Using Theory to Review and to Plan the Blending of Mobile Learning into Practice

 Learning Technology Research Institute and HALE,

DLD Seminar: 18 November 2010, 11am, TMG-61, North Campus

John Cook

Learning Technology Research Institute London Metropolitan University

Email: john.cook@londonmet.ac.uk Home page: http://staffweb.londonmet.ac.uk/~cookj1/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnnigelcook Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/johnnigelcook Music wiki: http://johnnigelcook.wetpaint.com/page/Music

Johnnigelcook

or Jonni Gel Cook!

Jargon Buster

• MOBILE LEARNING. “Mobile learning – as we understand it – is not about delivering content to mobile devices but, instead, about the processes of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in, and across, new and ever changing contexts and learning spaces. And, it is about understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces. Therefore, in case it needs to be stated explicitly, for us mobile learning is not primarily about technology.” (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010, p. 6)

Structure

• The talk will first provide an introduction to – the theory behind the Socio-Cultural Ecology (Pachler, Bachmair

and Cook, 2010) – the notion of User-generated contexts (Cook, Pachler and

Bachmair, accepted)– which Cook has refined into an analytical tool called a ‘typology-

grid’

• Demonstrate how the typology-grid has been successfully used to analyse and learn from the ALPS CETL (Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings)

• Conclude by inviting a critique of the typology-grid

Framework : “Socio-Cultural Ecology” (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010)

• Grounds readers by offering – theoretical and conceptual models – analytical framework for understanding the issues

• Recommendations for specialised resources • Practical examples of mobile learning

– in formal (school) as well as informal educational settings

• Particularly with at-risk students

Macro framework: Socio-Cultural Ecology

• Structures (digital tools and media) – educational institutions no longer define alone what learning and

knowledge are and they are certainly no longer the only, even the main location where learning and knowledge can be accessed and takes place.

– From push to pull, change of mass communication and media convergence

– individualised mobile mass communication and social fragmentation into different milieus.

• Agency (capacity to act on the world)– formation of identity and subjectivity– environment a potential resource for learning– different habitus of learning and media attitudes; a new habitus of

learning is one of the characteristics of at risk-learners. • Cultural practices (routines in stable situations)

– Institutional settings, be they school, university, the work place etc.– Media use in everyday life (includes informal/non-formal)

• Although he does not use the term ‘context’ in the way we envisage, we draw on Giddens’ (1984, p. 17) proposition that

• “social systems, as reproduced social practices, do not have ‘structures’ but rather exhibit ‘structural properties’ and that structure exists … only in its instantiations in such practices and as memory traces orienting the conduct of knowledgeable human agents”.

• Structure is, therefore, not simply external to human context and action, a current context is: instantiated in practice; is informed by experience, history, and temporal patterns of behavior; and manifests itself in the form of structural properties through multimodal interaction with media.

• As a consequence of these structural changes, the nature of learning is changing as mode of meaning making and users are actively engage in generating their own content and contexts for learning. We call this user-generated contexts.

Micro framework: User-Generated Contexts

• Cook et al (accepted) suggest we should be looking at the student- or user-generated contexts as – Zones of Proximal Development or ZPD

(Vygotsky, 1978/1930)– Situated Learning (Lave and Wenger (1990) – Or conversational threads (Laurillard, 2002)

User-Generated Contexts

• The nature of learning is being ‘augmented’– Citizens/users are now actively engaged in

generating their own content and contexts for learning

– Calling this User Generated Contexts (UGC)

• UGC is a micro view of ‘context’

User-Generated Contexts

• Situated Learning– learning that takes place in the same 'context' in which it is applied– there is a link between meaning-making and situation/site of

practice– (Lave and Wenger (1990); for discussion see Pachler, Bachmair

and Cook, 2010)

• But for me you can get – contexts within contexts – you can learn across contexts– and this blurs things

• “Context” is a slippery notion

User-Generated Contexts

• Users of mobile digital devices are being ‘afforded’ synergies of knowledge distributed across local, augmented and virtual:– people – communities – location– time (life-course)– social contexts and sites of practice (like socio-

cultural milieus)– systems, structures and media

User-Generated Contexts

• mobile digital devices are mediating access to external representations of knowledge in a manner that provides access to cultural resources.

• This dynamic digital tool mediation of meaning-making allows users to negotiate and construct internal conceptualisations of knowledge and to make social uses of knowledge in and across specific sites or contexts of learning.

Typology-GridIntervention or innovation using networked handheld device – the “who what where when how”- is it a radical (R) or incremental (I)

Cultural practices – things people do, i.e. “stable routines”

Structures – digital media, tech-nologies, and systems

Agency – human capacity to act in the world

Micro dimensions

Key questions•Which Cultural Practices does this intervention or innovations relate to, build upon, challenge etc?•What Structures does it utilise? Are these “standard” or “bespoke”?•How does Agency (human capacities to act in the world) affect the intervention, or how is the intervention dependent on Agency?

Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) ©http://www.alps-cetl.ac.uk

Involving 16 professions across the partnership, from Audiology to Social Work

ALPS CETL

Five Higher Education Institutions

Three Commercial Partners

Supported by

The ALPS Assessment Cycle (Group A)

Group B

Using the framework for review / findings of lessons learnt (Group A)

Intervention or innovation using networked mobile device – the “who what where when how”- is it a radical (R) or incremental (I)

Cultural practices – things people do, i.e. “stable routines”

Structures – digital media, technologies, and systems

Agency – human capacity to act in the world

Micro dimensions e.g. User Generated Contexts: active learning, reflection, attention, etc

Mobiles being taken by students into Practice (to use for assessment and learning) (R)

- Project assumed student familiarity with mobile technology (digital natives) but students didn’t have experience of Smart Phones (in 2007).

Bodies: professional, statutory and regulatory bodies (PSRBs) , Health Trusts, Universities, ALPS Partnerships.Technologies: encryption software, mobile devices, mobile networks, email.

- Student experience in using devices(but text/calls were normal use and project showed that many students were not familiar with the use of the smart phone functions)

Facebook was heavily used but not for learning (+MSN)- BUT in the early mobile pilots the students rejected the use of Facebook for learning

Using the framework for planning (Group B)Examples of issues highlighted

Intervention or innovation using networked mobile device

 If intervention is radical, means more need to justify the investment…ROI analysis of iphone project

Cultural practices

We need to bear in mind the difference between surgical and medical wards as a barrier/factor in m-learning

Structures

*Interesting to see if there is an improvement in students search terms over time?

Micro dimensions

Can we find out what form of conversational threads they have?

Can we find out what peer learning/ support/ evaluation of these devices happens on facebook/ twitter/ Ning etc?

Explanation of why ALPS had to address security and control issues (Group A)

Cultural practices – things people do, i.e. “stable routines”

- not allowing student use of wi-fi and PCs. Official Trust policy.- Official Health Trust policy to ban use of mobile devices (in 2007 though this did change over the lifetime of the project) BUT (unofficially) Consultants did use them as did some patients

Structures – digital media, technologies, and systems

Comment by team b at plenary: are structures seen to only supportive or can they be barriers?Bodies: PSRB, Health Trusts, Universities, ALPS Partnerships.Technologies: encryption software, mobile devices, mobile networks, email.

Agency – human capacity to act in the world

- Student responsibility to decide when and how to use device (appropriate use).

Assessment and Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) ©http://www.alps-cetl.ac.uk

Using the framework for planning (Group B)

Intervention or innovation using networked mobile device

Cultural practices Structures Agency Micro dimensions

Using i-phones to support students in practice through online reference books, reflective exercises in the progress file and assessmentsThis is a radical intervention for the student and assessor as it changes how we do things and encourages immediacy of assessment and feedback. For faculty this is a less radical intervention as we started the work 3 years ago.

Dissonance between cultural practices within NHS, HEI etc to start with mean that stable routines are always threatened anywayThe culture is that mobile phones are for personal and social use so their use for learning is a disruption to routine/thinking etcMobile phones have been seen as disruptive in NHS practice and a disruption to teaching culture

IphonesApplee-portfolioUniversity serversTwitter/facebook/flickr etcThe internete-booksMedhandO2OUPAnything that allows anytime any pace learningSurvey of pre and post test behaviours*

How might the iphone help students to extend their ZPD zone? (Vygotsky)So- customization of feedback and assessment, immediate information search and delivery function, help clinical decision making, ability to capture evidence and store itIs the PDA a boundary object? (see Coulby et al 2009)Will all this access and self directed learning result in the student becoming more accepted within the CoP? (Lave and Wenger)Learner opportunities- students as critical evaluators that can access, appraise and apply informationEmpowered learners that have less reliance n clinical team for the smaller things?

Assessment dataEvidence from progress file- reflections, photos, audioSocial networks- CoPChanges in use of iphone over time- ie diagnosaurus loads at start of year, more drug ref only at end (scaffolding and fading, Vygotsky)

Group A feedback on use of framework

• Difficult to use at first.

• Helped to be able to discuss in a group.

• Structures was hardest “maybe because least interesting?”

• Cultural Practice seemed to take on the role of the practices we want to challenge.

• Agency ended up being what we want to achieve

• Micro column came last and tended to fall out

• It did help, got a lot out of the exercise

• Engaging in what we aare planning in a deep and structured way helps

• However, you do need to know about theory to get more out of it, e.g. ZPD. And did need JC’s talk at the beginning.

• Provides a lens for us to look at our work.

• We didn’t allow phone calls and were not really sure where that fitted in the structure.

Group B feedback on use of framework

• May be useful for planning as it provides a way for you to way in which you can step forward.

• Cultural Practices tended to be seen as barriers

• Micro dimensions of learning looked at towards end

• Helped to analyse what happened: “being forced to break things down can help generate an explanation as to why you took a particular course of action, for example because this Cultural Practice stood in the way”.

• Our analysis using the framework also highlighted that we used a lot of Information Systems services and that we incremental in that we used traditional approaches like assessment.

• The red text tend to show things we thought would work (but didn’t?) or is something we missed, e.g. a Cultural Practice that stopped us.

Overall feedback on use of framework

• Hard at first but things that were worthwhile came out of it

• May be worth for each part to have spate columns of enabling/disabling factors.

• Did we follow the boxes in a linear fashion? No ...

• “Really enjoyed it”.

 

And next day by email from Project Manager:

• “Hi John, Thank you very much indeed for the workshop yesterday. I found it really interesting and the model was a very useful tool to use to help us to analyse our past work and plan our future work. It was also fun! I've already had a lot of feedback from the others saying the same thing. Viktoria (who is moving on from ALPS to manage projects in sociology) has said that she is interested in looking at using the model in other areas as well as she found it very helpful.”

Discussion• When using the framework for planning it seemed

that the most useful outcome was a set of questions or issues raised by the analysis which could then be used to help to plan the work.

• The issues either highlighted possible barriers that would need to be overcome (usually in the cultural practices or structures area) or new ways in which structures or agency (human behaviour) could be used to help the project itself.

Summary Examples of issues highlighted

Intervention or innovation using networked mobile device •  If intervention is radical, means more need to justify the

investment…ROI analysis of iPhone project

Cultural practices • We need to bear in mind the difference between surgical and

medical wards as a barrier/factor in m-learning

Structures • Interesting to see if there is an improvement in students search

terms over time?

Micro dimensions • Can we find out what form of conversational threads they have?• Can we find out what peer learning/ support/ evaluation of these

devices happens on facebook/ twitter/ Ning etc?

Questions that could be used to guide debate

• Did you discover anything new using the typology?• Did you find the typology easy to use and/or

helpful?• How does it compare to any other models/theories

you have used to help analyse or plan mobile learning?

• Have you got any questions or comments about the typology?

• Have you got any suggestions for changes to the typology or to the way that it is used?

ReferencesCook, J., Pachler, N. and Bachmair, B. (accepted).

Ubiquitous Mobility with Mobile Phones: A Cultural Ecology for Mobile Learning. E-Learning and Digital Media. Special Issue on Media: Digital, Ecological and Epistemological.

Giddens, A. (1984). The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, University of California Press. 1984. Reprint edition 1986

Laurillard, D.(2002). Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies, 2nd ed. London: Routledge Falmer

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1990). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

ReferencesPachler, N., Bachmair, B. and Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning:

Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer.

Schütz, A. (1932) Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. Eine Einleitung in die verstehende Soziologie.Wien, Verlag Julius Springer. English translation: The phenomenology of the social world. Northwestern University Press. Evanstone 1967

Schütz, A. and Luckmann, T. (1984) ‘Strukturen der Lebenswelt’. Band 2. 3. Auflage. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp

Vygotsky, L. (1978 / 1930). Mind in society. The development of higher psychological processes. Edited by M. Cole et al., Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.