Proceedings of the International Conference on Networked Learning
Since 1998, the biennial Networked Learning Conference has provided an opportunity to participate in a forum for the critical examination and analysis of research in networked learning – particularly in higher education and lifelong learning. Networked learning has become a broader area of inquiry over the years, bringing together research in education and organisations spanning formal, informal, and technology-enhanced learning settings.
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Networks are an ally for higher educators: providing them an avenue to connect beyond the boundaries of space, time, and institutional hierarchy, to build professional capacity. This paper reports on an ethics approved mixed methods study on the value of networking to develop capacity for teaching with technologies. Data were collected via the means of anonymous online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. There were 218 valid questionnaire responses and 31 interviews with participants from 23 countries worldwide. The value creation framework by Wenger, Trayner and deLaat (2011) was the main reference concept for data collection, analysis and reporting. The findings show that higher educators create value in networks to build capacity to teach with technologies by taking the role of Lurker, Seeker or Leader.
Copyright (c) 2024 Ashwini Datt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Networked Educational Design for Novice Principals’ Professional Development
This paper focuses on professional development for school principals, drawing on literature on the education of leaders and school leaders' development. The Swedish National Principal Training Programme (NPTP) is a state-regulated executive education for professional principals in preschools, schools, and school-age Educare centres. It has been mandatory for all newly appointed principals in Sweden since 2010. The NPTP is a mandatory in-service programme and consists of three courses: school law and governance, governing with objectives and results, and school leadership. The programme runs over three years, parallel to working full-time as a principal. The participants are expected to spend 20% of their working time on their studies. The NPTP uses a networked educational design, which is a valuable research topic from a networked professional learning perspective. This pilot study aims to explore the role of networked educational design for novice principals' professional development and strengthened professional confidence and identity. The research question that frames the study is: In what ways do novice principals' experiences of professional development contribute to the development of their professional confidence and identity with a networked educational design? The study employed a qualitative case-study design with a purposive sampling method to include novice principals undertaking Sweden's national school training programme. Data were collected during 2018-2022 from post-programme evaluations, including individual digital questionnaires with close-ended and open-ended responses and small group oral evaluations documented in a log book. The participants were novice principals studying in the NPTP at one university in Sweden. In all, 321 school leaders from 10 cohort groups in the programme consisting of principals and deputy principals from preschool, primary, secondary, and adult education participated voluntarily. The programme evaluations were carried out during the participants' last residential stay in the programme. Results indicate the importance of residential stays and networking opportunities in the educational journey of principals. These opportunities help connect with peers, establish contacts, and acquire valuable strategies. Completing the training increased principals' professional confidence, particularly in their roles as school leaders. The study shows that the networked educational design supports the development of a professional network among principals, which enhances their professional identity and confidence. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of this networked educational design, which helps shape principals' professional identity and confidence. The findings emphasise the value of networked professional learning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Susanne Sahlin, Marcus Sundgren https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Digital Inequalities and Student Engagement in Higher Education
During the COVID-19 pandemic, education systems worldwide were forced to shut down and transition to online learning. While distance learning and digital technology offer a practical solution to mitigate the negative effects of university closure, there is also a risk of exacerbating the pre-existing digital disparities by reducing opportunities for those from less privileged backgrounds. China, as one of the first education systems to experience system-wide closure during the COVID-19 crisis, adopted emergency online learning, following a policy entitled Suspending Classes Without Stopping Learning. In the past three years, we have witnessed a growing number of studies on students’ online learning experiences. However, most of these studies have focused on a behavioural perspective which centres on student behaviour and effective institutional practices, thereby neglecting the exploration of broader sociocultural contexts that may influence student experiences. Moreover, the majority of empirical studies have laid particular emphasis on quantitative measures of student engagement through large-scale surveys, while very limited studies have explored in-depth factors that influence student engagement. This short paper offers a brief overview of an ongoing research project that focuses on exploring the day-to-day digital practice of students in two different types of universities in China. Adopting a digital ethnographic approach including visual methods, online observations, semi-structured interviews and comparative ethnographic analysis, this study aims to provide a detailed qualitative understanding of student experiences working with digital technologies in both research-oriented universities and teaching-oriented universities. Throughout the theoretical discussion of different approaches to digital inequalities, this paper hopes to stimulate thinking about the forms of the digital divide that might exist in higher education and ultimately contribute to both academic and policy debates on the subject. By exploring the different meanings of student engagement, this paper exhibits some of the challenges and issues relating to conceptualising and measuring student engagement in the digital age. It is hoped that this paper will bring insights into reframing and conceptualising student engagement from a socio-material perspective that moves away from the dominance of behavioural and quantitative studies. The finding of this study will contribute to providing a nuanced understanding of the relationship between initial socioeconomic inequalities, differences in student engagement and resulting inequalities in post-higher education, which will potentially inform future educational practitioners and scholars alike in developing effective strategies to enhance student learning experiences in the digital sphere.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yutong Cheng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Dataveillance and Care in Teachers’ Work with Early Warning Systems
It has now become a widespread practice in both public and private organisations to analyse data collected through digital systems and tools. Datafication in schools has resulted in additional work tasks for teachers and an increased level of accountability on their part. One of these data-work-related tasks of teachers is to proactively recognize students who may be at risk of dropping out of school and help them. Machine learning holds significant promise in the creation of advanced early warning systems (EWS) for predicting such student dropouts. Such systems are in line with a positive discourse supporting teachers’ effective decision making and a deeper understanding of student behaviour. In contrast, critical scholars raise concerns about the impact of data-driven practices in education on the teaching profession. This study adds to this body of literature by exploring how teachers are regulated by and regulating EWS as part of their work practice. In this study as part of a larger working life funded project, we focus on one digital tool used in Swedish upper secondary schools called StudyBee, integrated with Google Classroom and connected to the Swedish National Agency for Education. We conducted a combination of ethnographic methods such as desktop research of application’s website and social media posts to gain a deeper knowledge on the StudyBee’s Graphical User Interface, interviews with teachers and principals, as well as go-alongs with teachers to understand their interactions with EWSs. Based on Decuypere’s (2021) topological framework, we analyse what is happening on, with, behind, and beyond EWS. To argue that teacher work is shaped by accountability mechanisms, we use a critical perspective on teacher work within the digital platform/accountability discourse, aiming to reveal underlying power dynamics. We apply the concept of dataveillance (datafied surveillance, Clarke in Lyon, 2022) to illustrate how power operates, encouraging teachers to self-regulate in alignment with school accountability. Furthermore, we utilize the concept of care (Zakharova & Jarke, 2022) to understand technology-related aspects and care for students.
Copyright (c) 2024 Kalliopi Moraiti, Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Mobilage thinking and empirical encounters
This short paper heralds a chapter in a forthcoming book showcasing phenomenology in networked learning research and practice. One of the arguments treated in the chapter relates to expectations that doctoral educational research projects will gather data, often through interviews. Doctoral students would also be expected to ground their projects philosophically and this can be difficult without a background in philosophy. Various methodologies seem attractive because they have dealt with the philosophical groundwork, laying out a parsimonious, safe and routinised path from proposal to completion. One such candidate methodology is phenomenography, which also appeals because of its origins and achievements in the field of educational research; and not least in networked learning, where phenomenography supported early work in defining networked learning and researching staff and student experiences, helping maintain a focus on human relations in online learning. Phenomenology and phenomenography are used to research experience, and both observe a hermeneutic gap within interview-based research: between the phenomenon of interest and what is said in interviews about that phenomenon. The latter provides interview-based research with data but without necessarily addressing the hermeneutic gap. By contrast, phenomenology’s concern with the prereflective, the so-called structures of consciousness, acknowledges that researchers bring their own preconceptions to any enquiry and some attempt ought to be made to recognise and set them aside: also known as “bracketing” (or epoché), originating in nonempirical philosophy, has been taken up in empirical qualitative research, including phenomenography. However, far from closing the hermeneutic gap, admitting even a simplistic place for bracketing also admits of a need to attain greater clarity in what bracketing is and what it entails. Something of the illusiveness of absolute bracketing may be understood if we consider that even naming the experience for investigation sets off wandering thought paths. This paper suggests “reverse bracketing” may help, by redirecting those thought paths which may be anticipated, to restore thinking to the desired state of wonder instead. Mobilage thinking is proposed as one example of how a blend word was constructed to help maintain a state of openness to the target experience: in this case, being a healthcare student with a mobile phone.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mike Johnson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Inquiry into Higher Education Educators' Engagement with Technology for Facilitating Higher Order Thinking Skills
Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, this study delves into the lived experiences of higher education (HE) educators who utilise digital technology to enhance Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). Grounded in the philosophical frameworks of Heidegger (1927/1962) and Gadamer (1960/1975) and employing an adaptation of van Manen’s (2014) Methodology of Phenomenology, this research provides an in-depth emic perspective on how educators experience the use of digital tools to foster students’ HOTS. The study engages a diverse, international cohort of twelve HE educators from Australia, Canada, India, the UK, and the USA, covering key disciplines relevant to contemporary business schools. The study aims to enhances understanding of the intricate relationship between digital technology and educators' experiences in fostering HOTS. By exploring these experiences through an existential lens, it addresses ethical, cognitive, and affective dimensions. The findings resonate with insights from Beard (2018) and Hare (2022), affirming technology's dual role in education, as encapsulated in the 'pharmakon' concept, originally articulated by Derrida (1972) from his reading of Plato’s Socrates. This principle illustrates technology's capacity to serve both as a remedy and a poison, a duality further explored in digital contexts by Kern (2014) and Adams (2017). For example, while digital technologies promote connectivity and collaborative learning—serving as a remedy to traditional educational limitations—they can also lead to cognitive overload and superficial engagement, exemplifying its 'pharmakon' effect in supporting HOTS development. By focusing on educators' lived experiences through a phenomenological lens, the research illuminates how educators adeptly navigate the complexities and opportunities presented by digital tools. The findings underscore the necessity for a critical and nuanced understanding of technology's role in shaping educational practices and outcomes and advocates for a balanced, reflective approach to technology integration when supporting HOTS development. The study offers grounded insights to inform pedagogical strategies for HOTS development in the digital era.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dr Felicity Healey-Benson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This paper reports preliminary findings from an ongoing, campus wide research project on effective methods for generative AI applicability in pursuit of effective and engaging teaching and learning activities. Generative AI has had a tremendous adoption rate since the public release of ChatGPT 3.5 on November 30th 2022. This has necessitated that educators and administrators consider the potential opportunities and threats usage of generative AI by students and faculty may have on higher education. Recognizing the inevitability of generative AI, the researchers have proposed a university-wide research project to ascertain the changes in faculty and students perspectives when using generative AI The research project is two-fold. First, a longitudinal survey has been developed to address research questions about usage and perceptions of generative AI change over time. The second prong of this research project focuses on the implementation of new and continuing generative AI professional development workshops. These “AI Institutes” are targeted educational opportunities to provide faculty, staff, and students with hands-on experiences that model appropriate ways to teach and learn with generative AI tools. Workshops change based on audience needs, but will be designed to support such processes as introductory and advanced lessons on building learning activities which engage students with generative AI, administrative shortcuts, best practices for writing, and our university’s AI policy and principles. The longitudinal survey, thus, allows the research team to gauge changes in perspectives as the “AI Institutes'' are deployed and widespread adoption of generative AI tools become more mainstream. This paper reports on the first year of this research project, including one survey and one AI Institute. This research on integrating generative AI technologies into teaching and learning has important implications for the field of networked learning. As the paper explores, rapid advances in AI are changing how students and faculty interact with content and each other. Findings from the longitudinal survey and AI Institutes could provide insights into how to thoughtfully leverage these emerging tools to enhance connections, dialogue, collaboration, and co-creation of knowledge within digital learning networks. While further research is needed, this project takes an important first step in assessing faculty and student perceptions that can inform appropriate AI integration. Lessons learned could guide other institutions exploring the potentials and pitfalls of weaving generative AI into networked learning ecosystems.
Copyright (c) 2024 Magdalene Moy, Andrew Feldstein https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence for Education
Education today faces a range of challenges, but also unique opportunities, vis-à-vis the evolution of digital technologies. Traditional teaching methods struggle to meet the diverse needs of students, as classrooms comprise learners at different levels. The Education AI project represents an initiative aimed at integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the classroom to address the diversity of students and the challenges faced by traditional teaching methods. The project's core objective is to enhance student learning outcomes by providing an adaptive and personalised learning experience, thereby making education more equitable and effective. This paper evaluates the project's impact on student learning, teacher workload, and its broader applicability in education. The study's methodology combines quantitative and qualitative data, employing a mixed-methods approach to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Education AI system's effectiveness. Preliminary findings indicate a notable improvement in student performance, particularly among low and medium-performing students, with quantitative data revealing an average improvement of 23% in assessments for low-performing students. The system's user-friendly interface, gamified elements, and immediate feedback mechanisms have been well-received, with a majority of students reporting enhanced engagement and understanding of mathematical concepts. Teachers have also reported positive experiences, highlighting the system's role in reducing their workload and facilitating personalised and adaptive teaching and learning. Qualitative feedback from interviews with teachers and students provides further insights into the system's impact, emphasising its varied and engaging question types, adaptivity, and the shift from paper-based to digital learning. The feedback also reveals a desire for expansion to other subjects and enhancements in the system's analytics for more targeted support. The Education AI project demonstrates the transformative potential of AI in the classroom, with significant improvements in student performance and positive reception from both students and teachers. The study highlights the importance of addressing technical challenges and expanding the system's capabilities for broader application. The project offers valuable insights into the future of education, where technology and human expertise converge to create a more personalised, adaptive engaging, and effective learning experience for all students. This initiative, underpinned by the transformative potential of AI for education, aims and informing and guiding future innovations in educational technology.
Copyright (c) 2024 Stephen Bezzina, Prof Alexiei Dingli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
PBL hybrid: An exploration of the concept of hybrid learning in a resource-constrained university context
<span class="NormalTextRun SCXW211248762 BCX0" data-ccp-parastyle="NLC - Abstract text" data-ccp-parastyle-defn="{"ObjectId":"2abd7acf-6306-4aef-9156-bca0086132e9|32","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[469775450,"NLC - Abstract text",201340122,"2",134234082,"true",134233614,"true",469778129,"NLC-Abstracttext",335572020,"99",469777841,"Times New Roman",469777842,"Times New Roman",469777843,"Times New Roman",469777844,"Times New Roman",469769226,"Times New Roman",268442635,"20",335559705,"1033",335551547,"2057",335559685,"432",335559737,"432",335559740,"240",201341983,"0",335559739,"120",335559738,"40",335551550,"6",335551620,"6",469777929,"NLC - Abstract text Char",469778324,"Normal"]}" data-ccp-parastyle-linked-defn="{"ObjectId":"2abd7acf-6306-4aef-9156-bca0086132e9|47","ClassId":1073872969,"Properties":[469775450,"NLC - Abstract text Char",201340122,"1",134233614,"true",469778129,"NLC-AbstracttextChar",335572020,"99",134231262,"true",469777841,"Times New Roman",469777842,"Times New Roman",469777843,"Times New Roman",469777844,"Times New Roman",469769226,"Times New Roman",268442635,"20",335551547,"2057",469777929,"NLC - Abstract text",469778324,"Default Paragraph Font"]}">In this paper, we explore the concept of hybrid learning in the context of a project aiming to transform the master programmes at Gulu University in Uganda by incorporating problem- and project-based learning (PBL) and the use of digital technologies to prepare graduates to lead community transformation and improve employability. Teachers are experimenting and piloting PBL and digital technologies. Based on the teachers' experiences this paper provides insights into how PBL and hybrid learning are being enacted by teachers and learners in the context of a resource-constrained university environment. What are the challenges of bringing these principles of hybrid learning and PBL together in a resource-constrained environment? The paper understands hybrid learning as the development of a new quality of learning environments that goes beyond a mere mixture of elements, e.g. digital and analogue, on-site and off-site. In this paper we are particularly concerned with exploring how the new PBL hybrid practices are developing, with a interest in how digital tools are integrated into teaching and learning. This paper is based on the results of a co-construction workshop with teachers and researchers based on their experiences from the first pilot phase. The results of the study suggest that flexibility is a core concept in relation to PBL-hybrid. Hybrid learning involves flexibility in terms of how learners carry out educational activities, how PBL is implemented, the use of many different technologies and the use of both analogue and digital learning tools and spaces. Moreover, to achieve hybrid learning, the types of flexibility and technologies, as well as the mix of digital and analogue tools, depend on the specific context of the educational activities, as well as on the competences of learners and teachers. As such, hybrid learning needs to be seen as a concept in relation to the contexts in which it unfolds. This insight is important for networked learning, which cuts across contexts, actors, materials/spaces and digital/analogue modalities.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Ann Bygholm, Heilyn Camacho, Vincent Canwat, Iben Jensen, Clara Kansiime, Walter Komakech, Margaret Namubiru, David Pakono Okot, David Ross Olanya, Geoffrey Tabo Olok, Vivian Drateru Perry https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Perceptions of Collaboration between Virtual and Human Teachers in Online Education
This study delves into the perceptions of teachers regarding the collaboration between virtual and human teachers in online education. It is situated within the broader context of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, with a particular focus on Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) and its potential to transform online learning. This study aims to explore the possibilities of Virtual Humans (VH) as humanized Gen AI entities. More specifically, in this presentation, we study the perceptions of online teachers of d-teach online school regarding VH. This study employs a survey that combines the Agent Persona Instrument (API-R) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to measure the participants' perceptions with respect to using a VH as a digital co-teacher. The primary research objective is thus to understand how these stakeholders perceive VH roles and effectiveness in supporting the learning process. Follow up interviews are planned to deepen our insights on how real teachers think about virtual humans as a teacher. Although specific results are pending at this stage, the study promises to provide valuable insights into teachers' perspectives. Beyond the confines of the school, this research has the potential to benefit global education and training by enhancing the quality, efficiency, accessibility, and inclusivity of online education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lieselot Declercq, Prof. dr. Bram De Wever, Prof. dr. Melissa Tuytens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In an age of ‘deepfakes’, designing learning media and video intentionally and ethically becomes more important than ever. Emerging educational research focuses on generative large language models, which use neural networks to produce human-like text based on prompts. Yet the educational design of synthetic media, particularly AI-generated avatars, which are also currently produced from text prompts, remains less explored. This paper share insights from an ongoing evaluation of realistic, AI-generated avatars as educational presenters at a large Australian metropolitan university. Using commercially available software, we created a suite of AI-generated avatars and accompanying interactives to explore the topic of ethics in business intelligence which was delivered to approximately 1200 students across two semesters in 2022 and 2023. The aim was to provoke critical discussion around ethical decision-making with AI by immersing students in text-to-video technology as part of their learning experience. To better understand students’ perceptions of synthetic media as a stimulus for learning, we conducted four focus groups over two iterations of the course. Our multidisciplinary team also documented the design, development, and implementation challenges of AI-generated avatars. Preliminary findings suggest that clarifying design intentions is key to the effective and ethical application of AI-generated avatars. Automating video content with synthetic media to simplify certain types of educational content could be a catalyst for increased sharing and collaboration. While traditional video formats may prove a simpler choice in the short-term, this study indicates the potential of more hybrid human and nonhuman representation in certain contexts. Students were comfortable with synthetic media use and blending humans and nonhuman elements, expressing a desire for greater interaction with both. We propose a posthuman perspective on AI-generated avatars, one which acknowledges the messy and entangled nature of learning and teaching with technology, that often surfaces issues of ethics and power. To assist educators, ‘VIEW’ is outlined, a brief educational design guide for AI-generated avatars that considers aspects such as the intentions or purpose of the video, the suitability of video as a medium, implementation, and ethical questions. Finally, we suggest more critical and ethical studies on the emergence of synthetic media applications in higher education are needed.
Copyright (c) 2024 Carmen Vallis, Boyd Britton https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Deploying the Affordances of Social Media
Educational scholars have highlighted how social media platforms can be powerful sites of learning and organizing for social change. Research into informal social media learning has suggested that it promotes life-wide education, offering opportunities to learn through networks of connection, co-create knowledge with others, and foster self-directed learning. Studies of social media-based activism, for instance linked to movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, have demonstrated that it leads to the acquisition of subject-matter expertise, development of capabilities such as organizing for change, development of capacity for self-reflection, and personal transformation such as increased belief in one’s ability to shift political systems. However, universities are yet to fully leverage the affordances of social media for learning. Many institutions offer online classes, and many individual instructors utilize social media in their teaching. Yet, university learning has not transformed to a degree that is commensurate with the radical ways in which, in our post-digital era, learning has come to be transformed in society at large. In this context, a question to be asked is why universities, those institutions charged with educating individuals for personal and societal benefit, stake such minor claims in what has emerged as an integral learning space of our era. Universities’ slowness to embrace change means they are abdicating important spaces of learning, connection, and change to private corporations like X and Facebook, which lack both the skills and motivation to promote learning in the public interest. This presentation argues for a university-owned social media platform, which would use the media’s affordances to advance a post-classroom vision of learning; classes would continue to be part of the educational experience, but they would be decentred as the primary site of learning. Further, this presentation tells of the presenter’s work in exploring the possibility of prototyping such a platform within their own university. It builds on Networked Learning (NL) scholarship, specifically expanding Lee and Bligh’s (2023) expanded design framework for transformative NL, and drawing inductively on relevant NL literature to put forward six design principles for a university owned platform. The platform would connect formal and informal learning. It also would connect learners, staff, and faculty to each other and to the community outside the university. It would be comprised of three virtual spaces, dedicated to: (1) learning and organizing for social change; (2) student-initiated community building and learning; and (3) university-led news, events, and discussion.
Copyright (c) 2024 Amy Zidulka https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Building hybrids between higher education and society
In this study, the changed context for higher education institutions is analysed through the lens of various approaches to collaboration between higher education institutions and society. Three different approaches are discussed: the ivory tower, the factory, and the network. Although these approaches differ, higher education institutions are complex organisations and can embrace a mix of approaches. Nevertheless, depending on the approach applied, this impacts how collaboration between higher education institutions and organisations in society plays out. The study contextualised these approaches in a joint higher education-industry project focusing on developing work-integrated learning (WIL) in a Business Administration program. WIL should embrace practice-based pedagogical methods and strategies by integrating theoretical knowledge in the workplace. To achieve WIL, a network of stakeholders needs to be engaged actively in practice-based activities. The study aimed to report preliminary results from a higher education work-integrated learning project. The following research question was posed: How can higher education institutions, together with organisations in society, apply a networked approach to work-integrated learning? Thus, this paper contributes to knowledge regarding the networked aspects of the design and development of a preliminary framework, including the following themes: Exchanges of experiences and knowledge, Guest lecturers and Bring-Your-Own-Data (BYOD) assignments. These themes manifest a networked WIL framework as a hybrid between higher education and society. First, the networks of experiences and knowledge within academia merge with those of experiences and knowledge in society. Between these two, a hybrid networked work-integrated framework links higher education and society. Second, the same can be said to be true for guest lecturers. Here, guest lecturers became a link between higher education and society and therefore merge the two networks of learning through information and knowledge exchange. Third, BYOD assignments provided further manifestations of a networked WIL framework. Authentic data from the workplace meet the theories of higher education and a hybrid is created. When practice meets theory, they, too, become a link between higher education and society.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jimmy Jaldemark, Marcia Håkansson Lindqvist, Peter Mozelius, Peter Öhman https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Building a hybrid and networked university through long-term lifelong learning agreements with the surrounding society
The current study focused on lifelong learning as a tool for higher education institutions to build relationships with surrounding society. As a theoretical point of departure, the study built on empowerment and human capital discourses of lifelong learning and the ivory tower, the factory, and the network as modes of higher education institutions' collaboration with the surrounding society. The study focused on a lifelong learning initiative to move a higher education institution towards a hybrid and networked mode. Particularly, the initiative focused on building long-term relationships with organisations in the surrounding society. Therefore, this paper aims to report results, in terms of a preliminary conceptual framework, from a higher education lifelong learning initiative. It answers the following research question: How can higher education institutions build hybrid and networked long-term relationships with the surrounding society through lifelong learning initiatives? The study was based on a design-based research method and described and analysed the conceptual development of a Swedish collaborative lifelong learning initiative between a higher education institution and an organisation. Data included in the analysis is taken from documents and field notes, including a long-term agreement, conceptual documents, and plans. The studied initiative included three phases. The first phase, preparatory work, embraced a course for the top management team of the organisation to strengthen their ability to plan, lead and organise professional and organisational development, followed by identifying the needs of the organisation. The second phase, implementation, included dialogue and analysis of the identified needs and development and implementation of suitable courses matching prioritised needs. The third phase, follow-up, included an evaluation of the different parts of the initiative, possible impacts, and a discussion of further needs of collaboration for both professional and organisational development. The conceptual development work included the design of a hybrid and networked framework based on the idea of collaboration partners subscribing to higher education courses under a long-term agreement called POD (collaboration for Professional and Organisational Development). Among others, these PODs include regular dialogues on the needs of the organisations and courses built on networked learning principles. Bring-your-own-data is a core principle to ensure a strong link between theory and practice. The early stage of the initiative included promising results, going in the direction of becoming a hybrid and networked higher education institution by signing its first POD.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jimmy Jaldemark, Åsa Bång, Mathias Larsson, Margareta Majchrowska https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Understanding Inclusivity in Online Learning from a Socio-material Lens
The global pandemic in 2020 has led to a recent rise of digital technologies in higher education internationally, which seems to make learning less restricted in terms of time and space (Oztok, 2019) and enhance inclusion and engagement in learning. However, it is necessary to distinguish the presence and interaction in online learning from true connectedness and inclusivity. Networked learning, as a concept being constantly explored by a small group of researchers since the 1990s and attracting increasing current attention, is built around the different kinds of connections between students and instructors, as well as human and non-humans (NLEC, 2021). This paper emphasizes the need to be aware of the dimension of connection constructed through the assemblage of humans, materials and discourses. Adopting a socio-material perspective, the assumed high accessibility of online learning and the neo-liberal discourse of a ‘good learner’ are challenged and care is proposed as an approach to improve inclusivity in online learning in higher education. This paper is drawn from the data of a comparative research study that explores the online learning experience of undergraduate students in one case study university in China and the UK respectively. The research consisted of qualitative interviews with students and academics in the case discipline Sociology. The findings suggest a mismatch between students’ and teachers’ perception of what makes effective engagement. Although the teachers recognise certain difficulties in online courses, such as technical issues for organizing small group discussions, arguably the implied neo-liberal message is that hard-working ‘good’ students will always participate, regardless of where or how they learn. However, interviews with students in both contexts show that the specific surroundings in formal and informal educational settings, the interaction and support from peers, and the way their status is recognised in the community concomitantly mediate their experience, in addition to their abilities or motivation. This research contributes by highlighting the potential of emergent forms of networked learning in terms of unveiling the issues of established discourses including neoliberalism. It provides suggestions for future practices by proposing the role of care, supported by the findings, in tackling disengagement and exclusion, and pivoting students around supportive learning. Further, it adopts a socio-material perspective that fills a gap created by the dominance of human-centred research, generating reflections on the use of online materials in higher education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yuxuan Wang https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Enhancing online learning environments through real-time social presence dashboards
Online learning is promoted to play a pivotal role in the future of education, necessitating a focus on student engagement and interactivity as essential components for successful online educational environments. Social presence, as a construct capturing these social aspects, is extensively recognized, and investigated within the realm of education and widely shaping the online learning experience. However, a crucial gap remains in the absence of a real-time measurement of social presence. Drawing from prior research, this study identifies indicators derived from social network analysis as promising metrics for assessing social presence in online learning environments. What remains unclear is the means to effectively convey this information to instructors, enabling them to enhance the educational online experience. To address this gap, we conducted focus groups involving seven experts in online education and pedagogical expertise. Our findings reveal that the development of a social presence dashboard holds immense potential for enriching the online teaching experiences through the utilization of these identified indicators. Furthermore, incorporating additional visualizations and graphical representations with such dashboards can equip online instructors with the necessary insights to foster social interactions and capture real-time social dynamics within online courses. However, the implementation of such dashboards necessitates a careful consideration of important ethical and practical considerations, including informed consent procedures, student monitoring practices, and adherence to ethical standards. This research contributes valuable insights into the ongoing discourse on improving online education by leveraging technology to enhance social presence and pedagogical effectiveness.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lisa-Maria Norz, Dorothea Schmelzer, Elske Ammenwerth https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Society, people, and institutions have reaped the benefits of technologies that allow online meetings and collaboration in real-time ¬¬¬¬- often known as web conferencing technologies. Most of the benefits of these technologies were observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, where efforts to prevent the spread of the virus introduced mass social distancing. In higher education, web conferencing benefits a growing number of students across the world. It enables synchronous online learning, where learning takes place in real time, with communication technologies that permit live audio, video, and text transmission. Extant research suggests that the interplay of technical and social challenges within synchronous online learning, before the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, has not been comprehensively investigated. Additionally, there is a need for thorough studies on the effects of prolonged virtual interactions on individuals, teams, and organizations, stemming from the features of web conferencing technologies. This paper reports ongoing research aimed at exploring the technical and social challenges that affect the success of web conferencing in synchronous online learning. The research investigates the experiences of students and teachers who use these technologies for learning and teaching, and the challenges they face. The work uses theories of technology acceptance and the psychology of user behaviours. The research aims to advance knowledge and offer valuable information to educators and learners. It seeks to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning processes using web conferencing technologies, ensuring that they successfully achieve their intended outcomes. The results of this study, in the long-term, will also inform the development of better and improved interventions, practices and strategies for web conferencing, that can be applied in educational and even commercial contexts. The paper also discusses an exploratory study that was conducted to explore the effects of webcam usage on learner engagement in training and tutorial sessions among higher education students. The exploratory study showed that the webcam, even though rarely used in most sessions, had an impact on learner engagement, and can be explored further. Additionally, the technical and social aspects in these online sessions are complex and need more examination.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yaw Sampene Buadu, Prof. Karen Kear, Dr. Helen Donelan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Building Employability Skills for Graduate Students
Universities have recently been placing a greater emphasis on employability of their graduates. Academic discussions have introduced concepts such as transferable skills, employability, co-creation, active and networked learning, and sustainable transformation as strategies for bridging the gap between university studies and full-time employment after graduation. Collaborative initiatives with companies and organizations have become increasingly prevalent in university curricula, and administrative units have been established to help students transition from students to employees or entrepreneurs (Clark, 2015). This calls for innovating education, for example through increased emphasis on networked learning ((Dohn, Hansen, Hansen, de Laat & Ryberg 2021). This paper will present a case study that explores the effects of exposing university students to different environments than the traditional university campus and lecture rooms. The aim is to investigate whether this change of surroundings and introduction of different educational tools can broaden students' perspectives on their own capabilities and skills in co-creating solutions through, for example, collaborative engagement (NLEC 2021). The focus is on engaging students to address (wicked) problems in new contexts, which are often situated within sustainability and sustainable transformation frameworks. To accomplish this, the students are equipped with skills acquired at AAU and applied in diverse contexts (employability), and they are encouraged to think ‘outside the box’ through co-creation. This includes adapting to diverse sets of norms, values, and agendas, as well as hidden power alliances, when working and co-creating with external partners in a different context.
Copyright (c) 2024 Vibeke Andersson, Helene Balslev Clausen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Supporting small remote school teachers’ professional development through networked learning designs
Equal education is a buzzword, but the description of how it will arise differs. Spatial educational inequality is shown in several studies, and one explanation of this is the lack of professional development for teachers in remote schools due to the distance to peers. In the small remote schools, the teachers are few, and they are often solitary teachers, according to grade and subject. Therefore, the networked learning design needs to be adapted to these unique conditions. In this study, networked learning is put in the context of rural education, more specifically in relation to teachers’ professional development. In rural and remote schools, networked learning designs enabled by digital technologies can afford equal education. The web-based professional development could compensate for the distance between schools. Therefore, the aim of this study concerns the relationship between networked learning designs and the professional development of teachers in small remote schools. It is guided by the research question: How is networked learning designed and arranged to support teachers’ professional development in small remote schools? The sampled data contains transcripts from meetings and interviews from an ethnographic study. The study applied the theory of practice architecture (TPA) to analyse the data. The concepts of sayings, doings, and relatings from TPA provided the analysis to understand the studied practices. In TPA, these concepts and practices all ‘hang together’ in a project. The project in the studied practices is professional development. The preliminary findings show the networks emerge in the district of several small remote schools and are arranged in two different networked learning designs. One is meetings in real life, with time-consuming travels, but a networked learning design with many social aspects embracing time for dinner and visiting different schools. This design enabled sensemaking, an important process in remote areas, including meetings adapted to the sense of place. The other networked learning design for professional development in the district was web-based meetings, including fewer social arrangements but a higher frequency of meetings. When this meeting was combined with real-life meetings it worked well and enabled sayings, doings, and relatings in the professional development practice.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sandra Lund, Jimmy Jaldemark https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Intergenerational and informal learning in communities
Digital Drop-In is a pilot project that aims to provide an informal social environment where older adults can come together to enhance their digital skills through facilitated informal peer and intergenerational learning (IGL). This qualitative study explores the digital skills assistance provided by a small sample of secondary school students aged 15 to16 years to older adult participants in a series of pilot workshops in a secondary school in Ireland during Autumn 2023. Feedback solicited from participants following completion of the workshops yielded the following preliminary observations. First, from the perspectives of the students, all of whom had volunteered for the project, agreement that the learning experience was successful and that their motivation for volunteering was worthwhile. Second, from the perspective of the older adult participants, there was value in the personalised nature of the one-to-one learner-led exchanges by contrast with instructor-led offerings. Finally, from the perspective of the facilitator, guiding learner-led exchanges in informal social environments requires flexibility to meet the needs of individual learners. In Spring 2024, data are planned to be collected from both generations through an online survey instrument and generational focus groups. When complete, this study will contribute to the field of intergenerational research by exploring the perspectives of mid-teenagers involved in an intergenerational exchange to support the digital skills of older adult community members in Ireland. It has potential to offer a contribution to the field of informal peer learning by proposing the role of a facilitator to guide and support the digital skills knowledge exchange in informal social settings.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sandra Flynn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Exploring Hybrid Learning Formats in a Nordic Master’s Programme in Visual Studies and Art Education
This paper reports from a project in progress that aims to develop a hybrid learning format that is sufficiently flexible to accommodate collaborative situations between students and teachers on two campuses and in collaborative situations off-campus. The project explores a current co-teaching opportunity that AAU and Aalto University are facing due to the start-up of the new Nordic joint degree master's program Visual Studies and Art Education (NM NoVA). A new physical space has been established at the AAU Copenhagen campus, that digitally facilitates a video-mediated, synchronous learning environment and a similar facilitation is accessible at Aalto University. Teachers and researchers join into a collaboration and conduct the project drawing theoretical knowledge generated in the field of synchronous learning formats and from research in the particular subject related field of digital technology and visual arts education. Furthermore, the project uses the participants’ practical experience from engaging in different synchronous learning formats shared and informed by discussions with peers. Inspired by Design-Based Research (DBR), researchers actively engage in the problem analysis, design, implementation, and analysis of the hybrid learning format. Rich descriptions of the program's evolution are obtained through participant observations, interviews, and a "photo-safari" capturing interactions among students, teachers, and technology. Analytically, the study explores the hybrid format as an enactment of space beyond geographical constraints, drawing inspiration from the concept of "apparatus" within new materialism. Three analytical themes emerge: knowledge-building practices, community-building practices, and longitudinal aspects, providing insights into how the hybrid format impacts collaboration, engagement, and the evolution of educational spaces. Preliminary findings reveal the diverse orientations and pedagogical discussions that emerge within these hybrid spaces, challenging the traditional notion of a "third space" and paving the way for new conceptualisations. The project anticipates further exploration of interdependencies within third spaces and the dynamics of student and teacher bodies within this evolving educational landscape.
Copyright (c) 2024 Mie Buhl, Maria Hvid Bech Dille, Heidi Hautopp, Juuso Tervo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Networked Leadership Roles for School Leaders' Work with Schools' Digitalization
School leaders are responsible for creating the right conditions for schools and, through dialogue, understanding schools' needs and prerequisites, distributing resources, and following up on the schools' development. School leaders are also important for supporting schools in realizing a top-down policy. One example of such policy is the digitalization policy aimed at implementing digital technologies in teaching, where strong school leaders is necessary. Thus, leadership is a crucial ingredient for a good digitalization process in schools. However, there is little written about school leaders' practice. Further, school leaders' practice may contain more networked leadership despite the fact that they often assumed a top-down leadership role, which would be especially clear when viewed through a networked learning perspective. Further, different countries have different school systems where the school leaders may be referred to by different names in their roles for supporting the schools. A common area in need of support is the digitalization of schools. Students may not get the skills they need in the future as challenges to ensure the advancement is enacted continue to broaden. Thus, it may be interesting to delve deeper into the structures of countries that may differ in general structure for school systems. In conjunction with a networked collaboration between the University of Brazil and Mid Sweden University, connections between the school systems in both countries will be made in this paper to distinguish parts of their leadership strategy for the digitalization of schools. Leadership within schools is closely connected to the pedagogical implementation of technologies. In one dimension of school leadership related to digitalization, there exists a notable aspect known as the networked dimension, which is intricately linked to assessment policies and roles associated with ICT. Given the assumption for the networked dimension, this paper is written for two primary purposes. The first purpose is to investigate the networked leadership dimension according to various leadership roles for school leaders' digitalization work. The second purpose is to prepare a comparative study of the school systems of Brazil and Sweden by reviewing literature that analyses these regions. Thus, in this short paper, we assume that school leaders' practice when compared across two countries different in size from a networked leadership perspective may comprise a research gap, indicating the relevancy of a literature review investigation of this gap.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jussara Reis-Andersson, Fabian Gunnars https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Digital Problem Based Learning for Facilitating the Acquisition of Collaborative Competencies
Is Networked Learning (NL) and Problem-Based Learning (PBL) the future of education to foster collaboration? Networked learning has been proposed to be combined with PBL. Both are pedagogies and philosophies influenced by traditions of open learning, radical pedagogies and humanistic educational ideas. Problem-based learning is a constructivist, student-centered, and problem-based approach used at the medical education at Aalborg University (AAU). During COVID, AAU fast-tracked the implementation of Digital PBL (DPBL) methods. Digital PBL opens new possibilities for collaborations across platforms and holds a potential to improve learning. This potential has yet to be released through systematic efforts to understand the possibilities in the context of medical education. The curriculum at the medical education at AAU is centered around the seven roles of physicians originally described in the Canadian framework, CanMEDS. Healthcare systems becomes increasingly complex, interconnected, and rely on interdisciplinary teamwork. The Collaborator role thus becomes more important than ever before. Physicians are expected to excel in clinical expertise and collaborate effectively with other healthcare professionals, patients, and families. The specific focus on collaboration is a good example of alignment between PBL-, NL pedagogy and the CanMEDS framework, and could be important to further exploration using DPBL. This study will investigate the possibilities of DPBL within the medical education at AAU by exploring and testing digitally supported pedagogical design options for facilitating the acquisition of collaborative competencies. This explorative sequential mixed-method study will explore user-needs and perspectives using DPBL in the medical education. This contextualized knowledge will inform the development of a new teaching intervention aimed at enhancing the Collaborator role. It will be evaluated using quantitative measures of student engagement, time requirements, satisfaction and self-report learning outcomes. The data will be merged with focus group interviews to gain an in-depth understanding of the quantitative results. The theoretical background will be learning design, including constructivism. This approach will be employed using the ACAD-model. The DPBL will include a digital element, the podcast media, and a pedagogical practice encouraging the medical students to engage actively in the learning process. This is facilitated by podcast production in groups. At NLC24 the findings of the user-needs and perspectives will be presented and interpreted as part of the design and frame of the podcast intervention. The intervention will take place in autumn 2024 and this can answer if NL and PBL is part of the future education to foster collaboration.
Copyright (c) 2024 Camilla Rams Rathleff, Patrik Kjærsdam Telléus https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Denormalising the Future Digital University
Universities have become increasingly dependent from digital platforms and AI-assisted learning environments, with unprecedented investments in educational technologies during the pandemic. Generative AI is now raising new promises of a radical transformation of education, with machine learning supporting academic writing and customised learning. It is not surprising that the most normalised narrative about the future university is that it will be highly automated and datafied. Grounded in feminist and decolonial theories, this short essay poses questions to explore alternative imaginaries to this narrative. Feminist scholarship has contributed to epistemological relativism by questioning values that are embedded in techno-scientific knowledge production. It has pointed at the way rational modern subjectivity embraces homogeneity and denies difference, identifying equality with sameness. Adopting a feminist standpoint allows us to assess discursive-material attributes of technologies that are silencing differences. Critical/speculative questions following this approach could be: what does technology do in academic spaces? What are its political effects? How does/can it silence differences? Decolonial scholarship has shown how modernity is intricated with colonial logics, a relationship that is particularly evident in the rhetoric of progress and technological innovation. Most recently, it has stressed how digital technologies and AI shall be assessed in terms of their potential to oppress people and increase inequality. Decolonial thinkers focus on the subjectivities of those who are involved and consider institutions as a space for political action. Critical/speculative questions that go in this direction will ask: in the benefit of whom are technologies used in academic spaces? What are the invisible risks of these uses in terms of social justice? How do digital technologies reproduce social oppression? We argue that the dialogue between these theories can allow us to make the effort of denormalising the role of digital technologies in the future university and understanding how structural change might occur.
Copyright (c) 2024 Magda Pischetola, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
An initial exploration of semi-automated tutoring
In this paper, we begin our process of incorporating an AI bot in an online chat tutoring setting as a support for the tutor. We explore how an AI bot could give suggestions for tutor messages, although the human tutor will control how to communicate with the student. Tutoring, an important dimension of networked learning, has long been seen as a beneficial approach to students’ learning. An AI bot has the potential to aid tutors in the tutoring process and contribute to the scalability. The present pilot study was conducted in the tutoring setting of the Math Coach program. In the program, teacher students aid students from upper primary school to upper secondary school in mathematics through an online text-based chat system. Llama2 was used as a large language model (LLM), fine-tuned for Swedish comprehension utilizing the Math Coach system's chat logs. Four coaches, teacher students at a technical Swedish university and active in the Math Coach program, were invited to interact with the AI bot and participate in a group discussion. The coaches interacted individually with the AI bot while the chat conversation was displayed on a monitor so all participants could discuss the interaction while it took place. A semi-structured interview approach was taken and the participants were also encouraged to 'think aloud' about their experience. In the discussions, the coaches expressed surprise by the AI's social aspect. They perceived the AI bot as friendly with a positive attitude and were especially surprised by its ability to correctly place appropriate emojis. The coaches agreed that the AI was able to ask both appropriate and helpful questions and share some good guidance for how to proceed in the problem-solving process. However, they felt that the AI bot was not able to offer sufficient mathematical guidance, oftentimes the AI bot was confidently wrong. It also wrote too long messages, which humans would typically separate into several chat messages, and did not wait for a response but instead moved too quickly towards the solution. Moving forward we plan to address the effects of improved prompts on the AI bot and continue finetuning the LLM. We will continue to conduct pilot studies and eventually conduct more large-scale empirical studies.
Copyright (c) 2024 Malin Jansson, Kathy Tian, Stefan Hrastinski, Olov Engwall https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Chinese University Students’ Digital Engagement in Post-COVID
Many scholars internationally conducted research on teaching and learning during the pandemic. Some scholars identified positive changes in student academic performance and student satisfaction while others found negative impacts on students’ mental health. My observation is that Covid-19 and technology (non-human actors) have shaped students’ cognition (way of thinking), behavior (digital practices), and affection (mental health). In fact, in China, digital engagement has become an important part of the lives of university students even in the post-Covid era. This qualitative study aims to investigate two Chinese universities with focus on their students’ digital engagement from a sociomaterial perspective. This research focuses on three questions: 1) What are Chinese university students’ perceptions and practices of their digital study (2022-2023)? 2) What dilemmas or conflicts did they confront when they configured a digitally mediated learning space that constitutes messy assemblages of material and social practices? 3) How did they respond to new challenges (human actors and nonhuman actors)? In order to answer these questions, the study adopts interviews and visual analysis of individual digital learning environment (including imaging and texts). It offers insights on reframing student digital engagement as constantly shifting sociomaterial assemblages from which different forms of agency emerge as effects of connections and activity. These assemblages can be closely read and interpreted from the students’ dynamic study practices, which are not only social but also at times private and unobservable. The study will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the human-material-digital practice and enactments for the Chinese academic community and beyond.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yixuan Sun https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Reconceptualising emotions-as-practices in education
Emotions play a pivotal role in shaping educational experiences, yet their subjective and transient nature presents considerable challenges for research. This conceptual paper seeks to address these challenges by employing the Theory of Practice Architectures (TPA) as a lens to explore emotions as socially distributed and constructed phenomena within educational settings. TPA's holistic lens of 'sayings', 'doings', and 'relatings' offers a novel multi-dimensional approach to investigate emotions-as-practices. In education contexts, including the evolving landscape of Networked Learning, emotions significantly influence learners' motivation, engagement, and achievement. Beyond individual impact, they contribute to the collective atmosphere of educational institutions, affecting classroom dynamics, inclusivity, and collaboration. However, research methods often struggle with capturing the complexity and fluidity of emotions, which creates a need for a revised methodology. This paper, underpinned by Scheer's work on emotional practices and Wilkinson’s theorisation of emotions in practice, argues for a reconceptualisation of emotions. It presents them as distributed and entangled actions, discourses, and relationships rather than merely individualised physiological responses. In Networked Learning, the interplay of emotions and learning is emphasised by digital architectures, creating unique emotional experiences and challenges. The rise of affectivism in social sciences calls for a deeper understanding of these experiences, as digital spaces alter the ways emotions are expressed, perceived, and performed. Utilising TPA, this paper conceptualises emotions-as-practices and highlights the importance of researching them through the tangible anchors of 'doings', 'sayings', and 'relatings'. This approach transcends the individualistic perspective and enables researchers to illuminate the collective nature of emotions-as-practices within education. In the context of Networked Learning, this conceptualisation reveals how digital learning can shape and is shaped by the emotional landscape through actions, discourse, and relational dynamics, and thus provides insights in the practice-oriented research on emotions. By focusing on emotions-as-practices, the paper advances a nuanced view to investigate the holistic experiences of emotion that are sensitive to the active, discursive, and relational aspects. This perspective pushes the boundaries of emotion research, and suggests novel pathways for Networked Learning. The TPA serves as a valuable lens for researchers, educators, and policy makers to understand and integrate emotions-as-practices in the wider networks of educational practices. As educational paradigms evolve with advances in technology and artificial intelligence, the need to recognise and support emotions in education becomes increasingly critical, ensuring they are not only felt but actively fostered and integrated in learning environments.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sandris Zeivots https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Seeing them steadily and seeing them whole
The practice of assessing students on what they can produce at the end of a higher education course as a credible proxy for learning has been steadily devalued for years. It will be given a final push with the embedding of generative AI into ubiquitous productivity suites such as those of Microsoft and Google. The design of learning in higher education has also been given a push by the pandemic, with the focus moving from the blunt instrument of blended learning to approaches more grounded in theory such as networked learning. Both of these trends mean that attention has been turning to the assessment of the processes of student learning, rather than a final product. The current language of assessment is still very much derived from the vocabulary of cognition – primarily Bloom’s cognitive domain taxonomy. Cognition is of course an important aspect of learning, but in order to track the development of student understanding, ability to apply knowledge, to analyse and evaluate situations as they move through their learning experiences, we need language that can describe their response to their learning experiences. Bloom’s team of educational psychologists recognised this over fifty years ago, and developed a taxonomy of educational objectives in the affective domain that would do just that. In this paper I elaborate on how Bloom’s affective taxonomy can be used to assess such things as learning processes, and to make visible to students and educators the forming of connections that underpin networked learning. I illustrate this with an example drawn from a networked learning course. In this course students were asked to write short weekly reflections on their learning experiences. The act of writing the reflections was given a small mark, but the content was not assessed. Post hoc evaluation of the content of these reflections using the affective taxonomy showed a wide variety of affective response by students to learning experiences. A preliminary analysis shows a correlation between the depth of affective response and a student’s final mark. This approach shows great promise in not only designing assessment of learning processes, but in developing student efficacy in building connections and evaluating their own processes of learning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Alison Casey https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Generative AIs, more-than-human authorship, and Husserl’s phenomenological ‘horizons’
In recent years, developments in Artificial Intelligence have produced Large Language Models (LLMs) leading to a form of generative AIs (GAIs) trained on vast corpora of texts, capable of producing convincing predictive synthetic texts such as essays, reports, or other texts instantaneously. This development has profound implications for human entanglements with technologies in terms of how these AIs might constitute new forms of subjectivities, texts, and knowledge practices. This development has particular significance for higher education in terms of academic writing, assessment, and research. In terms of higher education, specific concerns have been raised about the implications for assessment, study practices, and the status of knowledge and learning in the context of these ‘writing machines’. Universities and government bodies have reacted in various ways, with some commentators calling for the sector to ‘embrace’ these generative AIs (GAIs) as merely the latest ‘tools’ available for study and research, while others seek to outlaw their use. The current academic research surrounding this phenomenon is underdeveloped with relatively few studies having been conducted, due to the rapid recent acceleration of the technology. It is also under-theorised; early research has reacted to the fast-changing landscape of GAIs by focusing on the technical and practical capacities. Meanwhile, supranational private providers such as OpenAI are influencing higher education internationally, with a complex range of effects which are as-yet unknown. This paper reviews the current state of the art in related bodies of research literature and proposes that the field could benefit from a wider variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. Drawing on the concept of the sociotechnical imaginary from science and technology studies, it considers how discourses and practices surrounding GAIs are evolving in society and education. It then considers the effects of authorship and the writing subject, with reference to the concept of more-than-human authorship. It then draws on recent work in the philosophy of technology, proposing Husserl’s outer and inner ‘horizons’ as a potential framework with which to consider the complex entanglements of human and nonhuman agency, as enrolled in more-than-human authorship and entangled with the presence of GAIs in the ‘lifeworld’ of contemporary higher education. It concludes by proposing future directions for work in this area, in order to gain better theoretical purchase on the phenomenon at the various levels set out above.
Copyright (c) 2024 Lesley Gourlay https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Everyday datafication and higher education
Datafication—the transformation of human life into quantifiable digital data—raises important questions for student agency in higher education. Student agency is central to learning and engagement within university, and the development of agentic selves in students forms a core purpose of higher education. Data-driven practices such as learning analytics promise to support the development of student agency in the context of learning, while at the same time introducing new information and power asymmetries into the relationship between students and the university. Critical research on datafication, meanwhile, has highlighted the threats to student agency posed by data-driven analytics practices that reinforce structural inequalities and depend on the surveillance of student behaviours and bodies. This paper explores student agency in relation to datafication through a discussion of the findings of ethnographic research with university students in Scotland. Drawing on literature from the field of critical data studies that focuses on people’s everyday experiences of datafication, the paper will highlight how students understand, feel about and respond to datafication in their everyday lives, and what this means for their relationship with the university. Students draw on a range of everyday data literacies developed through their experiences of datafied platforms and academic knowledge to make sense of university data practices. They employ diverse tactics for coping with datafication, including minimizing perceived risks by taking measures to protect their privacy and disconnecting from certain platforms. They tend to trust the university with their data, but this trust is conditional and closely related to their overall perception of the university. Above all, perhaps, students are resigned to datafication within and beyond the university. Thus, while students demonstrate agency with respect to datafication in a range of ways, data relations between the university and students are fundamentally top-down, reflecting wider societal dynamics whereby people routinely give up their data in exchange for access to digital services, with little ability to opt out or control what happens to it. Universities, it will be argued, have the potential to introduce participatory forms of data governance that reframe these relations, thus supporting the development of student agency over datafication within and beyond the university.
Copyright (c) 2024 Joe Noteboom https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Emerging tensions around learning with LLM-based chatbots
This paper investigates the tensions introduced by the introduction of large language model (LLM)-based chatbots in higher education, particularly within a distance university that embraces a networked learning approach. LLM-based chatbots such as ChatGPT are applications that simulate conversations with humans, powered by AI-trained large language models. The study is grounded in a socio-material perspective, considering the digital as inherently intertwined with social, material, and broader contextual factors. Utilising cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) as a framework, the research examines the changing human-technology relationship and the emerging tensions within the learning activity system. A survey conducted in Spring 2023 at OnlineUni (name changed) revealed that while students appreciate the immediate, personalised responses from LLM-based chatbots, there is significant distrust in the output, and they raised concerns about the quality of learning and the value of their diplomas. Teachers share these concerns and question the evolving roles and responsibilities in education due to such chatbots. The survey, which included responses from 584 students and 171 teachers, highlighted the use of LLM-based chatbots for various purposes, such as obtaining quick answers to generating content, and underscored the need for support in integrating them into learning and professional activities. The CHAT framework allows for an analysis of the activity system, identifying tensions in tool mediation, division of labour, and rules. Students are grappling with the balance between human and AI contributions to learning, the potential for chatbots to undermine the learning process, and the need for clear guidelines on using these technologies. The paper discusses the implications of these tensions on the learning objectives, the role of the community, and the division of labour within the educational setting. The findings suggest that the introduction of LLM-based chatbots is forcing a re-evaluation of what should be taught and how learning could be facilitated. There is a call for critical AI literacy and a better understanding of the redefinition of the division of labour between students, AI, and the community. The study highlights the necessity for collaborative rule-making to navigate the complexities of integrating LLM-based chatbots into higher education, ensuring fairness and accessibility while maintaining the quality of learning. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the need for ongoing research to understand the evolving dynamics of human and non-human actors in the learning process. It calls for a closer examination of the interactions within the learning activity system, particularly the instrumental genesis of student-tool relationships, to inform the development of pedagogical strategies that leverage the capabilities of LLM-based chatbots without compromising the collaborative values of education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Henrietta Carbonel, Jean-Michel Jullien https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Postcolonial Entry Points into Networked Learning
It would be overly simplistic to assume that these collaborative pedagogical approaches function uniformly across diverse student cohorts. Postcolonial theory can provide a framework to systematically investigate dynamics that potentially generate differentiated experiences or outcomes within networked learning spaces. This research delves into the pervasive influence of Western-centric discourse within online postgraduate education, shedding light on its dual impact of colonising both knowledge and identities. While networked learning promises a collaborative and inclusive educational paradigm, it becomes evident that the dominance of Western cultural norms acts as a powerful agent of colonisation, silencing non-Western perspectives and erasing their voices in the digital realm. This perpetuates historical colonial power imbalances, thus extending colonial legacies into the landscape of networked learning. The study unearths three critical entry points to this discourse, each of which amplifies the nuanced challenges posed by colonial dynamics in networked learning. First, it elucidates the reinforcement of dominant discourses, revealing how networked learning, when devoid of critical oversight, risks sustaining Western-centric narratives and structures, thereby overshadowing subaltern perspectives. This phenomenon mirrors the experiences of participants and exacerbates colonial knowledge hierarchies. Secondly, the research uncovers the marginalisation of subaltern voices within networked learning. Power imbalances within the network, if left unaddressed, can compel subaltern participants to conform to dominant discourse, leading to unequal engagement. These circumstances closely resemble the experiences reported by participants, highlighting the perils of marginalisation and the need for redress. Thirdly, the study illuminates the unsettling imbalance in knowledge sharing, reflecting the concerns raised by participants. Networked learning may inadvertently exhibit knowledge-sharing disparities, with subaltern voices contributing disproportionately while dominant discourses remain unchallenged. This dynamic impedes the network's potential to facilitate a diverse and enriched exchange of knowledge. The research underscores the pressing importance of explicitly addressing these challenges in networked learning practices. Failure to do so risks the unintentional perpetuation of colonial discourses, hindering the transformative potential of networked learning. By acknowledging these postcolonial entry points and enacting measures to rectify them, networked learning can overcome exclusionary dynamics and more effectively challenge and dismantle colonial legacies, thereby advancing a more inclusive, equitable educational landscape for all stakeholders and providing a comprehensive solution to the complex issue at hand.
Copyright (c) 2024 Murat Oztok https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Orchestrating Good Educational Relationships With(in) Automated Teaching
Automated teaching tends to be underpinned by learning approaches that are personalised and adaptive by nature. This individualistic vision of education shapes our conception of knowledge and how it is created. Here, knowledge becomes objectified in the form of a quantifiable commodity in a commercial market. Consequently, knowledge creation becomes conceptualised as the transmission of this object from automated teacher to student. The human teacher is positioned outside the educational process, often to the point of exclusion. This research moves beyond a vision of automated teaching that is framed by learning approaches, where teaching approaches remain starkly absent. I coded an automated teacher in the form of a Teacherbot — a chatbot that functions as a teacher — to work with a group of Interactive Media students at a UK University. Posthuman critical theory is used to conceptualise knowledge and its creation as a process of relational encounters, rather than a transmissive object. The findings chart the transformations in student understandings around what constitutes knowledge and its creation. The emergent pedagogical encounters that brought about these student transformations are identified through the nature of the teaching relationships: the performance of an obligation of radical hope; the creation of disturbances; and, trust and the pursuit of risk. This paper is significant in its call to bring teaching back to automated teaching systems.
Copyright (c) 2024 Patricia Gibson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
University Students, Social Media, and Purposeful Use
University students are frequent users of networked environments, such as social media, in their everyday lives. Although often associated with socialization and entertainment, their social media use is multifaceted, reaching across other life activities and contexts. This exploratory, qualitative study draws upon interviews with 25 university students in the United States, considering how they use social media across learning and professional contexts, and how they view their role in this setting. During the interviews, students participated in a card sort activity that presented them with 41 potential social media tasks they might engage in as well as two different ways of categorizing social media tasks. Findings showed that students use some social media tools, like Instagram, widely across contexts, while other tools are relegated to specialized use or contexts, largely driven by task. Instructors set the tone for using certain other tools, like X (formerly known as Twitter) or Diigo (a social bookmarking tool), whereas other tools are used to access resources but not to interact, like Pinterest and YouTube. Most students reported using social media to interact with others, but only within well-defined networks comprised of friends and classmates. Interactions with these individuals were focused on supporting friendship and accomplishing learning or extracurricular tasks, respectively. Beyond that, students reported a passive role on social media, consuming rather than producing content and leaving limited traces of their presence in the public sphere, with the exception of situations when students were leaders in extracurricular groups or using social media for their jobs. In those instances, the most common uses were related to posting event and promotional information. After engaging with the social media tasks and activity categories presented in the card sort, students offered two types of reflections. One group reflected on the limited nature of their personal social media use, whereas the other group indicated that there was a range of social media tasks and uses that they had not previously considered. The small group of students who did not offer any sort of post-activity reflection indicated that they had small networks with limited activities by design, and lacked interest in thinking further about them. These findings have implications for higher education institutions, where students might be offered learning, extracurricular, and career support opportunities to help them develop both awareness and skills related to common networked knowledge activities and corresponding digital skills.
Copyright (c) 2024 Vanessa P. Dennen, Dan He https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
As online education expands, fostering digital communities that support networked learning becomes imperative. However, many universities lack comprehensive digital strategies to facilitate engagement and connections in distributed environments. This research examines the development of an inaugural digital master plan at a university where half of the student population is online. Guided by Moore's theory of interactions (1989) and Garrison's Community of Inquiry framework (2017), the plan aimed to enable meaningful student-to-content, student-to-instructor, and student-to-student interactions. The digital master plan was designed to provide high-level guidance on the intentional and purposeful use of the educational technologies, tools, platforms, and systems necessary for a robust online learning experience. It creates a cohesive vision and strategy for the digital learning experience, just as a campus master plan aligns the physical learning spaces. The digital master plan leverages the Community of Inquiry framework as a key reference point in its comprehensive gap analysis. The collaborative process involved multiple methods to assess gaps in the university’s infrastructure including: National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) data, three internal surveys, an external diagnostic analysis and plan, and audits of the learning management system's tools and usage. Quantitative data provided insights into student perceptions, while qualitative findings explored the depth of social relationships and learning networks enabled through digital platforms. Throughout the process, the research team aimed to understand the social learning processes that support how learners develop and utilize technology to learn and foster a sense of belonging (Garrison, 2017). The process harnesses the natural motivations underpinning social network formation - namely information sharing, support seeking, and sense of belonging. Further, it operationalizes these motivations to achieve CoI's high-order learning community goals. Analysis revealed key gaps related to: clearly defining and measuring online student success, expanding engagement opportunities in courses, leveraging technologies to facilitate connections, building a collaborative faculty culture, and improving communication. In response, the final digital master plan put forth five recommendations focused on these priority areas. Implementation and evaluation of digital platforms aligned to the recommendations indicate positive impacts on online students' sense of connectedness, learning experience, and academic performance. This research makes important theoretical and practical contributions by developing a replicable institutional process for assessing and strategically enhancing a digital ecosystem to foster networked learning. The digital master plan provides guidance for the adoption of social technologies and pedagogies to increase community, connectivity, and collaboration. As online education continues to expand, insights from this case study can inform strategic digital planning efforts at other universities striving to overcome transactional distance and cultivate impactful virtual learning communities.
Apprenticeship is a long-valued form of workforce learning. Historical models of craft apprentices learning a trade from a master have prevailed for centuries. In more recent eras, apprenticeship programs have proliferated in industrial sectors and are now facing a revival in corporate settings (Fuller & Sigelman, 2017; Federal Reserve Bank, 2019). However, corporate programs today face different challenges than earlier renditions. Specifically, programs today must enable learning outcomes in a digital context, as professional work today increasingly involves digital or hybrid working environments. Much of the existing literature on apprenticeship focuses on the nature of the craft apprenticeship or the specific features of cognitive apprenticeship within a developmental relationship. Given the rapidly growing number of modern corporate apprenticeship programs, it is essential to understand how learning happens in these dynamic environments. This paper analyzes interview data and five participant case studies to examine a modern corporate apprenticeship program at a multinational consulting firm. The program is a full-time and fully paid learning and working experience for non-degree candidates. It operates in 40 cities across the United States and has enrolled over 2,000 apprentices. Apprentices have formal and informal learning experiences throughout the program, including on-the-job learning. They also work in geographically dispersed teams via a hybrid workplace that is predominantly virtual. Emic themes reveal that digital tools afford apprentices access to a broader networking environment, level up independently, engage in informal betterment with experienced others, and participate in shared discovery and problem-solving with peers. However, situated learning in a project context and strong relationships with various experienced others are equally essential to the digital tools. Drawing upon epistemic lenses of learning that consider how technologies enable learning across multiple activities, environments, and relationships, these findings paint a picture of how apprentices collaboratively engage in value-generating activities as mediated by technology and engage in networked learning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Tessa Forshaw https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Emotions in networked learning have been underresearched despite their importance. The present research is one of the first few attempts to better understand adult learners’ emotional experiences in a specific networked learning context—an online doctoral programme designed and organised based on networked learning principles. This paper takes the initial step of unpacking the intricate interplay between emotions and networked learning experiences, utilising a longitudinal, mixed methods research approach to demonstrate the diversity and complexity of emotions experienced in networked learning situations. Online doctoral students (n=48) completed a questionnaire four times during the first six months of their PhD program, with an interval of five to six weeks. This is the most critical period for students to develop multiple connections promoting networked learning both within and outside the programme. They connected to new people, ideas, and resources, becoming an integral part of learning networks. The questionnaire quantitatively measured the intensity of 36 different emotions felt by each student, respectively, about their networked learning experiences and general life experiences. Participants also qualitatively reflected on the most intense emotions and wrote “why” they felt such ways. Based on quantitative data, a principal component analysis extracted five meaningful clusters of emotions and repeated-measures ANOVAs further showed meaningful patterns and changes in those emotions. The qualitative data was analysed using a constant comparative method to identify dominant themes to provide deeper insights into student emotions. Findings suggest that emotions are in a constant state of flux, reflecting the multifaceted nature of networked learning experiences, through which learners juggle multiple responsibilities and connections across different times and spaces. Two distinct categories of emotions emerged: positive and negative. Despite the challenges and complexities of online doctoral studies, positive emotions remained resilient, underscoring networked learning as a source of inspiration—with the heightened 'Intrigued' component at specific learning milestones. Negative emotions are nuanced, with negative cognitive emotions, associated with networked learning experiences, intensifying initially and decreasing as students adapt; while negative gut reactions are more prevalent in general life. However, a notable release of negative cognitive emotions in general life suggests the interplay between emotions arising from networked learning and their influence on students' broader experiences. Surprisingly, the study challenges assumptions about isolation in online learning, revealing a consistent sense of social inclusion and support within the learning network. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of emotions in networked learning, offering valuable insights for supporting adult learners.
Copyright (c) 2024 Kyungmee Lee, Francesca Citron https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This presentation demonstrates how speculative assemblage methods can be put into both research and pedagogical practice to build connections between networked learning and learning for sustainability. We give a rationale for a focus on waste, and marine litter in particular, as an important sustainability and environmental challenge that can be productively explored through learning networks. We then describe the framework that underpins the Waste Stories project, which combines speculative and assemblage methods to create distributed learning networks aimed at reconfiguring relationships of waste and value. We then describe an example of a networked assemblage of waste imaginaries generated by students in a Further Education context in Scotland. These animated imaginaries reveal important dynamics characterising emergent understandings of marine litter in the local and global environment. They also illustrate how retaining a focus on content and context can help networked approaches to learning avoid overly focusing on connectedness.
Copyright (c) 2024 Anna Wilson, George, Agnieszka Uflewska, Penny https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This paper presents a focused examination of a practitioner research case study, honing in on twelve college students in a class of thirty-seven, enrolled in a chemistry course within a blended learning framework. Over the course of two years, the research aimed to delve deeply into the impact of networked learning experiences on the learning identities of these students. Through meticulous exploration using in-depth interviews, significant positive transformations in the learning identities of these twelve students were unearthed. The research question guiding this work was to understand how the blended learning approach, which included an online networked learning component supplementing face-to-face learning, brought about a change in student learning. The study investigated the impact of online participation on the learning identities of the students and how, in turn, the class was generally affected by the transformation of student identities. By examining the interplay between online and face-to-face learning modalities, this research sheds light on the complex dynamics shaping the learning experiences and identities of college students in blended learning environments. Distinctly, the investigation identified two main components of the student learning identity. These are the academic and positional sub-identities. The academic identity transformation was particularly noteworthy, revealing an emergent sense of control, agency, empowerment, and competence as a result of the students embracing online collaborative learning. Simultaneously, the research brought to light changes in the positional identity, encompassing persona-related, acted, and relational identities. The interplay of these identities within the class fostered a profound sense of belonging, of being valued, and connectedness among the students, extending its influence into the face-to-face learning contexts. The findings emphasize that networked learning collaborative skills not only enhance traditional educational practices but also play a key role in effecting positive changes in students' learning identities. The integration of online collaborative learning within traditional educational settings emerged as a catalyst for fundamental transformations in how students perceive and engage with their learning processes. The research contributes to knowledge on the impact of digital pedagogies on learning identities and suggests that educators can use online collaborative learning experiences to cultivate a more profound impact on students' learning identities and engagement, thereby enriching both theory and practice in education. It offers valuable insights on fostering dynamic and empowered learning environments to educators.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sharon Role https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Towards automated assessment of participation and value creation in networked learning
This paper investigates the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to improve student engagement and learning outcomes. MOOCs have transformed the landscape of online education, offering wide accessibility but at the price of high dropout rates and limited ability to measure student engagement. With MOOCs' expansive user base, it has been difficult until now to move beyond conventional metrics of course completion and quiz scores, which are insufficient for understanding the multifaceted nature of student engagement. The study addresses these challenges through a novel method of applying a large language model (LLM) to develop a more complex and meaningful understanding of student engagement and experiences in MOOCs. The research is grounded in the networked learning (NL) research tradition by using the Community of Inquiry framework to explore social, cognitive, and teaching presence in online educational environments and automate the assessment of student learning participation. The study focuses on social engagement and interaction, crucial for perceived value creation. Theoretical soundness, data targeting and quality, interpretation benchmarks, and robust data sampling and analysis strategies constitute the foundational pillars of the proposed predictive system. This framework guides the study's approach to address common MOOC issues, such as learner isolation and limited interaction, which are critical factors in students' perceived value and learning. The methodology involves a dual approach of human and LLM coding, testing the ability of LLMs to replicate human coding accuracy. The study was conducted in a non-massive open online course to test system effectiveness before applying it to larger MOOCs. Analysis indicates that an initial noncomplex LLM model can match human coding performance to 60% reliability, representing a significant step forward in automating qualitative analysis in online education, with potential for enhanced results using more complex LLM modelling. Key findings show that AI can effectively measure and enhance student engagement in MOOCs. The use of LLMs in coding qualitative data offers a reliable method for understanding student participation, which is vital for improving educational outcomes in online courses. The research highlights the potential of AI in transforming online education by providing deeper insights into student engagement and learning processes. The study also provides insights into the interplay of AI-measured engagement and learners' value perception, advancing the understanding of networked learning participation and its impact on educational outcomes. Implications extend to curriculum development, pedagogical strategies, and the broader field of online education. Future work includes expanding this methodology to more extensive MOOC environments and incorporating qualitative interviews to enrich the analysis.
Copyright (c) 2024 Christopher Deneen, Maarten De Laat, Alrike Claassen, Andrew Zamecnik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Beyond conventional teaching towards networked learning
With Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) adoption growing, education has seen the emergence of innovative technologies like chatbots. However, little research has examined the impacts of GenAI integration in specialized higher education contexts. This study explored graduate students’ experiences using a GenAI chatbot, PEARL, within a graduate-level teacher education course focused on teaching students how to collaboratively conduct program evaluations using practice cases. Four students participated in our study and shared perceptions of interviewing personas with PEARL when evaluating the practice cases. Thematic analysis identified advantages like enhanced efficiency and accessibility, plus limitations regarding authenticity of artificial interactions. Findings emphasized the continued importance of human guidance and peer learning to enrich GenAI-enabled education aligning with principles of networked learning. Students highlighted the need for ethical considerations despite interacting with artificial entities, underscoring nuanced understanding. The significance of collaborative analysis and ongoing iterative improvements also emerged as themes integral to meaningful learning. Although GenAI presents transformational potential in instructional designs, findings support the use of blended approaches that strategically integrate its advantages with human activity and collaborative inquiry. The study makes contributions by elucidating domain-specific nuances of integrating GenAI into teaching in higher education. Practical implications encourage scaffolding GenAI curricula to promote authenticity and collaborative knowledge construction. Further research could examine variations across disciplines, technologies, and demographics. Overall, as GenAI shapes academia’s evolution, reflective pedagogical examination will be key to evidence-guided integration. This exploratory study presents a preliminary yet important step, unveiling opportunities for networked learning and complexities of GenAI adoption in teaching program evaluation skills in education contexts.
Copyright (c) 2024 Soroush Sabbaghan, Barbara Brown https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Technology and AI’s role in multicultural and digital leadership
This research aims to present a systematic literature review focusing on technology and artificial intelligence (AI) as new vectors for multicultural and digital leadership. With 80% of companies using at least one emerging technology for finance and operations, 58% of firms increasing their spending in AI for workforce planning, and a big data market projected to be worth $77 billion before the end of 2023, multicultural and digital leaders (ML; DL) have to adapt and acknowledge, integrate, and leverage technology into their daily business management (FinancesOnline, 2023). The conference paper intends to introduce an up-to-date systematic literature review and a bibliographic investigation performed with VOSviewer software, focusing on technology and AI as new vectors of multicultural and digital leadership. Mining into the Web of Science Core Collection database, our research creates an evident visual representation of the interconnectedness between technology, AI, ML, and DL. As the global business landscape increasingly values digital leadership, this bibliometric analysis offers valuable tools for multicultural and digital business leaders as well as academic researchers to comprehend, shape, and leverage the dynamics of these evolving domains.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dan Paiuc https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Timescapes when everything happens all at once
This paper focuses on aspects of time and educators’ timescapes during the Covid-19 pandemic. It contributes to a larger discussion about changing discourses and practices of temporality both during and after a crisis, especially those enabled by technology and neoliberal contexts. Situated within the unequal and diverse South African landscape where the pandemic overturned traditional educational timescapes, the paper explores the experiences of educators from different education settings - rural, urban, school, higher education and provincial education departments and considers three interrelated questions: What did educators' timescapes look like during the crisis of the pandemic? What was the role of technology in changing educators’ timescapes? How were educational inequities manifest in the timescapes which emerged? To analyse the educators’ experiences of time, teaching with technology and networked learning during the pandemic, the paper draws on Adam’s (1998, 2004, 2021) theorisation of time. Adam argues that time is relational and composed of irreducible elements that are not always easily visible. Experiences of how time is represented or visualised include temporality, tempo and timing, as well as the past, present and future. None of the elements of time operate in isolation; they mutually implicate one another highlighting the ways in which we perceive and interpret time in our lives and the world around us. The paper discussion highlights the use of technology and networked learning linked to pedagogical changed routines and organisation that made educators readily available to their students when face-to-face interaction was not possible. While this was beneficial to students (and parents), this resulted in a blurring or conflation of educators’ work and personal lives. Educators describe experiencing time and space as scrambled, compressed and/or porous, having to negotiate new rhythms and patterns of work that require reorganising and managing their lives differently. In addition, educators reported experiencing an intensification of time and work during this period, as they struggled with the pace and tempo of teaching and learning in varied education contexts. In conclusion, the paper suggests that the unique historical circumstances of the pandemic created particular conditions for online learning with some of the technologies rapidly inserted into the education system during this period remaining uncritically in place, further highlighting the need for ongoing research in areas of time, technology and networked learning, especially in diverse and varied educational settings.
Copyright (c) 2024 Jennifer Feldman, Laura Czerniewicz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In response to significant global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, educational environments are undergoing a fundamental transformation towards collaborative online spaces and networked learning. Networked learning includes (a) the process of learning with and through other people and resources and (b) the environment (i.e., the internet) and platforms (i.e., YouTube, websites, social media, discussion forums) that support these connections or networks (Hodgson & McConnell, 2019). This shift in how learning is done necessitates a reevaluation of pedagogical methods to foster the development of students' global skills and competencies. These competencies, as defined by the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC), are recognized as essential for individuals to not only adapt but thrive in our current and future world. This world is characterized by unprecedented simultaneous challenges, often referred to as a 'polycrisis,' and rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (A.I.) that have the potential to reshape every aspect of human existence. Therefore, it is imperative that we delve into a deeper investigation and understanding of innovative pedagogical approaches to ensure students are adequately prepared for the evolving landscape. Collaboration is arguably one of the most important of the global skills and competencies as it underpins many of the essential skills youth need to thrive in educational and non-educational settings. More specifically, collaboration underpins the type of networked learning rising in popularity in formal and informal learning settings (Bülow & Nørgård, 2021). As a result, this exploratory research focuses on Minecraft: Education Edition (M:EE) as a tool for developing collaboration through critical making and team-based learning. Over a five-day spring-break camp, two cohorts of students (grades four to six and grades seven to eight) participated in open-ended design-based learning challenges online (in the virtual meeting platform, Google Meet, and in the virtual world, M:EE). Data analysis revealed that collaboration manifested itself in three primary modes: co-constructing knowledge, peer-teaching, and conflict management. Analysis further revealed that younger versus older students build and collaborate in the online environment very differently, which at times mirrored the 'real world' classroom. These findings have implications for designing age-appropriate online learning experiences to support collaboration in a networked environment, especially within virtual simulation and creation worlds like Minecraft.
Copyright (c) 2024 Janette Hughes, Laura Morrison, Tess Butler-Ulrich, Jennifer Robb https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The corporate infrastructures and policy trajectories of contemporary digital education are rarely seen as utopian. To a significant extent they are extractive, utilitarian, colonising and homogenising. At a historical moment of multiple, intersecting crises, scholarship in networked learning can contribute new methods for imagining and re-building digital education – unpicking its histories, imagining better futures and – ultimately – maintaining hope.This paper uses Levitas’s (2013) ‘Utopia as Method’ as a way to approach this challenge, applying its three-part analytical sequence – archaeology, ontology and architecture – to networked learning and digital education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sian Bayne https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
E-learning platforms have evolved to become essential instruments for educational content delivery. However, a significant challenge lies in the development of high-quality educational content, a process often constrained by resource-intensive requirements and the expertise necessary for content creation. This study introduces an innovative system designed to revolutionize content creation and delivery in an educational setting by leveraging the capabilities of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs), specifically Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPT). Our approach utilizes prompt engineering, a method of tailoring input text to guide the output of these models, thus generating content that is aligned with the specific needs of educators and learners. Empirical evaluation of our system indicates promising results. User feedback reveals a high acceptance rate, with approximately 84% of participants expressing satisfaction. Moreover, 82% of users verified the accuracy of the generated content, and 83% indicated their willingness to integrate this content into their teaching practices. This research also aims to explore further the potential of automated content creation in enhancing networked learning environments. Our focus will be on expanding the applicability of this technology and investigating its impact on the broader educational ecosystem.
Copyright (c) 2024 Andrew Emanuel Attard, Alexiei Dingli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Assessment design often involves a collaborative effort among various stakeholders. However, numerous assessment frameworks still operate under the presumption that assessment design is primarily the responsibility of individual educators. Design methods for networked learning need to shift towards more collaborative approaches that bring together different perspectives and acknowledge the socio-material entanglement of human and non-human actants for a more inclusive educational future. In our work we advocate for co-design and place a strong emphasis on cultivating relationships and a decentralised decision-making process that challenges traditional power dynamics and hierarchies. Co-design represents both a mindset and a method distinguished by specific principles and procedures. In this paper we untangle the network of socio-material relationships in the co-design of authentic assessment for a large accounting capstone course in a business school. Students undertook this course during the last semester of their degree program. Rather than designing our assessment on an authentic real-world scenario, our assessment was a real-world task. We collaborated with an industry partner who needed to re-evaluate their business model to generate more revenue for their business. The students were tasked with developing a value-enhancing action plan for our partner’s business model. In this paper, we use Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to trace the network of human and non-human actants in the co-design of this real-world assessment task. We describe this network through the Assessment Design Decisions Framework, which provides six key considerations for decision making: purposes of assessment, contexts of assessment, learner outcomes, tasks, feedback processes, and interactions. The concept of design is subject to ongoing debate, which holds significant implications for the future of educational design. We therefore explore the intricacies of design through the five design senses: 1) design as domain, 2) as process, 3) as plan, 4) as the resulting product, and 5) as intentional creation of new possibilities. We demonstrate that when co-designing assessment in higher education, the interrelationships among these five senses remain fluid, perpetually shifting, and emergent within a complex network involving both human and non-human actants. The conceptualisation of the five senses as a network represents a methodological standpoint that enables us to portray the complex interconnections of tools, competencies, roles, and relationships within our educational co-design project. Reframing design activities as a network allows us to modify parts of the network, leading to more sustainable designs.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dewa Wardak, Stephanie Wilson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Chinese government provided a narrow window for Chinese students during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, enabling them to remain in China and enrol in online courses provided by foreign universities. This was not authorised before the pandemic (Ministry of Education [MOE], 2020). As a result, there was limited research focusing on Chinese overseas students’ distance learning experiences before the pandemic (e.g., Kung, 2017). Furthermore, these studies have been criticised for their overuse of monolithic approaches and the underuse of theories, producing stereotypes and misunderstandings about Chinese students (Lee & Bligh, 2019; Xu, 2022). Despite the increasing number of studies on Chinese overseas students conducted during the pandemic, their online learning experiences have been significantly influenced by the unique situation, which may not be applicable in a post-pandemic scenario. Therefore, this qualitative study aims to investigate Chinese overseas students' networked learning experiences in the post-pandemic era. Building on the ongoing conceptualising effort (NLEC, 2021a), the authors have used learner-content interaction (Moore, 1989) and Berry’s acculturation theory (Berry, 2005) to explore online international Chinese students’ experiences of interaction with learning contents. The focus is on developing a holistic and balanced perspective of these students. Twelve students, enrolled in online graduate degree programmes offered by Western universities while residing in China, were recruited and interviewed. The results of the authors’ thematic analysis of the interview transcripts suggest that online Chinese international students are active agents in their interaction with the learning content and their adaptation to the new settings, in which they bridge a strong connection between Chinese and Western learning content to enrich their understanding of knowledge and promote cultural diversity in both their new environment and their home country. Here, online Chinese international students predominately employ an integration strategy to engage in learning content. Similar to international students from other countries, online Chinese international students encounter challenges due to differences in educational backgrounds, including differences in learning materials and extensive reading requirements. However, online Chinese international students proactively cope with these challenges by integrating knowledge and skills from their home country into their studies, facilitating successful adaptation to the new environment. In addition, the student interaction experience is undermined by a loss of diversity in content provided by Western universities. Therefore, the recommendations are for online educators and universities to take into account the cultural backgrounds of their students and design diverse course content.
Copyright (c) 2024 Yiyi Mao, Kyungmee Lee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The primary objective of this autoethnographic study is to investigate how lecturers’ attempts to use augmented reality (AR) in the vocational educational context contribute to their transformative learning (TL) journey. The first author of this paper, referred to using the pronoun ‘her/she’, is a vocational lecturer pursuing her doctoral degree in technology-enhanced learning (TEL), has examined the evolution of her pedagogical perspectives by critically analysing and reflecting on her experiences learning and adopting AR technology in her anatomy classrooms. She also explored and unpacked her educational experiences in the past and the social and cultural contexts in which they occurred to gain deeper insight into her previous and current beliefs about TEL. Her autoethnographic writing in this paper shares her struggles and growth, underscoring the significance of scaffolding and professional networked learning opportunities in nurturing transformative learning in lecturers. In collaboration with the second author, her doctoral supervisor, the first author has drawn more meaningful and robust findings from collecting and comparing other lecturers’ experiences implementing AR in similar pedagogical situations. The authors’ discussion sheds light on the often obscure process of how educational professionals challenge and change their long-held pedagogical perspectives on the usefulness of technology for their teaching and student learning. The paper also reveals the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of professional learning and highlights the role of professional networks in facilitating transformative learning experiences. The findings, derived from personal reflective narratives, self and member-checking interviews, and TL analysis, suggest that a strong sense of ownership, extensive classroom experiences, and commitment to critical reflection played crucial roles in supporting the learning journey. However, this experience transcended the mere acquisition of new knowledge; the study depicts a transformative journey wherein theory recognised a fundamental shift in perception through instrumental learning, emphasising the evaluation of cause-and-effect relationships via critical reflection of actions. Therefore, within the realm of TL, this study may contribute to theory by asserting that critical reflection not only serves as a medium for learning but also functions as a tool for shaping the process of learning itself. The dissemination of such pivotal insights becomes imperative for educators, empowering them to make judicious and well-informed decisions, thereby fortifying their preparedness for a transformative journey that, if embarked on without adequate support, may prove elusive.
Copyright (c) 2024 Cassandra Sturgeon Delia, Kyungmee Lee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Using speculative methods to challenge the invisibility and inevitability of data in education
Speculation is a resource for critical analysis of data-driven postdigital education. In particular, speculative methods help researchers challenge the invisibility of data-driven educational practices, and thereby unsettle the apparent inevitability of data futures. Working against these tendencies towards invisibility and inevitability requires critical imagination, and speculative methods help foster this for researchers and participants. This paper introduces speculative methods and explores their enactment in a research project that examined the social and ethical implications of datafication in higher education. Speculative methods are characterised by their non-representational, complexity-informed and inventive character and their temporal, epistemological and performative qualities. They have a complex relationship with time and temporality, attending to ‘not-yetness’; are epistemologically complex, producing problems and engaging with ambiguity; and act to create futures or realities they represent, in part through engaging publics at different scales and in different contexts. Methods inspired variously by speculative fiction and speculative design approaches have been used by digital education researchers to investigate and intervene in data futures and to challenge predictive, closed forms of data-driven future-making. The methodological value of speculation is explored here through discussion of a research project that involved ethnographic and speculative engagement with students at a research intensive university in Scotland. The research attempted to understand participants’ experiences of and perspectives on emerging data-driven technologies and practices, and what this meant for their relationship with the university. In this paper we analyse the design of and data generated through two particular speculative methods: data walking, and thinking otherwise. We focus on participants’ reflections on the methods used and show how speculation was central to efforts to prompt ethical reflection on data-driven practices. In the case of data walking, this involved sensitising participants to datafication processes, thereby making hidden practices visible to participants. A simple prompt to think otherwise, meanwhile, generated data regarding participants’ experiences and problems in the present while at the same time opening up possibilities of thinking otherwise about data futures. We close by relating these findings to wider considerations for speculative methods, focusing on the role of speculative objects as both instrument and output of research and exploring the significance of discursive closures in participatory research.
Copyright (c) 2024 Joe Noteboom, Jen Ross https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Traversing Situations and Contexts in Networked Learning
To meet the goals of business education and develop responsible business leaders, educators need to design networked learning environments that nurture and leverage connections. This includes connecting students to each other, their teachers, to industry and to the community. This paper aims to understand factors that support or inhibit students’ participation in networked learning in a business education context. Productive participation in learning networks is essential if students are to connect meaningfully with people and resources in ways that support their learning and experience. As the physical and digital learning environments students engage in often include complex configurations of tools, tasks, and epistemic resources, they require the skills and dispositions to effectively transition between these environments. Using a situated readiness framework by Hachmann and Dohn (2018), this study presents an analysis of focus group data from business students in higher education to identify ways in which students’ level of readiness impacts on their ability to participate effectively in learning networks. Students in the present study highlighted a range of challenges they faced when attempting to traverse between face-to-face and online learning environments. However, our study also revealed numerous other situations or contexts that business students needed to traverse as part of their networked learning experience. These were grouped into five overarching categories: domain; space and configuration; format, structure and resources; people or groups; and purpose and responsibility. Overlayed onto the situated readiness framework, these categories can be used by other researchers to gain a more nuanced understanding of how students navigate the complexities of networked learning environments. Future research conducted across a range of learning contexts would allow the categories to be refined and built upon. The study also identified skills and dispositions that contributed to students' level of readiness to navigate situations and contexts within networked learning environments, and some preliminary design considerations based on the findings. To support business students in higher education on their journey to becoming responsible business leaders, it is imperative that they are able to participate productively in complex networked learning environments. As educators, this requires us to understand their level of readiness to do so and equip them with the skills and dispositions they need to participate effectively.
Copyright (c) 2024 Stephanie Wilson, Dewa Wardak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Co-Constructing A Praxis for Critical Pedagogies of Care in Postdigital Tertiary Education
Like others in 2020, we found ourselves grappling with the sudden shift to fully online teaching and learning during COVID19 and the very pronounced negative impact of the sudden shift on students and faculty alike (Authors and colleague, 2022). In Aotearoa New Zealand emerging research revealed how tertiary students’ experiences of online learning during COVID19 were characterized by stress and anxiety, compounded by difficulties in communication between students, instructors, and support staff as well as by loss of income and limited access to campus resources. These challenges were even more pronounced among already marginalized students, such as Māori tertiary students. Simultaneously, messaging from ‘managers’ in our neoliberal university context was increasingly about ‘pastoral care for students,’ a message which we struggled to make sense of given the nature of the very real socio-political challenges our students faced. Confronting the uncertainties of COVID and related future crises we set out to explore how we could better plan for and accommodate increased flexibility and adaptability in instruction that is responsive to both students and current social contexts–given that, a) throughout the COVID19 pandemic, students and instructors were frequently absent due to illness even when on campus instruction resumed in New Zealand, and b) periodic lockdowns were part of the COVID19 management strategy in NZ, which meant sudden shifts to fully online instruction throughout the 2020-2022 academic years. Our premise was that the crisis required thoughtful deliberation on how we, as tertiary educators, might collectively address such a significant global challenge in our local context. We (authors) applied for and were awarded a 2-year leadership in teaching fellowship, a new fellowship program that aimed to support faculty innovation in teaching. The fellowship allowed us time to slow down and interrogate our approach to postdigital education during the period of Covid19, as well as beyond it. We sought out to ask critical questions of ourselves, such as those related to the form/manner in which we were using digital tools, what was meant by ‘pastoral care’ for students and what that should/could look like in postdigital pandemic times, questioning the discourses and aspirations around a post-pandemic ‘return to normal’.
Copyright (c) 2024 Cheryl Brown, Sara Tolbert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Opening a networked learning dialogue on postdigital citizen science and humanities
Citizen science, or community science, is generally defined as the involvement of citizens in the collection and analysis of data in collaboration with professional scientists or ecologists. Citizen science initiatives have become more common as technological innovations have increased ways that individuals can participate, enabled larger scale projects and more volunteers to be engaged. Citizen humanities could be said to be a form of citizen science where investigation concerns human values and embedded, diverse, and culturally sensitive knowledge. The development of digital technologies has led to both the field of digital humanities and to new ways to involve citizens in the activities of cultural heritage institutions and academic research. These broad understandings of citizen science and citizen humanities are drawn from disciplinary distinctions concerning how we treat ‘the sciences’ or ‘the humanities’. This is primarily an English language distinction which is much less clear-cut in other languages and cultures, including the ways in which metaphors are adopted as explanatory tools but also carry tacit beliefs and assumptions. In postdigital society it is increasingly hard to separate people’s lives and diverse positionalities from scientific, technological, cultural, linguistic, and political economic changes as these converge to affect communities and individuals. Networked learning is a field that has always shown an active interest in convergences, contribution, and community along with a desire to avoid determinism when examining relationships between learning, technology, and social change. In this paper we draw on this critical networked learning ‘tone’ to explore the activities of citizen science and citizen humanities as they appear to operate as separate fields of research within postdigital society. We argue that discussing the postdigital context surrounding these fields contributes valuable perspectives of knowledge socialism, peer production, collegiality, collaboration, and collective intelligence to help fill certain gaps to meet challenges of the future through community and citizen research. Cross-sector projects that bridge citizen, social, or natural sciences and citizen humanities in diverse locations also need to be community led. This empowers communities not only to acquire new technology enabled capabilities as appropriate to their needs, but also to participate as citizens and activists in the wider political discourse. Therefore, in opening a critically reflexive and relational networked learning dialogue we can locate and occupy important gaps as we grow our understanding of ‘postdigital citizen science’ and ‘postdigital citizen humanities’ as dialectically intertwined fields of cross-sector community research.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sarah Hayes, Petar Jandrić, Sara Tolbert, Michael Jopling , Cheryl Brown https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
In this workshop, we will demonstrate four research tools: 1) card sorting, 2) upward laddering, 3) think-aloud, and 4) a search visualizer. Card sorting can be useful as an exploratory knowledge modelling method to gain insight into people’s understanding of their surrounding world. Derived from Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory (PCT) (Kelly, 1955, Herd, 2001), card sorting can help to explore peoples’ constructs and their perceptions of how the constructs relate to each other; in other words, card sorting can help to elucidate mental frameworks. Although there are many kinds of card sorting, we will guide participants through a hands-on exercise using single-criterion card sorting (using both digital and in person techniques). Participants will learn about text-based, image-based, and object-based options, when to use card sorting, how to collect data, and how to analyse card sorting data through visual-numeric ‘heat maps’ (co-occurrence matrices). The card sorting exercise will lead into upward laddering, a technique that is often used to complement card sorting. While card sorting provides evidence of how constructs are related, upward laddering allows exploration into goals and values (Rugg & Gerrard, 2023). Workshop participants will have an opportunity to access a simple, robust, newly created online tool for upward laddering. Also used alongside card sorting is the think-aloud method which involves both observation to see how people perform a task and think-aloud to hear what people are thinking and noticing while they perform the task. This inexpensive, easy-to-use method allows researchers to tap into reasons and tacit knowledge. The fourth tool we will demonstrate is a newly launched search visualiser (SV). Using keywords, this search tool allows researchers to comb through specific databases and/or to access Google results. Rather than simply return a list of links to articles, the SV returns a visual depiction of the keywords within each text. Each key word is represented as a coloured square. A user can hover their mouse pointer over a given square to see the phrase within which the word appears. Using this tool, researchers can get a better, visual sense of whether the article is likely to offer useful content. There is now a version with audio for visually impaired users as well as a version that can explore synonyms to support textual-literary analysis.
Copyright (c) 2024 Gordon Rugg, Thiago Lemes de Oliveira, Valentina Arancibia, Marguerite Koole, John Traxler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Challenges and Opportunities to Learning in the Making Through Dialogue in Networked Spaces
In this workshop we will recognize two key challenges to fostering rich, reflective, and inclusive dialogue in networked learning environments. First, the challenge of providing scaffolds to prompt reflection and create safe spaces that encourage learners to consider unfamiliar and diverse positionality and think outside their current frame of reference. Second, the challenge of how and where to host such discussions when learning in networked spaces that prioritizes ownership, inclusivity, and open sharing.
Copyright (c) 2024 Michael Paskevicius, Michelle Harrison, Elizabeth Childs https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Networked Learning (NL), originally presented by Goodyear et al. (2004), has recently been reimagined to embrace a richer, more context-sensitive understanding that incorporates the entangled, emergent and “messy” nature of learning (NLEC, Gourlay, Rodríguez-Illera, et al., 2021). Postphenomenology was cited as one of the multiple methodological frameworks relevant to this redefinition. Matthews (in NLEC, Gourlay, Rodríguez-Illera, et al., 2021) recommends postphenomenology for its focus on human-nonhuman mediation and questions of agency in sociotechnical networks. Similarly, Thestrup & Gislev (in NLEC, Gourlay, Rodríguez-Illera, et al., 2021) draw on postphenomenology to reconceive the learning network as a media ecology where “technology, not being neutral, but multistable (Ihde 1990), mediates the perceptions and actions of the participants (Verbeek 2005), and by that co-shapes the space, the connections, and the network” (p. 346). But what is postphenomenology? This workshop will introduce participants to postphenomenology as a philosophy of technology, a theoretical framework, and a pragmatic approach to doing NL research. Postphenomenology emerged from philosopher Don Ihde’s (1975, 1979) early phenomenological investigations of specific technologies being used in everyday life: chalk, eyeglasses, telephones, etc. His inquiries led to several key discoveries including the occurrence of distinct forms of human-technology-world relations (embodiment, hermeneutic, alterity and background) which can be further characterized by their amplification-reduction structure. Today, Ihde’s approach to studying technologies “phenomenologically, i.e., as belonging in different ways to our experience and use” (1993, p. 34) is known as postphenomenology and has evolved into an increasingly popular posthuman form of qualitative inquiry in education and the social sciences (Aagaard, 2016). As a theoretical framework, postphenomenology views technology not as a neutral tool but as an active mediator in shaping and co-constituting human actions, perceptions, and interpretations including interactions with others and their world (Ihde, 1990; Verbeek, 2005). Peter-Paul Verbeek (2005) expanded postphenomenology to include key insights from Actor-Network Theory, drawing especially on the work of Bruno Latour (1992, 2002), and thereby broadening its theoretical reach to include the morality of hybrid beings and the ethical design of things. As an approach to research, postphenomenology allows for in-depth explorations of how digital technologies mediate educational experiences (Aagaard, 2017; Adams & Turville, 2018). It is especially well-suited to studying how technologies shape ethical actions and decisions (Verbeek, 2011, 2023). Through “investigating how technologies help to shape human practices, perceptions, and interpretative frameworks, [postphenomenology] makes visible a moral dimension of technology itself” (Verbeek, 2023, p. 49). Postphenomenology employs a variety of phenomenological and empirically grounded methods to capture the everyday, lived experiences of different technologies including disciplined observation of humans employing specific technologies (Aagaard & Matthiesen, 2016), “interviewing objects” (Adams & Thompson, 2016) and “thing writing” (Adams & Yin, 2017). Here, doing postphenomenology demands an out-of-the-corner-of-one’s-eye attentiveness to everyday life, “an ear for meaning and an eye for materiality” (Aagaard & Matthiesen, 2016, p. 41, emphasis in original). Postphenomenological analysis often begins by first reconstructing “posthuman anecdotes”, that is, descriptions of human-technology-world interactions as they are lived, then subjecting these “reassembled resemblings” (Adams & Thompson, 2016, p. 31) to a set of postphenomenological analytic tools to help untangle how humans and different technologies in use are mutually shaping and co-constituting each other. Analytics include studying breakdowns (e.g., the “broken hammer” strategy), attending to the invitational quality of things, and discerning the spectrum of human-technology-world (HTW) relations (Adams & Turville, 2018; Adams & Thompson, 2016).
Copyright (c) 2024 Catherine Adams, Lesley Gourlay https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
May 2024 finds us eighteen months on since the release into the wild of unregulated generative AI models and their chatbot front-ends. While Higher Education (HE) has been playing catch-up in terms of policy and regulation (e.g. Russell Group 2023, Conrad 2023, EU 2022), those who work in higher education have been grappling with the consequences for learning, teaching, assessment, and research on the ground. Between the hype from big tech on the one hand, and a sense of despair on the other, alternative, critical and ethical activities have begun to emerge (Bender et al., 2021; Bozkurt, A. et al., 2023; Conrad, 2023; Fischer et al., 2023; Nerantzi et al., 2023; Rahm, 2023). This workshop explores these alternatives both as concept and method.
Copyright (c) 2024 Louise Drumm, Helen Beetham, Catherine Cronin, Rosemarie McIlwhan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Using the DigCompEdu Framework to analyse your institution’s support for teachers’ digital competencies development
Everyone agrees that teachers at all levels need to develop their digital competencies – but both the institution and the individual teachers need to take on this task – so this session asks: What can institutions do to take on some of the responsibility? Strategic goal setting is nice and helpful, but how can teaching and learning units, system owners and others improve the resources and help they provide to teachers to support digital competencies development? The University of Copenhagen have used the European framework DigCompEdu to analyse and evaluate how the university as an institution can better support the competence development needs of individual teachers. The purpose of this exercise was to avoid competence development becoming an individualized problem for the teacher. The participants have a choice in the workshop's hands-on part: Hands-on A: Plan an analysis of your own institution using the CUTE Canvas. Hands-on B: Analyse your own institution. This workshop is based on the work carried out in the ERASMUS+: Strategic Partnership CUTE (KA203-867FE04B) (2019-2022) and the CUTIE project (2022-2024)
Copyright (c) 2024 Annette Q Pedersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This workshop aims to explore speculative fiction as a form of educational enquiry and practice. In this pursuit it draws upon the provocative contention of Ruha Benjamin (2016) that “the facts, alone, will not save us.” Instead, she argues, “social change requires novel fictions that reimagine and rework all that is taken for granted about the current structure of society. Such narratives are not meant to convince others of what is, but to expand our own visions of what is possible” (Benjamin, 2016). The ethical implications of educational technologies (EdTech) from simple classroom tools to almighty platforms are raising increasing concerns. These are postdigital concerns insofar as they are inescapable yet also emergent and ongoing. They are amplified by the power and influence of AI (Bozkurt et al, 2023; Cox et al 2023) with its implications for fraud, scams, surveillance, privacy and more fundamentally encodings of privileged norms of race, gender, sexuality, religion and so on. In addition the material and carbon costs of digital learning may force us to reckon with EdTech as inherently ecologically destructive (Selwyn, 2021). Is this to say that all our futures are grim and that hope has been foreclosed? Or if not, how can we work together to plot our way out of these problems? Indeed, would trying to solve all of this too quickly be part of the problem and start another round of techno-solutionism? One approach that has seen increasing attention is the use of storytelling as a sense-making activity that may allow us to first “stay with the trouble” (Harraway, 2020) and describe it, before rushing to the fix. This recent speculative turn has seen educational researchers attempt to cast themselves as writers of fictions that can explore the multitude of interrelated socio-technical issues that are characteristic of complex contemporary networked learning environments (Houlden & Veletsianos, 2023; Hrastinski, 2023; Selwyn et al., 2020; Macgilchrist et al., 2020). It has seen teachers and educators developing or adopting speculative scenarios as tools for students to explore the types of socio-technical entanglements that our world now involves (Krutka et al., 2022). In this workshop participants will co-create speculative fictions that explore hopeful and dystopic possibilities of education. Participants will explore the development of educational fictions based on speculative futuring, of no-yet-ness (Ross, 2017), but also alternative histories that might allow us see the prospective tools of our work, including texts, as neither neutral nor ahistorical. The concept of anti-patterns and deliberately destructive design will be introduced to allow participants to pull on conceptual threads that help unravel education as a relentless and progressive assembly and instead see it as a story that may be unlearned and retold. In summary this workshop provides an invitation to participants to use their deep imaginative capabilities to dream new educational interfaces, via speculative fiction, that allow us to be more awake and alive to ourselves, our students and the communities we serve.
Copyright (c) 2024 Eamon Costello, Stefan Hrastinski, George Veletsianos, Felicitas Macgilchrist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This workshop models and explains Stiegler’s proposal that the entropic limits of the Anthropocene be overturned through developing a “contributory economy.” The contributory economy develops the value of new possibilities for individuals, expectances, and expressions of the art of living. The workshop models a contributory economy through its dialogical relational space, use of time, anticipation of profit, collective participatory experience, play on knowledge, interpretation of the technological, and emphasis on care.
Copyright (c) 2024 Greta Goetz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
This workshop is intended for those who have an interest in speculative methods, storytelling and the future of networked learning in universities. The workshop will use a set of new speculative scenarios for the future of higher education teaching. The scenarios were developed in 2022 to work as a provocation and starting point for new conversations about the future of our universities and the teaching we do through them. They aim to unsettle assumed futures and support us to imagine new, desirable ones. They are told from a particular time and place, and speak to present concerns and hopes. Each scenario is accompanied by a piece of microfiction which aims to convey something of what of what our imagined futures might look and feel like. It will be run by Sian Bayne and Jen Ross.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sian Bayne, Jen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introducing Phenomenology in Action for Researching Networked Learning Experiences
This Round Table aims to introduce and discuss the book Phenomenology in Action for Researching Networked Learning, forthcoming (2024) in the Springer Book Series Research in Networked Learning. The wider aim of the Round Table is to continue our explorations of the place of phenomenology in networked learning. After a brief introductory overview of the book, our four invited discussants will present their response to the book, thus initiating general discussion with the audience on the roles, possibilities and challenges of using phenomenology to investigate networked learning.
Copyright (c) 2024 Nina Bonderup Dohn, Cathy Adams, Felicity Healey-Benson, Mike Johnson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Student regulation in online learning groups
Although much research has been done on student regulation in F2F settings, more needs to be known about the concept in online learning groups. During the NLC 2024 round table, we will share findings from an exploratory study to establish the status quo in this area, and discuss the optimal conditions for students’ regulation of learning in online learning groups. The overall guiding question in this round table is: how can we foster student regulation in online learning groups within higher education? During the roundtable, the following (preliminary) questions are guiding: How can we improve the sociability of online learning environments to stimulate student regulation in online learning groups? Which techniques can we apply to enhance students’ social presence/social space in online learning groups during regulation? How can we support the 'teacher as designer' in facilitating student regulation in online learning groups? In the discussion, we use two models to indicate the level at which we focus in the conversation to arrive at a new conceptual model regarding the regulation of learning in online learning groups. We note the findings in the respective models, together with the audience, which we display as posters.
Copyright (c) 2024 Emmy Vrieling-Teunter, Kamakshi Rajagopal, Maartje Henderikx, Joshua Weidlich, Derya Orhan Goksün, Karel Kreijns https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The breakthrough of generative AI is disrupting education in many ways and universities and other educational institutions are tasked with navigating a host of new challenges. But in the classroom we might be seeing a familiar pattern: As with most new technologies in the classroom, there is a tendency to design exercises as individual tasks: AI as your personal tutor, AI as a Study Buddy, AI as your editor / idea generator / etc. However, if we believe that learners construct knowledge rather than just passively receive information, it is crucial that we discuss questions like these: How can we design good cooperative and collaborative learning environments for students? How can we design good exercises for with AI – considering that learning is not just transfer (or cramming) of information? How can we maintain a balance between AI assistance and human interaction in the learning environment? How can we encourage peer-to-peer learning and social engagement? How generative AI can enhance group discussions, facilitate idea generation, and support collaborative problem-solving? What are the best strategies to prevent the over-individualization of the learning process when incorporating generative AI? And not least: How can we best prepare teachers to use AI in their teaching? How can institutions best support teachers and students in this?