannan, June 2013. **Critical comment and pointers to related literature invited** Contact: john2.cook@uwe.ac.uk
Ethical considerations emerging in the study of mobile learning
Corresponding Author: Jocelyn Wishart (j.m.wishart@bristol.ac.uk)
Wednesday 1 May 2013, 2pm
Invited talk: Using Social Media and Mobile Devices to Mediate Informal, Professional, Work-Based Learning
John Cook
Bristol Centre for Research
in Lifelong Learning and Education (BRILLE)
University of the West of England (UWE)
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/brille/
http://people.uwe.ac.uk/Pages/person.aspx?accountname=campus\jn-cook
Invited talk: Centre for Learning, Knowing and Interactive Technologies, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
26th February, 12.30 to 13.45
This document discusses themes around inequalities in digital/cultural/social capital and educational equity. It outlines that educational equity aims for fairness in education and accommodating individual needs, rather than just equality. There will be a discussion on whether access to cultural resources is a democratic right and if cultural resources are appropriated through educational functions. Several people will give 5 minute overviews on related issues and there will be opportunities for debate on questions around new inequalities created by digital practices in education and how educators can promote more equal access.
The document discusses using social networks and mobile technology to provide equitable access to cultural resources. It defines cultural resources broadly as technologies, practices, and processes related to knowledge, skills, and understanding. The authors argue this conceptualization allows for assessing whether access to cultural resources is distributed fairly. They draw on philosophical and cultural studies theories viewing appropriation of cultural products as important for learning and development. The original work in the book chapter explores how social networks and mobile devices could bridge formal and informal learning by allowing internalization and representation of cultural resources. Key questions are posed about this framework and its ability to further understanding of cultural resource access and distribution.
This project aims to bring a choir and dancers from a primary school in South Africa to perform traditional Zulu songs and dances across venues in the UK for 3 weeks. The £22,000 raised will cover flights and expenses for the children and teachers, and funds generated during their visit through performances and sales will be used to install solar panels at their school. The visit also aims to reconnect the children with their cultural heritage and allow cultural exchange through joint performances and lessons with UK schools. Host families will house the children and continue supporting their school fees after the visit.
John Cook outlines his research interests in technology enhanced learning and how social media and mobile devices can support learning in both formal and informal contexts. He proposes establishing a Technology Enhanced Learning and Creativity Special Interest Group and shares 6 principles and 3 timelines that have guided his work investigating the role of new technologies to support learning. Cook is looking for potential collaborators interested in his research areas.
Social Media and Mobile Technologies in Workplace Practices: Interpretations of What Counts as Good Research. Technology Enhanced Learning Summer School #telss12 interactive lecture. Thursday 24 May, Estoril, Portugal: http://www.prolearn-academy.org/Events/summer-school-2012/
2. Structure
1. Learning outcomes
2. Introduction to BRILLE & D4DL research
theme
3. Hindsight perspective, with initial questions
and Vygotskian perspective
4. Insight: Augmented Contexts for Development
5. Foresight: Future research could revolve
around the following issues and questions
3. 1. Learning outcomes
By the end of this session participants will:
- Have been exposed to the notion that „Literacy„ and fact
that this is a contested area with calls for a radical
reappraisal of the phenomenon of "literacy".
- Be aware of the Vygotskian view of technology as a tool
like language that can mediate learning in a ZPD.
- Have considered a more contemporary view that takes
a critical account of "literacy“ by examining research in
mobile learning that looks at Augmented Contexts for
Development (research at UWE/BRILLE)
- Have considered and discussed how future research
could revolve around several issues and questions
4. 2. Bristol Centre for Research
in Lifelong Learning and Education (BRILLE)
University of the West of England (UWE)
http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/cahe/edu/research/researchcentre-brille.aspx
• Based in North Bristol, West England, UK
• Originating in a Lifelong Learning Research Group formed in 2002
• Based in the Department of Education
• BRILLE conducts theoretical through to applied research
• Major research theme is Designing for Digital Learners (D4DL)
• http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2435
• Current projects include:
• FP7 BrEaking New Ground IN the SciencE Education Realm. (ENGINEER)
• Previous projects include:
• FP7 MATURE IP
• Leonardo da Vinci programme DISCO I&II the European Dictionary of Skills and
Competencies
5. People
• John Cook
– http://westengland.academia.edu/JohnCook/A
bout
– Professor in Education
– 20 years in TEL research, specialises mobile
learning and social media
6. 3. Hindsight perspective
• Interested in research that develops a
theoretical dialogue between „literacies‟
and technology enhanced learning
• In particular cognitive psychology and
education
• Work of Vygotsky
• Before the above I paint a broad brush
picture of the landscape.
7. 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.
8. 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)
9. 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 2008, p. 6).
10. BUT we are seeing fragmentation of
‘literacy’ abilities
• The results of PISA on reading competence
suggest a fragmenting of literacy performace in
terms of social cohesion.
• Except for in a few countries, for example in
Finland, around 18% of 15 year old students
tend to be unable to read texts (OECD, 2004, p.
5).
• This in the sense of comprehension: finding
information in a paragraph, interpreting the
information and reflecting on or evaluating it.
11. 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.”
JISC and British Library (2008)
12. 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).
13. Initial Questions
• 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‟?
14. • LMLG (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, in press)
argue that the context for learning in the 21st
Century has brought about the need to re-
conceptualize or extend theories from the past if
we are to develop an approach to deep learning
design for the present and the future.
15. Augmented Contexts for Development
(Cook, 2010)
• I argue that
– the nature of learning and meaning making is being
augmented by new digital tools and media,
particularly by mobile devices and the networks and
structures to which they connect people;
– our understanding of how to design for these new
contexts for development & learning can benefit from
a re-conceptualisation of Vygotskys work;
– the above leads to notion of Augmented Contexts for
Development.
16. Back to the future
(this will be quick and painless )
www.ukzn.ac.za/cae/pfi/sqd/lev.htm
17. • The “higher psychological processes”, as
Vygotsky termed them, result from a
relation “between human beings and their
environment, both physical and social”
((Vygotsky 1978/1930, p. 19).
• Vygotsky considered “social interactions”
to be those like „to speak‟ as the
transformation of practical activities such
as „to use a tool‟.
18. • The leading processes are that of
internalization and that of the instrumental
use of a tool.
• This happens where “An operation that
initially represents an external activity is
reconstructed and begins to occur
internally” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 56).
19. • Further, the social situation of the external
activity, like the conditions for the use of
tools, is internalized:
– “An interpersonal process is transformed into
an intrapersonal one” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p
57).
20. • “The transformation of an interpersonal
process into an intrapersonal one is the
result of a long series of developmental
events” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 57).
21. Vygotsky proposed the
Zone of Proximal Development
“It is the distance between the actual
developmental level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level
of potential problem solving as determined
through problem solving under adult
guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers.”
(Vygotsky, 1978/1930, p. 86, my bold)
22. • Vygotsky (1978/1930, p. 90) proposed “that an
essential feature of learning is that it creates the
zone of proximal development; that is, learning
awakens a variety of internal developmental
processes that are able to operate only when
the child is [in] interaction with people in his
environment and in cooperation with his peers.
Once these processes are internalized, they
become part of the child‟s independent
developmental achievement.”
24. Temporal underpinning of Augmented
Contexts for Development is fundamental
“Attention should be given first place among the major functions in the
psychological structure underlying the use of tools … the child is able
to determine for herself the “centre of gravity” of her perceptual field;
her behaviour is not regulated solely by the salience of individual
elements with it … In addition to reorganizing the visual-spatial
field, the child, with the help of speech, creates a time field that is just
as perceptible and real to him as the visual one. The speaking child
has the ability to direct his attention in a dynamic way. He can view
changes in his immediate situation from the point of view of
activities, and he can act in the present from the viewpoint of the
future.”
(Vygotsky, 1978/1930, p. 35-36, original italics, my bold.)
26. Elements of Augmented Context
for Development
• The physical environment (Cistercian abbey).
• Pedagogical plan.
• Tool: Visualisation/augmentation oriented approach
creates umbrella „Augmented Context for Development‟
for location based mobile devices (acts as substitute for
„more capable peer‟)
• Co-constructed „temporal context for development,‟
created within wider Augmented Context for
Development through
– Interpersonal interactions using tools (e.g. language, mobiles
etc) and signs
– Intrapersonal representations of the above functions
30. Qualitative analysis: process and explanatory
perspective, looking at the inner features of the
situation (Cook, 2010)
Screen shot of Carl Smith’s
wire-frame movie
reconstruction of Nine Alters
(http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/)
Students interacting @
Cistercian Chapel in
CONTSENS
31. Augmented Contexts for Development
(Cook, 2010)
• Visualisation/augmentation oriented approach.
• Wider Augmented Context for Development
substitutes for „more capable peer‟.
• Inside this wider Augmented Context:
– learners are supported as they co-create „temporal
contexts for development‟
– where the time field of attention becomes detached
from the perceptual field and unfolds itself in time.
• Thus augmenting development and learning.
32. 5. Foresight:
Future research could revolve around the following
issues and questions (from Becta report)
• The demands on teachers‟ time of innovating in this area should not be
understated, particularly if a more bottom-up mode of dissemination is to be
pursued. Periods of brief sabbatical leave could be considered for those
who wish to take leads in Web 2.0 innovation
• Web 2.0 is not exclusively confined to interactions with PC monitors.
Attention should be directed at the development of versatile and learner-
friendly mobile devices. If synchronised with network services, these offer a
valuable opening to extend Web 2.0 pedagogy.
• The tension between Web 2.0 modes of teaching and learning and the
traditional structure of educational practice needs to be confronted. This
applies in particular to the tension between collaborative study and
individual assessment, and also between the imperative for personal
research and the discipline of personal authorship.
• The breadth and depth of security and safety concerns within schools
should not be underestimated. Until practitioners are reassured about these
matters, progress will be halting. This reassurance must involve addressing
practice that relates to the management of peer and teacher intimidation
through Web 2.0 services and the cultivation of a less restrictive approach
to managing selective access to internet sites in school.
34. References
• Becta (2008). Web 2.0 technologies for learning at KS3 and KS4:
Learners' use of Web 2.0 technologies in and out of school. June).
Available from:
http://archive.teachfind.com/becta/research.becta.org.uk/upload-
dir/downloads/page_documents/research/web2_ks34_summary.p
df , accessed 23/10/12
• Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Phones as Mediating Tools Within
Augmented Contexts for Development. International Journal of
Mobile and Blended Learning, 2(3), 1-12, July-September. PDF
available download:
http://www.mendeley.com/download/public/7293303/4169531183/
bc70de880a4f7a7dff633120efcc8e8f1221a0c6/dl.pdf
• JISC and British Library (2008)
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/01/googlegen.aspx,
accessed 10 January 2009
35. • Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in a New Media Age. London: Routledge.
• New Media Consortium (2005). A Global Imperative – the report of
the 21st century literacy summit. (p. 2, original was in italics).
Available at
http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/globalimperative.pdf, accessed
10th January, 2009.
• OECD (2004) Messages from PISA 2000. Available at:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/31/19/34107978.pdf
• Ofcom (2008) Media Literacy Audit - Report on UK children‟s media
literacy.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/medlitpubr
ss/ml_childrens08/, accessed 5th September 2008.
• Pachler, N., Bachmair, B. and Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning:
Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer.
• Vygotsky, L. (1978 / 1930). Mind in society. The development of
higher psychological processes. Edited by M. Cole et al.,
Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
Editor's Notes
In the society’s technologically and socially driven transformation of the industrialisation of the first third of the 20th century, Lev Vygotsky defined the characteristics of human development as a development which is based on the instrumental conditioning of reflexes or as the extension of the body by tools for mastering nature (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p. 19 ff.). The “higher psychological processes”, as Vygotsky termed them, result from a relation “between human beings and their environment, both physical and social” (p. 19). Vygotsky considered “social interactions” to be those like ‘to speak’ as the transformation of practical activities such as ‘to use a tool’. The leading processes are that of internalization and that of the instrumental use of a tool; this happens where “An operation that initially represents an external activity is reconstructed and begins to occur internally” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 56 f.). Further, the social situation of the external activity, like the conditions for the use of tools, is internalized: “An interpersonal process is transformed into an intrapersonal one” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 57).
These processes of internalization depend on the children’s (or older learner’s) development: “The transformation of an interpersonal process into an intrapersonal one is the result of a long series of developmental events” (Vygotsky 1978/1930, p 57). Vygotsky (1978/1930, p. 90) proposed “that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is [in] interaction with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the child’s independent developmental achievement.” The implication of Vygotsky’s line of argument on internalization and child development was, and continues to be, important in terms of learning from childhood onwards: it is not the learning object that is ruling the learning, but the student’s development, i.e. the phases within a student’s development, the so-called “zones of proximal development”, in which the student is susceptible to internalizing learning objects.
visualisation/augmentation oriented approach; learners are supported as they co-create temporal contexts where the time field of attention becomes detached from the perceptual field and unfolds itself in time, thus augmenting development and learning. The concept of Augmented Contexts for Development has as a goal the enabling of formal and informal learners to independently unfold their attention in time, thus encouraging them to travel a temporally dynamic developmental learning journey without necessarily moving to a formal place of learning; in this sense I advocate that some learning should be characterised as ‘travelling without moving’