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Literature Review in Informal Learning with TechnologyOutside SchoolJulian Sefton-Green

To cite this version:Julian Sefton-Green. Literature Review in Informal Learning with Technology Outside School. 2004.�hal-00190222�

Literature Review in Informal Learningwith Technology Outside School

REPORT 7:

FUTURELAB SERIES

Julian Sefton-Green, WAC Performing Arts and Media College

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks to James Bradburne for his insights into learning inmuseums and to Clare Sumpner at the BBC for allowing me accessto their research resources. Keri Facer’s editing at Futurelab hasbeen helpful, challenging and supportive.

ABOUT FUTURELAB

Futurelab is passionate about transforming the way people learn.Tapping into the huge potential offered by digital and othertechnologies, we are developing innovative learning resources andpractices that support new approaches to education for the 21stcentury.

Working in partnership with industry, policy and practice, Futurelab:

• incubates new ideas, taking them from the lab to the classroom • offers hard evidence and practical advice to support the design

and use of innovative learning tools • communicates the latest thinking and practice in educational ICT• provides the space for experimentation and the exchange of ideas

between the creative, technology and education sectors.

A not-for-profit organisation, Futurelab is committed to sharing thelessons learnt from our research and development in order toinform positive change to educational policy and practice.

FOREWORD

When we think about learning, we oftentend to think about schools, universities,colleges. If we go a little further and thinkabout learning outside school, we mightbegin to consider museums, galleries andscience centres. What we often tend tooverlook, however, is the sort of learningthat goes on as part of our normal day-to-day activities when we don't even thinkwe are learning. Today, however, anyonewho has an interest in how children learnwith digital technologies needs to lookbeyond institutional contexts to considerthe implications of children's use ofcomputers, mobile phones, digitaltelevision and so on as part of theirinformal day-to-day lives. How arechildren learning when playing computergames? What are they learning when theycreate animations or websites on acomputer at home? Why are theyinterested and engaged in using thesetechnologies outside school? What canwe learn from these activities that canhelp us in designing our approaches toformal education?

This review focuses specifically onchildren's informal learning withtechnologies outside school. It bringstogether the existing research in the fieldto create a map of this digital ecology ofeducation, discussing what we knowabout which children have access tothese technologies, what they are usingthem for and the implications of this usefor learning. Most significantly, however,it summarises the extent to which theresearch in this area is beginning to raise fundamental questions about how children learn and, consequently,whether we need to re-examine thedesign of our formal education system.

We are keen to receive feedback on the Futurelab reports and welcomecomments at research@futurelab.org.uk

Keri Facer Director of Learning Research Futurelab

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CONTENTS:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2

SECTION 1INTRODUCTION: THECHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMAL LEARNING 4

SECTION 2INFORMAL LEARNINGWITH ICT 11

SECTION 3MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING 15

SECTION 4CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING 21

SECTION 5CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 30

BIBLIOGRAPHY 34

WEBSITES 39

Literature Review in Informal Learningwith Technology Outside School

REPORT 7:

FUTURELAB SERIES

Julian Sefton-Green, WAC Performing Arts and Media College

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Computers and other aspects ofInformation and CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) allow children andyoung people a wide variety of activitiesand experiences that can support learning,yet many of these transactions do not takeplace in traditional educational settings. Infact many of these may not be considered‘educational’ according to our conventionalunderstanding of that term. For most of us, discussion about learning isinextricably related to formal educationsystems (how schools should beorganised, managed and run). However,any interest in the role of ICTs in children’slearning forces the recognition that manychildren are immersed in ICT-relatedactivities in their homes and with theirfriends. This recognition requires us toacknowledge a wider ‘ecology’ of educationwhere schools, homes, playtime, thelibrary and the museum all play their part. This review, then, is an attempt tomap out the different approaches tounderstanding how young people may be learning with ICTs in a range of settings outside the school.

The particular focus in this report ischildren and young people’s use of digitalresources that are primarily viewed asleisure activities and which, often, areviewed by formal educationalestablishments as outside the realm ofvalued educational experience. Thiscomprises, for example, children’s playingof computer games, their use of chatrooms, their exploitation of digital mediaand digital television and so on, in otherwords, all the activities that are nowmediated by digital technologies as part ofyoung people’s social and cultural lives.

Section 1 of the report deals with thechallenges and methodological issuesfacing research into children’s informallearning with ICTs. It highlights conceptualand political difficulties in researching anarea of activity often overlooked orunacknowledged by research, policy andpractices. Usually, questions aboutchildren’s learning in non-formal settingsare not asked. However, an attention toinformal learning, whether voluntary,accidental or embedded in people’s day-to-day lives, also makes more evident theexperiential nature of learning as manyaccounts of informal learning pay tributeto notions of wonder, surprise, feelings,peer and personal responses, fun andpleasure. This section goes on to discussthe difficulties of defining ‘informallearning’, and the challenges forresearchers of mapping where and with what resources children are learning with technologies outside school.It also highlights the fact that knowing how many young people have access totechnologies is insufficient grounds forunderstanding how technology use might support learning.

Section 2 defines key theories of learningwhich have been or can be applied toobservation of children and young people’sinformal interactions with ICT. Theselearning theories are important in helpingus draw links between children’s learningin these contexts and those in school, butthis review also highlights how children’sinformal learning is leading to the need todevelop new approaches to thinking aboutlearning in any setting. The four maintheories discussed here include‘constructivism’, which basically suggeststhat by reflecting on their own experiences,all learners construct their own

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children areimmersed in

ICT-relatedactivities in theirhomes and with

their friends

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

understanding of the world. This approachis contrasted with the pedagogic theoriesof Lev Vygotsky. The third approachdescribes ‘discovery’ or ‘experientiallearning’ with its associated rhetoric oflearning through play. Fourth, we examinetheories of ‘situated learning’ which arguethat we need to understand learning as asocial process and to look closely at socio-cultural contexts. Finally the reportdescribes ‘new literacy studies’ whichattempt to theorise the whole range ofICT-related experiences often described asa kind of literacy (as in the populist phrase‘computer literacy’).

Section 3 synthesises a range of academicand commercially-funded research whichmaps children’s ownership and frequencyof ICT use in the home and debates theeffect of unequal access to the technology.In very broad terms, fairly consistenttrends in home ownership of ICTs amongstyoung people over the last five years showthat PC ownership seems to be around76% in families with school-aged childrencompared with around 80% for gamesconsoles, 100% for televisions, 90% formobile phones, 30% for digital televisionand around 20% for digital cameras.Around 80% of households with childrenhave access to the internet but only about5% of homes with children havebroadband. Predictably, the keydeterminant influencing ownership ofdigital technologies is social class.

Section 4 explores the characteristics ofinformal learning organised in three sub-sections. The first of these focuses onidentity, culture and social context,showing how learning transactions areintricately embedded in the immediatesocial worlds children inhabit. The secondlooks at play and interactivity focusing on

computer games. This focus delineatesthree kinds of approaches to computergames: a focus on gaming in its rawpsychological sense; an attempt to explorehow game play might transform thepresent curriculum; and an exploration ofgame playing and game cultures as anoriginal medium for learning. The thirdsub-section here examines the capacity touse digital media to make and design arange of new media products, and theissues around the learning involved in thisnew kind of production activity, particularlyas it relates to software.

Section 5 offers a series of conclusionsaimed at different constituencies ofinterest. There is a considerable body ofresearch which shows that young people’suse of, and interaction with, ICTs outside of formal education is a complex‘educational’ experience. We need to findways for this kind of learning to be valuedby teachers, schools and the curriculum.

We need more research examining hugeareas of ICT interaction about which weknow very little, around interactive TV forexample. Secondly we note that most ofthe studies described above may shed lighton small areas of young people’s learningbut they do not look across domains andacross experiences to show how society ingeneral can support and sustain learners.

The evidence collected in this report doessuggest that some of the public anxietiesabout children and ICTs are misplaced.Parents need accessible research tosupport many intuitions they feel aboutseeing children learning and playing withICT in the home.

Teachers and other educators just simplyneed to know a lot more about children’s

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young people’suse of ICTsoutside of formaleducation is acomplex‘educational’experience

REPORT 7LITERATURE REVIEW IN INFORMAL LEARNING WITH TECHNOLOGY OUTSIDE SCHOOL

JULIAN SEFTON-GREEN, WAC PERFORMING ARTS AND MEDIA COLLEGE

experiences and be confident to interpretand use the learning that goes on outsideof the classroom.

The message for software developers is that despite the current interest ineducational software, it would seem as if other kinds of product might developlearning in round-about ways. Part of the issue here is that the market foreducational software is defined by the very strict limits of in-school education,whereas this report suggests a range ofways which might seek to soften suchdefinitions in reaching the same goals.

1 INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGESAND OPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMALLEARNING

This review is based on a seemingly simpleand obvious premise. Computers and otheraspects of Information and CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) allow children andyoung people a wide variety of activitiesand experiences that can support learning,yet many of these transactions do not takeplace in traditional educational settings. Infact many of these may not be considered‘educational’ according to our conventionalunderstanding of that term.

It is well known that children, probably allof us, learn all of the time; that much ofthat learning is dependent on the tasksand surroundings we find ourselves in; andthat we transfer principles and facts fromone experience to another. This much wastrue before computers. However, in recentyears a number of commentators havesuggested that ICTs have changed both thescope and the nature of this learning,setting up new opportunities for learningnew kinds of skills, as well as offeringdifferent ways of learning traditionalknowledge. Many commentators see inthis idea the germ of a movement whichholds out the promise of transforming thenature of education altogether.

If we are interested in learning withtechnologies then, or interested in the role and nature of education, it isimportant to look beyond what formaleducation has to offer, to consider thewider ‘ecology’ of learning.

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ICTs havechanged both the scope andthe nature of

learning

SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMAL LEARNING

1.1 SCOPE AND AIMS OF THE REVIEW

This review is an attempt to map out thedifferent approaches to understanding howyoung people may be learning with ICTs ina range of settings outside the school -especially in contexts not traditionallyassociated with education. It is aimed at aconstituency of parents, educators andsoftware developers who are interested inthe very general and broad idea of informallearning and ICT.

The literature in this area roughly suggests three kinds of uses for studyinginformal learning:

• to help us understand learning in the abstract

• to help us understand and validate a wider range of learning experiencesand settings

• to suggest how we might exploit orsupport informal learning.

This third aim, of finding ways to enhancechildren’s learning out-of school anddevelop links and connections witheducational goals throughout their dailylives, goes to the heart of current politicalthinking about education and indeed drivesmuch of the mission of Futurelab. Recentyears have, for example, seen muchspeculation about finding ways to harnessthe learning power of computer games.However, as we will see, the first two aimscan have as much ‘utility’ in developingcurricula as the more immediately obviousidea of exploiting leisure time or leisureactivities for learning.

When considering children’s informallearning with ICTs, we also need torecognise that many of these resources

are of course merely more modernversions of older technologies, inparticular TV and video or even books.There has been considerable study of theeducational use of TV in the home and inparticular the role of children’s televisionin the life of the growing child (MessengerDavis 1993; Buckingham 1993). Whererelevant this review will draw on pertinentliterature to discuss the principles at work.However, this review will concentrate onthe use of digital technologies andespecially those which potentially offer amore ‘interactive’ relationship betweenusers (particularly those which facilitatecommunity) or between user and text thanthat usually associated with massbroadcasting. This is a shorthanddistinction but convenient for establishinglimits for the review.

Importantly, however, the focus onlearning in these settings raises a numberof questions, both theoretical andpractical, that we need to address beforeturning directly to the research literatureavailable in this field.

1.2 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY‘INFORMAL LEARNING’?

In our society it is very difficult to separatethe processes of learning from the practiceof education. For all sorts of reasons weinvest heavily in schools, colleges anduniversities, and for most of us discussionabout learning is inextricably related toformal education systems: how schoolsshould be organised, managed and run.However, any interest in the role of ICTs inchildren’s learning forces the recognitionthat many children are immersed in ICT-related activities in their homes and withtheir friends. This recognition requires

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it is very difficultto separate theprocesses oflearning from the practice ofeducation

us to acknowledge a wider ‘ecology’ ofeducation where schools, homes, playtime,the library and the museum all play theirpart. In turn, this has led to areconsideration of whether schools aregood or even practical ways to organisechildren’s learning at all. What is more, an understanding of children’s learningoutside school settings throws into reliefwhat we might expect, want or need theformal sector to be able to contribute.Indeed one of the aims of this review is to make the case that learning in out-of-school settings needs to be accordedstatus and understanding as we seek to enhance the education system more generally.

Straightaway, we can see that this focus on the wider ecology of education requiresus to reconsider terms we often take forgranted. In the first instance, it requires usto ask what we recognise as ‘learning’.Many researchers, for example, wouldargue that all sorts of learning goes on ina range of different settings, and that thislearning contributes to the capacity to learn the formal knowledge that is conventionally valued in our society. As has been noted, however, in our society we often don’t tend to value learning untilit can be categorised with reference to theframeworks of academic disciplines werecognise as ‘knowledge’ (Coffield 2000;Moss 2001). Some commentators havegone so far as to argue that in today’sclimate we often refuse to recognise anyactivity as learning unless we are able to‘certify’ it (Sutherland 2001).

What, then, might we mean by ‘informal’learning? Does this ‘informality’ refer tohow we learn, where we learn, what welearn, or the relationship between theactivity and what is valued as knowledge

today? Does informal learning simplymean learning that happens in a differentway from in schools, in a different place,about different things, or does it refer toanything that is learnt that isn’t currentlyvalued by our education system?

Today, the term ‘informal learning’ is usedquite loosely to describe all or any ofthese. Some people use it to describe thelocation of learning – suggesting that alllearning outside the school is ‘informal’.Others to describe the purposes oflearning – suggesting that all learning thatis part of leisure activity, rather than forexamination purposes, is informal. Onething is clear, however; the terms‘informal’ or ‘formal’ are not intended toimply that informal approaches to learningare all fun and games, while ‘formal’approaches are all seriousness and gravity.Rather, the distinction between informaland formal learning, as we will use it inthis report, can more clearly be madearound the intentions and structure of thelearning experience.

If this sounds rather abstract, another wayof thinking about it is to imagine two kindsof continua. The first contrasts formallyorganised learning with casual or‘disorganised’ ‘accidental’ learning(examples here might range from a lecturethrough to playing a computer gamerespectively). The second ranges fromformal settings (schools) throughintermediate kinds of learning spaces (likemuseums and galleries) right through tosocial structures we don’t tend to think ofas learning organisations (like families orfriendship groups). In other words wecould have both formal and informallearning occurring in both formal and non-formal spaces; it is quite possible to haveformal learning in the home (doing

6

learning in out-of-school

settings needs to be accorded

status andunderstanding

SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMAL LEARNING

homework, for example) or informallearning in a school (smoking behind thebike sheds).

If we consider the subject underconsideration in this report - children’sout-of-school learning with ICTs - we cansee an incredibly broad range of activitiesand experiences that might lie at differentpoints along these two continua. The homeenvironment alone, for example, may offera range of different digital experiences foryoung people, from playing computer games to using revision CDRoms frominteractive voting with digital television toediting digital photographs. While inmuseums, children might use TV studiosor blue screen technology to explore filmtechniques, or play computer games toenhance exhibitions. In the museum sectorsome of these exhibits are exceptional interms of scale and cost (for example therobots in the Sony ‘museum’ in New York),while others seem to serve as little morethan advertising for commercial products.The type and availability of resources andactivities in libraries and youth centres,moreover, can range from simply‘accessing the internet’, to being involvedin complex multimedia digital film-making.

At the same time, we need to recognisethe growing number of digital experiencesthat may be explored across a range ofdifferent settings through the mediation ofthe web; from online chat rooms andmultiplayer games communities togovernment-funded initiatives such asCulture Online (www.cultureonline.gov.uk/)and Planet Science (www.scienceyear.com/home). Seen in this way, it seems almostimpossible for a review of this length tobegin to explore all the features of youngpeople’s learning with digital technologies.There are, however, broad categories ofactivity that we might be able to draw outwhich will serve to focus our attention inthis report.

The first grouping might consist of thoseexperiences organised specifically tosupport formal educational achievementbut accessed in informal conditions. In thehome, for example, many childrenencounter digital resources designedspecifically to support the nationalcurriculum, whether through commercialeducational resources or through publiclyfunded websites such as the BBC revisionwebsites. At the same time, many publiclyfunded institutions, such as libraries,museums and galleries are of courseformal educational institutions, albeit notpart of the school system. Some of them(like the school visit to the NationalPortrait Gallery) are often experienced bychildren primarily as part of theirschooling, with visits often structuredaround the completion of worksheets andviewed by teachers as a key component ofcurriculum activity.

The second grouping might consist ofthose activities which adopt informalapproaches to learning formally-sanctioned knowledge; in other words,

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it is quitepossible to haveformal learningin the home orinformal learningin a school

SETTINGS

formal

informal

ORGANISATION (CURRICULUM)

informal formal

Main focus of review

resources which encourage engagementwith socially valued information andresources through non-curriculum linkedformats. The government’s investment inCulture Online, for example, is seeking toextend the reach of the UK’s culturalinstitutions through the development of aresource aimed at creating ‘virtual’museum experiences. Other experiencesthat might be considered here includeexamples such as Planet Science(www.scienceyear.com/home.html). These examples are in the public domainand are largely produced with the formalcurriculum in mind, although theengagement supported by these resourcescannot be mapped specifically ontonational curriculum models ofprogression. The experiences of publicvisitors to science centres and museumsmight also fit into this category in that thestructures by which visitors engage withexhibits may be characterised by non-formal approaches, but the ‘knowledge’which visitors are exploring is oftensocially valued formal knowledge(Bradburne 2001).

The third grouping is of children and youngpeople’s use of digital resources that areprimarily viewed as leisure activities andwhich, often, are viewed by formaleducational establishments as outside therealm of valued educational experience.This comprises, for example, children’splaying of computer games, their use ofchat rooms, their exploitation of digitalmedia and digital television and so on; inother words, all the activities that are nowmediated by digital technologies as part ofyoung people’s social and cultural lives.

Given the growing interest in this ‘digitalgeneration’, and the emerging challengingtheoretical ideas emerging from research

into these activities, it is on this last areathat we will focus in this report – although,as will be seen, there are times when it isimpossible to draw hard lines betweenlearning experiences. The interest of thisreview, then, is very much at the informalend of both continua, looking at informallearning in terms of both organisation andits settings, at how young people learn incontexts outside both formal educationalsettings and formal educationalapproaches.

1.3 HOW CAN WE RESEARCH‘INFORMAL LEARNING’?

Defining what constitutes learning in theabstract and whether it can be ‘distilled’from informal learning settings is bothconceptually and politically complex.

It is conceptually difficult because there isno one simple science of learning, no oneset of shared rules to which allresearchers in the field would point tobegin to describe how informal learningmight take place. At the present time, forexample, researchers in ‘education’continue to struggle with the challenges ofcombining psychological and sociologicalapproaches to an understanding oflearning. The conceptual challenge ofdefining children’s learning outsideschools is also particularly problematic asmost literature in this field is orientedtowards the implications of informallearning for the formal sphere. With somenotable exceptions, there are few studiesof children’s learning outside of‘education’.

It is also politically challenging. Thesequestions about children’s learning innon-formal settings are not usually asked

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there are fewstudies ofchildren’s

learning outsideof ‘education’

SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMAL LEARNING

because contexts such as the family orchildren’s peer groups or online culturesaren’t usually state funded, and not usuallyconsidered part of the remit of publicdebate. At the same time, it is worthwhileremembering that an attention to informallearning, whether voluntary, accidental orembedded in people’s day-to-day lives,also makes more evident the experientialnature of learning, as many accounts ofinformal learning pay tribute to notions ofwonder, surprise, feelings, peer andpersonal responses, fun and pleasure.Researching the pleasures and wonder oflearning is of itself a deeply contested andpolitically charged arena, with debatesoften polarising around whether learning‘should’, in fact, be ‘fun’. However, we areliving through an era of intense interest inlearning, especially its economicimportance in the ‘knowledge economy’,an economy that, we are often told, willrequire not only formal educationalexperiences, but ‘lifelong learning’ in arange of sites and over sustained periodsof time. An interest in out-of-schoolinformal learning is, therefore, much moreof a mainstream political concern now,although to date it has not been assignedthe same resources as other educationalissues.

Besides raising a number of questionsabout how people might learn, informallearning raises an equally provocative setof questions about what might be learntoutside of the formal curriculum (besidesabstract capacities, like learning to learn).Here a great deal of the literature requiresus to re-think what we might mean by‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ and therelationship between ‘facts’ and ‘concepts’.As I have already suggested, consideringinformal learning helps us refocus on whatwe might mean by learning in the first

place and helps us return to firstprinciples. Part of the problem lies in thefact that the contexts of learning, includingteaching, can be observed, whereas thecognitive dimension (the learning going onin an individual’s head – or betweenindividual minds) is much more difficult tostudy. Moreover, from an educationalpolicy point of view, it’s easier to influencethe conditions under which learning maybe reasonably expected to take place,rather than learning itself. Unsurprisingly,then, most educational research and studyis of teaching and curriculum.Nevertheless, by attempting to investigateinformal learning, we have to acknowledgethese larger philosophical questions.

Finally, it is worthwhile repeating that,although informal learning takes place in many locations and in many kinds of interactions, this review will focusexclusively on informal learning facilitatedby or in interaction with digital echnologiesoutside the school setting.

1.4 HOW CAN WE RESEARCH THE ROLE OF ICTS IN INFORMALLEARNING?

Researching informal learning with ICTsalso brings additional challenges to thosedescribed above.

The first, for example, is the challenge ofmapping where, and with what resources,children are learning with technologiesoutside school – where and how significantis the digital ‘ecology’ of education? Atleast when researching learning inschools, the area of study is relatively welldefined. This question becomes significantwhen we consider the frequency with

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many accountsof informallearning paytribute to notionsof wonder,surprise, fun and pleasure

which, today, we hear the terms ‘digitaldivide’ or ‘digital generation’. AsBuckingham (2000) has shown, both ofthese terms are complex and imply broadsociological changes - the first suggestingthat patterns of access to digitaltechnologies are instrumental in creatingsocial exclusion, the second suggestingthat an entire generation of young peopleare fundamentally different in theirrelationship with ICTs from previousgenerations. Both of these questions havebeen crucial in generating quantitative andbroadly sociological research in this field.Over the last few years, we have seen agrowing number of surveys which attemptto map out levels of home ownership anduse of ICTs, originating from academic,market research and educational policyinstitutions.

If we are interested in mapping children’saccess to technologies in settings outsidethe home, the problems become morecomplex. The first major barrier is the lackof publicly available research in many ofthe sites where young people may be usingICTs – in museums, youth clubs, sciencecentres. There is, to date, no body of workwhich has systematically investigated theuse of ICT in even one area of this widefield. Many evaluations of specificprogrammes by broadcasters or projects inmuseums, for example, are commissionedby the project management and rarelyprioritise an understanding of learning.Frequently, the kind of informationavailable only offers very broad statisticalpictures, eg the use of community ICTcentres measures the number of 16 year-olds using the internet in a library(www.dfes.gov.uk/ukonlinecentres). This isimportant information but does not helpanalyse the learning going on in suchcontexts. Studies like Orr Vered (2002) have

explored how ICT might function in stateafter-school care in Australia, but suchqualitative studies are rare in the UK.Moreover, most museums, youth centresand science centres, for example, use ICTin supplementary as well ascomplementary ways. In these cases it isvery difficult to separate the role ICT mightplay from the wider museum experience.

Even setting aside these difficulties inmapping ownership or access, it hasbecome increasingly clear that thesefigures would not, in themselves, reallyexplain what people might be doing withICTs, and of course such statistics shed nolight on our interest in the learning thatmay or may not be going on as childrenand young people use the technology.

The second kind of approach to explainusage has attempted to address thisshortcoming through adopting a qualitativeapproach. Here close study, often involvingsustained observation of and interviewswith individuals or families, has offeredresearchers a ‘deeper’ understanding ofchildren's out-of-school computer use.This is not to say that larger surveyshaven’t tried to gauge the quality andmeaning of ICT use (see for example the'technology maps' in Somekh et al (2002))but that the case study approach enablesus to reflect more directly on questions oflearning – even when learning isn’t theprimary research interest. This moredetailed case study work allows theresearchers to ask fundamental questionsabout young people’s experiences,motivations and interests in using thesetechnologies. However, there are alsoquestions surrounding this case studyapproach. Often, the young people selectedfor these studies are extremely motivatedto learn and to some extent this approach

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SECTION 1

INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGES ANDOPPORTUNITIES OF INFORMAL LEARNING

tends to favour ‘interesting’ or ‘cuttingedge’ technologically-mediated learningexperiences. Indeed, within a perspectivethat sets out to understand learning withICTs through a case study approach, it isextremely difficult to research those youngpeople who do not want to, or cannot,access ICTs however relevant theseexamples may be to the wider debate.

Arguably, if we are to understand thenature and significance of children’sinformal learning with ICTs, we need tounderstand the literature which draws onboth of these research approaches, usingthe quantitative surveys to provide acorrective to the sometimes over-generalising pronouncements ofresearchers working in a case studyenvironment, and using the case studies toprovide an insight into the significance ofthe experiences that ‘lie behind’ thenumbers in the questionnaire surveys.

It should also be noted, however, thatresearch into digital technologies is oftencharacterised by a search for what is ‘new’and ‘different’ in human experience.Unsurprisingly, then, some researcherslooking at young people’s use of digitaltechnologies are more interested in arguingfor the difference that ICT interactionmakes, rather than any continuity withconventional or ordinary kinds of learning.The sociological approach whichemphasises how pre-existing socialstructures mediate the use of ICTs(Silverstone & Hirsch 1992) however,suggests that there are limits to the extentthat technologies can function in and ofthemselves as a stimulant to new kinds oflearning (see especially Facer et al 2003).

This review, then, will begin by discussingthe key theoretical approaches to learning

that have emerged through studies oflearning in alternative settings and withICTs and then go on to map out thelandscape of children and young people’saccess to and use of digital technologiesoutside school. The review will then drawout key characteristics of children’sinformal learning with digital technologiesthrough case study examples before, in thefinal section, offering a synthesis of thetheoretical and policy implications of such studies.

2 INFORMAL LEARNING WITH ICT

This section will describe key theories oflearning which have been or can beapplied to observation of children andyoung people’s informal interactions withICT. One of the key themes underlying thissynopsis will be the question of how thesetheories of learning might characteriseinformal learning as a distinct intellectualexperience and might require a revision ofexisting theories of ‘formal’ learning. Asecond key theme relates to the role of the‘teacher’ in informal learning settings.When we think of learning outside school,we often assume that the role of theteacher is absent, and yet what researchinto this area is helping us to understandis that the role of the teacher, performedeither by individuals not formally qualifiedas teachers, or, indeed, as performed bytechnologies, is likely to be as crucial toinformal learning experiences as to‘formal’ learning experiences. None ofthese theories, however, directly applies tothe question of how children learninformally with ICTs. This is a new areaand the ‘road map’ of where we need totravel to understand this is laid outthrough these different theoreticalperspectives.

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it is extremelydifficult toresearch thoseyoung peoplewho do not wantto, or cannot,access ICTs

SECTION 2

INFORMAL LEARNINGWITH ICT

2.1 THEORIES OF LEARNING

2.1.1 Constructivism and Vygotskian theory

As is well known, the theory ofconstructivism is associated with thelearning afforded by the use of ICTs (in andout of formal education). Propounded byBruner (1966) and popularised in thecomputer field by Seymour Papert and hiscolleagues at MIT (eg Papert 1993), thistheory basically suggests that by reflectingon their own experiences, all learnersconstruct their own understanding of theworld. Each of us generates our own‘rules’ and ‘mental models’, which we useto make sense of our experiences.Learning, in this theoretical framework, isseen as the process of adjusting ourmental models to accommodate newexperiences (see Wegerif 2002).Traditionally, it has been the ability of ICTsto offer systems of representation tosimulate and model possible outcomes togiven scenarios, and above all to becontrolled by the user at their own pace,which has led to the idea that ICTs offer aparticularly supportive environment forconstructivist learning.

As Wegerif (2002) notes, different modelsof learning emphasise different strengthsand weaknesses, and constructivism isoften contrasted with the work of Vygotsky(1962, 1978) who articulated a more socialtheory of learning. Whereas constructivismfocuses on the individual mind,Vygotskians (sometimes also known associo-cultural theorists) conceptualiselearning as more socially constructed.Vygotsky’s work is well known for anumber of features, most of which relateto its use in developing theories of

pedagogy. For example, Vygotsky proposedthat we all move from a use ofspontaneous concepts to what he called‘scientific concepts'. These aren’t scientificin the typical use of the word but refer toinformed and shared understanding asopposed to intuitive ideas. Furthermore,Vygotsky is well known for the idea ofscaffolded development where activeteaching in the right time and in the rightplace is seen as the only way for learningto take place. He conceived, in particular,the notion of the ‘Zone of ProximalDevelopment’, which can be described asthe difference between what an individualis able to achieve or understand on theirown, and what an individual is able toachieve in conjunction with a more expert‘other’ – whether a person or a resource.This emphasis on the role of a ‘teacher’and on structured, coherent progressionalso offers our analysis of the computerand progression with say computer games,fertile ways of conceptualising youngpeople's learning in out-of-schoolenvironments. Usually, these ideas areemployed to describe the interventionsmade by teachers in classrooms. However,from an informal learning perspective, it isinteresting to consider how non-teachers(peers and other ‘experts’) might fulfillteaching roles. Equally, it is productive toexplore how software in general andgames in particular might be written to‘scaffold’ or support inexperiencedusers/learners so as to structure‘Vygotskian’ learning.

2.1.2 Discovery/experiential learning

At times, constructivism has becomeentangled with the idea of ‘discoverylearning’ or ‘experiential learning’ with itsassociated rhetoric of learning though play.

12

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INFORMAL LEARNINGWITH ICT

Whilst some of the pedagogy associatedwith discovery learning has much incommon with constructivism, the theoriesdiffer in their philosophical definition ofwhere ‘knowledge’ resides in relationshipto the ‘minds’ of the learners. It’s probablyfair to say that most assumptions aboutthe value and nature of informal learningderive from some supposition aboutdiscovery learning. Although this approachhas become almost proscribed in thecurrent rejection of 60s ideologies,discovery learning is often valued in and ofitself in the informal domain. The ability ofthe computer-related experiences tosupport experimental, trial-and-errorapproaches seems very much in tune withdiscovery learning, which really underplaysthe teacher’s role. However, this needs tobe set against a considerable interest inthe role of ICTs as providing a structuredenvironment for play, thus affording amore reflective and organised(constructivist) learning. These arecommon arguments for software aimed atthe younger market and can be easilyobserved in the advertising rhetoric aimedat parents. Besides academic interest inthis debate, these theories have influencedpublic understanding of ICTs and learning.At a simple level we can often find ideas ofplay, feedback, structure and modellingused to explain learning with ICT. However,the terms are often used superficially and the really exciting work in learningtheory over the last ten years has been in other areas.

Discovery learning, however, has also been used to loosely describe theeducational philosophy lying behind manydevelopments in museums and galleries,which for a long time have addressed thequestion of informal learning. Theliterature in this field, however, does

distinguish between informal learning innon-formal settings and formal learning innon-formal settings, drawing attention tothe fact that in many cases museums andgalleries offer a non-formal learning offormal knowledge (Bradburne 2001). Evenallowing for these distinctions, it should beacknowledged that much of the literaturerefers to the museum/gallery experience ingeneral rather than that part which couldbe constrained to ICT (see for example thediscussion of kinaesthetic learning(Thomson & Diem 1994) in relation tozoos). The most comprehensive study oflearning in museums and galleries(Hooper-Greenhill et al 2003) attempts tooffer a framework for reflecting on thelearning experience for both theinstitutions and visitors but does notdistinguish between exhibits in terms ofthe use of ICT. This raises all sort ofquestions about learning from experience,which may be of interest to developers ofsoftware resources and policy makers, butwhich are not strictly pertinent to thisreview. In as much as they offer a way ofthinking about some of the principles ofinformal learning, however, these theorieswill figure in the more detailed studies inSection 4.

2.1.3 Situated learning

The first of the more interesting recentnew approaches to learning emphasisesprocesses of situated learning (Lave &Wenger 1991). This body of work arguesthat we need to understand learning as asocial process and to look closely at socio-cultural context to make sense of learning(Rogoff 2002). This approach emphasisesthe nature of the body and realexperiences in real contexts. It pays closeattention to the webs of knowledge created

13

in many casesmuseums andgalleries offer a non-formallearning offormalknowledge

by social practices, especially it should benoted in relation to learning in the workplace (Seely, Brown & Duguid 2000). At thesame time, this idea of the web or network(Castells 2000) has come to stand as ametaphor for the way thinking andknowledge might work. These theories ofsituated practices and situated cognition,as with the Vygotskian approach, also paygreat attention to the distribution ofunderstanding across social contexts. Theinterest in children’s culture, discussedlater in this review, suggests howcomputer play culture can be approachedas a community of practice and thusexplains the nature of the ‘informal’learning embedded in leisure computeruse. This model also helps us reconfigurethe role of the teacher and/or expert withinthe community of learners.

2.1.4 New literacy studies

Finally, I want to invoke the body of workdescribed as new literacy studies. Not onlydo we now have an attention to a wholerange of ICT-related experiences oftendescribed as a kind of literacy (as in thepopulist phrase ‘computer literacy’), butresearch in literacy studies itself exploreshow meaning is distributed acrosssemiotic domains (visual, aural and text)(Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001). Literacystudies don’t just define how texts aremade in this new ‘multimodal’ age, buthow readers (or in our case, players orusers) learn how to make sense of and usenew texts in making meaning (Gee 2003).The new literacy studies also explore thepedagogic structure of texts – that is howthe reader is inducted into and thensupported through the reading process.This work emphasises that thedevelopment and acquisition of new

literacies are not reliant on the traditionalinstitutions of schooling and pedagogy (cfBourdieu & Passeron 1977; Luke 1989),but are taught and learnt within the widerculture (Green & Bigum 1993; Buckingham& Sefton-Green 1994).

2.1.5 Caveats

This very brief synopsis of learningtheories shouldn’t just be read as anabstract body of literature which can beapplied to the kind of ICT use described inSection 4. In many cases research into thekind of interactions at the heart of ourfocus is itself changing, driving anddeveloping new theories of learning.Understanding informal learning with ICTsisn’t just a question of filling in the gaps, itis much more an area of study which mayshed new light on how we learn in the firstplace. Indeed, a key part of the debate hereis that our analysis of learning inrelationship to informal uses of ICT mighthelp our understanding of how learninghappens in schools and in traditionallearning situations (Sefton-Green 2003a).The implicit models of how learning worksin respect of the conventional curriculumand school classroom share some of theinsights described above, but they alsodraw on other more established theoriesof learning which do not help us under-stand what children might be doing with acomputer game or in a chat room. Part ofthe rationale for the study of informallearning is that putting these debatesabout how learning may occur in, acrossand between domains creates excitingchallenges for educators in the digital age.

14

informal learningwith ICTs is an

area of studywhich may shed

new light on how we learn

SECTION 2

INFORMAL LEARNINGWITH ICT

3 MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING

This section will bring together, or providepointers to, the current available surveyresearch data on the availability and use ofdigital technologies by young people insites outside school. At this stage, we willrefrain from discussions of the implicationsfor learning of this access, and provide thisresearch here simply as a context for readingour later detailed descriptions of youngpeople’s learning with ICTs in Section 4.

3.1 OWNERSHIP AND FREQUENCY OF ICT USE IN THE HOME

Ownership of the technologyBoth academic and commercially-fundedmarket research show fairly consistenttrends in home ownership of ICTs amongstyoung people over the last five years. Thisdata (see Fig 1) shows that PC ownershipseems to be around 76% in families withschool-aged children compared with around80% for games consoles, 100% for tele-visions, 90% for mobiles, and around 20%for digital cameras. BBC figures also nowsuggest over 50% of homes with childrenhave digital TV (BBC 2002). A familiar featurein all the survey data is how games consolesdisplace PCs in less middle class homes.The second key issue in discussion ofownership relates to the internet (see Fig2).

Although, as we might expect, income isthe key determinant here (given the cost ofinternet use) we also need to take intoaccount access to broadband (includingADSL etc) as speed and bandwidth are thekey issues in determining access to a ‘first’or ‘second class’ internet. Recent BBC

figures give around 80% of households withchildren as having access to the internetand only about 5% of homes with childrenhaving broadband (BBC 2002). There isn’t agreat deal of research about how children’shomes are connected to the net beyondgeneral pictures. Equally the spread ofdigital TV (and Digital TV services) is part ofthis picture but information is difficult toobtain. Commercial research (BBC 2002b)suggests that 2 to 11 year-olds make up6% of all home users of the internet andthat internet usage is higher as childrengrow older.

15

76

79

PC

13

16

LAP

TOP

83

92

MO

BIL

E P

HO

NES

71

77

GA

MES

C

ON

SOLE

23

43

DVD

PLA

YER

36

33

IDTV

NA

23

DIG

ITA

L C

AM

ERA

8

21

WA

P/3

G

PH

ON

ES

2

5

PALM

TOP

2001

2002

All figures as a percentage

Base: All households (1,804)

Access to ICT at home

Fig 1: Hayward et al 2002 p12

SECTION 3

MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING

These studies also provide some insightinto the frequency and duration of use ofcomputers in the home. The 2002 YoungPeople and ICT survey (Hayward et al 2002)for example, suggests that on averagechildren aged 11+ use a computer at homefor six hours a week (see Fig 3). A regionalsurvey suggested that 33% of children agedbetween 7 and 18 used a computer everyday at home (Facer 2001).

Unsurprisingly, there is significantly lessdata publicly available on children’s use ofother technologies in the home, such as

games consoles or digital television. Suchresearch that does exist here is usuallyconducted for commercial purposes (seethe ‘kids.net’ section on the NOP websitefor example, www.nop.co.uk) and difficultto obtain. Necessarily the questions suchresearch seeks to ask are related to aninterest in exploiting the media. However,commercially-funded research has beenat the forefront of finding ways to trackwhat people do online or, to be moreprecise, which pages and sites they visit.The Net value Home User Panel (quoted inBBC 2002a) shows that 50% of boys (aged12 to 15) visited games-related sites inOctober 2001 as opposed to 20% exploringarts and culture. These statistics do notshow what is done (or learnt) during suchexperiences but they do allow for rathergeneralised ‘taste’ observations to berecorded such as the ‘fact’ that boys likesites that allow them to download AV clipsof the latest music but are less interestedin finding out about song lyrics than girls(BBC 2002a).

One study of the CBBC website (BBC 2003)does reveal trends such as the fact thatpeak usage is during the week and that

16

SECTION 3

MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING

Time spent using computers in theseven days prior to the survey (meanhours) – Key Stage 3+:2002 vs. 2001

2001 2002

Base: All young people in KS3+ 858 974

At home 7.2 5.7

At school 3.0 2.8

Elsewhere 1.3 1.1

Total 11.5 9.5

Fig 3: Hayward et al 2002 p9

Fig 2: Hayward et al 2002 p14

All figures as a percentage

Base: All households (1,804)

TOTAL(1904)

KEY STAGE KS1 (273)

KS2(557)

KS3(446)

KS4 (283)

POST-16(245)

SOCIAL GRADE AB(379)

C1(479)

C2(417))

DE(529)

69

56

66

70

72

76

78

92

64

43

Access to the internet at home bykey stage of a child and social grade

page hits have increased phenomenally. Itreveals how top requested URLs are thehome page and activities (like quizzes andgames) and topical TV-related pages. Thiskind of study also shows how users movedto EastEnders and sports pages from theCBBC site. If such users were children,this would show how the mediaexperiences cross between categoriesprovided specifically for them.The BBC as a provider of media acrossbroadcast, internet and interactive TVservices is uniquely placed to explore howthe different media intersect with eachother in children’s lives. Commercialresearch used by the BBC suggests thatthe BBC website is used far and abovecommercial competition (14% as opposedto say 5% for MTV or 4% Cartoonnetwork,BBC 2002a). This BBC research alsosuggests a symbiotic relationship betweenmedia experiences, showing that if

children are motivated by TV programmesthey will visit the website of theprogramme (albeit for limited visits).Research from NOP from 2001(quoted inBBC 2002b) suggests that most use of theinternet is for playing games (60%) withthe other uses (in descending order of use)being categories defined as ‘fun, e-mails,listening to music and chat’ accounting foraround 25% of activity. Interactive TV is stillin its infancy and research to date, such asWatchams (2002) study of iTV Bitesize hasfocused on the conditions of use showinghow the role of the TV in the living room (itis very rare to get iTV on the bedroom set)is problematic as a medium for revision. A rare qualitative study on BBC's OnionStreet (Quaestor 2002), a site for self-supported learning and study, albeit withina formal schooled framework, exploredissues of relevance, navigation andcontent, concluding that although many

17

if children aremotivated by TV programmesthey will visit the website

Percentage of 6-17 year-olds who use the medium at all during their leisure time

Gender Age Social Grade

All Boys Girls 6-8 9-11 12-14 15-17 ABC1 C2DE

Aged 6-17 (N=1303)

Television 99 99 99 99 98 100 99 99 99

Music media 86 81 90* 71 83 91 97* 85 86

Video 81 83 79 89 79 79 77* 84 79*

Computer games 64 79 48* 63 70 73 49* 62 65

Book – not school 57 49 64* 67 62 52 45* 64 51*

Comics 36 38 34 30 36 39 39 48 26*

Internet 28 33 23* 42 38 21 12* 29 28

Aged 9-17 (N=980)

Magazine 66 56 77* n/a 56 71 71* 67 66

Newspaper 36 38 33 n/a 21 29 56* 33 38

Fig 4: * Statistically significant difference. Source: Livingstone and Bovill (1999: 59)

of the site’s features were attractive, thesite’s proposition in relation to offeringhome-learning worked against itself as a web experience.

Less up to date but more detailedinformation from Livingstone and Bovill(1999) also shows how ICT ‘competes’ withother media in the home (see Fig 4).

Studies here show how the different mediacomplement or supplement each otherand at times replace or displace oldermedia, such as the study of how textinghas replaced e-mail (BBC 2003; Thorne2003). The overall preference for screen-based media is significant, although suchstatistics show how solid the preference for reading fixed narratives (including TVand films) actually is and how importantmusic becomes as a kind of identity inadolescence.

3.2 ACCESS AND FREQUENCY OF ICT USE IN ALTERNATIVE SITES

The home, however, is not the only site inwhich young people can use digitaltechnologies. Indeed, much social policy inrecent years has attempted to overcomeinequalities in home ownership by theprovision of computer and internet accessin other sites, such as community centres,libraries and museums. These culturalinstitutions, moreover, are increasinglyexamining the potential of digitaltechnologies to provide different types ofexperiences for visitors. At the same time,the internet café has become a familiarfeature of many streets in our towns andcities – although there is evidence that theuse of such public places is changing(Beavis et al 2003). The impact ofbroadband mobile technologies (the 3Gnetworks) will be influential here

(Woudhuysen 2003). Research into the useof digital technologies in these differentsites tends to be fragmented into, forexample, research into ‘community access’which focuses specifically on publicprovision of access to computers andinternet, often tied in to an explicit ‘ICTskills’ agenda (see the Metadata researchsite: www.unl.ac.uk/ltri/research/ukonline.htm) or research in the field ofmuseum and science centre education.There is rarely, if ever, any overlapbetween these perspectives andapproaches that would enable someoneinterested in this field to map out thesimilarities and differences in the types ofprovision in these sites; there is often nospecific focus in museum education on therole of interactive exhibits and there islittle research on children’s experiencesacross these different sites (GLA, 2002).

The research that does exist in this areasuggests, however, that levels of use inthese sites are significantly lower than inthe home (see Fig 5), with only very rarecases of continuous or iterative use – which is essential on the whole for aneducational interaction.

The key UK government initiative dedicatedto the provision of ICTs outside schools isUKOnline (www.dfes.gov.uk), which drawstogether a number of recent initiativesaimed to ameliorate social exclusion inthis area. However, despite the fact thatDfES collects data from UKOnline sites, itis difficult to get any sense of how youngpeople make use of these resources. Othergovernment initiatives which have clearlyfunded opportunities to access ICT outsideschool include New Opportunities Fund(www.nof.org.uk/), after-schoolprogrammes and a range of Arts Councilof England (www.artscouncil.org.uk)initiatives like New Audiences. Whilst

18

different mediacomplement or

supplement eachother and at

times replace ordisplace older

media

SECTION 3

MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING

information on broad numbers of use isavailable, and details about all suchprogrammes available online, moreprecise data describing young people’s use of these resources is not.

3.3 DIGITAL DIVIDES?

As already mentioned, one of the keyissues driving the large scale surveyresearch in this field is the concern thatthe introduction of digital technologies tomany aspects of our day-to-day lives, aspart of our work, leisure and educationalexperiences, may be leading to theexclusion of those people who cannot, ordo not want to, own and use thesetechnologies (Schon et al 1999). Researchin the US, in Australia and here in the UK has identified a number of broadsociological patterns in terms of accessand use of technologies by young people.While there is not space here to reference

all the literature in this important area, itis worth noting that a number ofdiscussion groups and publications on thissubject are available (eg Loader 1998;Webster 1995; Facer 2002).

Predictably, the key determinantinfluencing ownership of digitaltechnologies is social class – with moreaffluent families having significantly greater ownership (eg 90% for PCs).Trends consistently show that whilst the mobile telephone is a relatively‘democratic’ technology, internet access ismore restricted. Class (or in this instance,wealth) overrides all other determinants(gender, ethnicity, regional bias) inexplaining ownership (see Fig 6).

Ownership of the technology, however, isnot the same thing as access to it. In otherwords, owning a computer or mobilephone does not necessarily guarantee theopportunity to use that technology. Current

19

How often do you use a computer (NOT a games console) outside school

I use a computer Never Less than At least About 2-3 times Everyonce a once a once a times a daymonth month week week

At home 12 4 5 14 31 33

At a relative's house 44 24 14 12 5 2

At a friend's house 27 26 22 17 7 2

At my parents' workplace 77 11 5 2 3 1

In a library, museum or science center 58 23 10 6 3 1

At a youth club/youth group 84 5 3 5 2 1

In an internet cafe (cafe with computers) 86 8 3 2 1 1

Fig 5: Computer use outside school (n=1818, valid %s reported, rounded up) (Facer 2001)

20

Household access to ICT – by social grade

Total AB C1 C2 DEBase: all young people 1804 379 479 417 529

% % % % %

Personal computer 79 93 86 81 60

Laptop computer 16 36 17 11 3

Personal or laptop computer (net) 81 95 89 82 61

Mobile phone 92 95 92 93 88

Games console 77 70 77 83 79

DVD player 43 46 47 45 34

Interactive digital TV 33 33 36 37 26

Digital camera 23 37 27 22 11

WAP/3G 21 27 25 21 14

Palmtop computer 5 12 5 2 1

None of these 1 — — 1 2

Fig 6: Hayward et al 2002 p12

Media environment in child’s bedroom and elsewhere in the home, by family composition

Family type Siblings Mother in paid work(N=1275) (N=1302) (N=939)

1 parent 2 parent Yes No Yes (any) No

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)

Media-rich home 27 50 47 36 52 39

Media-poor home 43 25 29 33 23 31

Traditional home 30 25 24 32 25 29

Media-rich bedroom 24 24 23 32 22 28

Media-poor bedroom 28 23 25 20 20 28

Other bedroom 49 54 53 48 59 44

Fig 7: Livingstone and Bovill (1999: 51)

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MAPPING THE DIGITAL ‘ECOLOGY’ OF LEARNING

studies would suggest that the key factors,in respect of access are family structure,gender and age. Predictably, the older thechild, the greater the chance of accessingthe technology. Boys have greater accessto PC than girls – though this isstatistically less significant than one mightsuspect, and certainly it is (statistically) nota simple causal explanation for gender-differentiated computer use.

Livingstone (2002) describes a range ofwhat she calls ‘household mediators’ ofICTs access showing that there are alwaysimportant exceptions to these generaltrends. Her work with Bovill (Livingstone &Bovill 1999) also identifies the developmentof the ‘digital bedroom’ for older children(9+) where children may have exclusiveaccess to digital technologies in their ownbedroom space (Fig 7) as opposed to anolder model of shared family access incommunal space, though as other casestudies show (Facer et al 2003/ 2001a), thiskind of provision still exists.

It is important to emphasise, however, thatbeing able to access technology does notnecessarily determine how that technologywill then be used. Indeed, one of thedefining features of research over the lastfew years has been to emphasise thattechnology ‘itself’ does not determine howit will be used, but rather, that ways ofusing the technology emerge through acomplex interplay between children’sexpectations, family cultures and featuresof the technology. In order to understandthis, we need to move beyond thestatistical surveys that we have referencedso far, to the case studies of children’s useof technology.

4 CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

In this section, we move from thegeneralised surveys of access and use and, using the theories outlined inSection 2, identify some of the mostsignificant features of children’s informallearning with ICTs outside school, paying,as we outlined above, most attention tothose practices currently overlooked byformal education policy, practice andresearch. This more detailed study ofinformal learning draws on a number ofdetailed case studies and is organisedaround three key themes emerging fromthe research literature at the present time:the significance of culture, motivation andidentity (with reference to online exper-ience); play/interactivity (with reference tocomputer games); and production/design(with reference to digital productions).

4.1 CULTURE, SOCIAL CONTEXT AND IDENTITY

This section examines the role played bychildren’s and/or youth cultures in themodels of learning which emerge fromstudies of the social use of ICT, and theways in which these models overlap withcontemporary trends in learning theory, in particular theories of situated practice(as described in Section 2).

Most studies of children’s or youngpeople’s use of popular media areextremely interested in questions aboutculture - though not usually from aneducational perspective. Instead, thisresearch is often driven by a series ofadult concerns about the changing natureof ‘childhood’. For example, Kellner (2002)

21

being able toaccess tech-nology does not necessarilydetermine howthat technologywill then be used

SECTION 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

or Buckingham (2000) are very concernedwith the role of the market andcommercialisation in young people’sculture. ICTs, it is argued (eg Nixon 1998),have been at the forefront of this process,both driving the leisure market into thehome and in turn being driven byconvergences in marketing (see also thestudies of Pokemon in Tobin 2003).

Another key area of concern aroundchildren’s digital cultures has been thedevelopment of largely uncontrolled (andprobably uncontrollable) child and youthparticipation in the growth of internetculture (eg Savigar 2001). Chat rooms inparticular have been the subject ofconsiderable press interest especially inthe context of a fear of predatorypaedophiles. Moreover, the highlysexualised nature of many children’sexperiences in chat rooms seems part of the same drive to induct children intothe adult world of the commercialmarketplace (Meyrowitz 1985). Thesekinds of concerns inevitably feed intodebates about regulation of children’scultures. (www.ippr.org.uk/research/index.php?current=25&project=72).

This aspect of children’s cultures is a goodexample of the kind of new domain whereout-of-school and in-school experiencescollide and intersect as schools are nowrequired to teach the skills to ‘protect’children in their out-of-school experiencesor where parents look to formal educationfor understanding about what theirchildren do in their leisure time. Arguably,however, schools are some of the leastinformed sites to be able act in this way.

As Buckingham (2000) has argued, theseadult anxieties about children’s cultureshave often over-determined our research,

leading us to ignore other aspects of thesepractices that may be worthy of greaterattention. There is a burgeoning body ofresearch literature, however, that takes amore open approach to the threats andopportunities embedded in children’sdigital cultures.

One study of children’s use of chat roomsfor example (Willet and Sefton-Green 2003)highlights these as places in which newmodels of learning are occurring andyoung people are given opportunities toexplore new ways of communicating andnew forms of being. Based on datacollected at a community arts centre inLondon, the study analysed theinteractions of four to six girls, aged 10 to13, as they engaged in a chat room(Habbohotel.com). The research showedhow the girls are ‘playfully’ taking risks,experimenting and negotiating meaning asthey engage with discourses around pre-teenage girls. Far from showing childrenas the passive innocents in a dangerousworld of strangers, this kind of studyshows how children assert control andagency online, using the virtual as ameans of cementing local close peergroup relationships. These kinds of studiesalso show how ICT experiences function as‘learning cultures’. They do this in anumber of ways. This study showed howyoung girls were inducted into the peerworld and, by drawing on quite formalisedteaching and learning roles in their talk,demonstrated how learners are muchmore flexible and demanding in theirsocial leisure cultures than might beexpected. Like the studies of computergames this facility to adopt teaching andlearning roles in play contrasts with whatwe might expect from children and showshow they have taken such pedagogicstructures from school into informal use.

22

research is often driven by

a series of adultconcerns about

the changingnature of

‘childhood’

SECTION 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

Another key area of interest in children’scultures is the ways in which youngpeople’s social agency may be transformedby access to new technologies (Tapscott1998; Lewis 2002; Katz 2000). By this, Imean that as the computer makes noconcession to age, the occupations andopportunities traditionally seen as an‘adult domain’ are now open to thoseyoung people with access to the newtechnologies. Lewis’s (2002) study of youngentrepreneurs, or Katz’s (2000) portraits ofyoung ‘geeks’, emphasise young peopleacting independently from their traditionalcarers and, masked by the anonymity ofthe internet, interacting with adults astheir social equals.

Of greater interest to this report, however,is the question of how some young peoplecome to be able to operate in thesedomains. Many of these case studies areAmerican and although a key part of theseapproaches is to stress a notion ofautodidactism – of self-teaching and selfmotivated learning - these studies oftenreveal how the family plays a key role insupporting the learning which enabledthese (remarkable?) young people tobecome artists and entrepreneurs.Abbott’s (1998) description of a few Englishweb entrepreneurs shows particularly howfathers (or in other cases highly educatedmale family members) play a key role infostering high-tech skills and in thisrespect, these kinds of narratives belongmore to those accounts of learning whichemphasise the cultural capital of privilegedfamilies. The kind of learning described inthese case studies is collegiate but relieson the transfer of abstract knowledge andoften direct ‘traditional’ teaching of, say,programming skills within families.

However, Katz’s (2000) study of Idaho‘geeks’ also draws attention to theprinciple of an ecology of self-teachingwhere learners are able to find informationthey need and are able to constructcurriculum and progression – to organisetheir own learning. These examples mightdescribe informal learning but the objectof that learning is frequently the arcaneformal knowledge of, say, programming orweb design.

This interest in self-teaching is frequentlyconstructed not so much as a study oftalented individuals but as a study of‘interest-communities’. For example, Tobin(1998) conceptualises the peer supportnetworks as Otaku (the Japanese term of a‘stay at home’ tribe). Here an attention topeers (especially the role of experts), adirect ‘need to know’ approach to learning,and a focus on real world goals all offer amodel of learning which differs significantlyfrom the traditional classroom. Theemphasis is on networks or webs wherethe young people are in contact with otherknowledge sources (or nodes) withinbounded ‘communities of practice’.

Another key area of interest in thesestudies of children’s digital cultures,whether computer games players, webusers and especially mobile phonetechnologies (Harkin 2003), is thecommitment demonstrated by the users tothese activities. All of these studiesunderline how this learning is predicatedon a high degree of motivation. This is notjust the obvious kind of engagement thatone might expect learners to show inmatters that they were interested in, but aparticular focus on an emotional kind ofinvolvement in the use of ICT. This hasbeen described by researchers as youngpeople using ICT-based activities as part of

23

children usingthe virtual as a means ofcementing localclose peer grouprelationships

their construction of their own personalidentity (Livingstone 2002; Facer et al 2003;Turkle 1995) in which learning to use thetechnology is not simply a process ofacquiring useful skills, but stronglyembedded in the young person’simmediate social world and instrumentalfor these individuals in maintaining andconstructing a sense of self. This isespecially acute in studies of computergame players (eg Sefton-Green 2003; Gee2003) and we shall return to this issue of‘intense learning’ later. Of course, part ofthe theoretical interest in motivation isexplicitly set against its implied reverseand studies which contrast themotivational involvement demonstrated bylearners often explicitly measure theirfindings against the generalised norm ofeveryday schooling. For all the need toconsistently improve schools, thesestudies often negatively stereotype typicalschool experiences.

If we are to really understand the fullrange of learning processes young peopleexperience in their informal uses of ICT,then children’s and youth culture as wellas the cultures developed by thecommercial media companies need to beexplored thoroughly. From the existingresearch to date, however, the practicesinvolved in children and young people’sdigitally mediated cultures seem tosuggest that:

• many young people are used to workingwithin communities of practice, orcommunities of learning, in which theytake on roles of teacher and learner andinduct other individuals into their groupactivities

• some young people are growing used tooperating as equals within adultdomains

• some young people are actively teachingthemselves a range of skills andcompetencies either as part of theirpeer group cultures, or as mediated bydigital technologies

• these modes of learning behaviour needto be recognised and further developedin schools and the curriculum.

4.2 PLAY AND INTERACTIVITY

Ever since the earliest development ofcomputer games, there has been intenseinterest in the medium (Wolf 2003) as aspecial ‘new’ opportunity for learning(Greenfield 1984). As computer gameshave grown in popularity, and as they haveachieved an unparalleled position in termsof youth culture and economic importance(Poole 2000; Screen Digest 2000), so thisinterest has grown exponentially. Forexample both the UK educationestablishment in the form of the BectaComputer Games in Education project andthe US premiere educational researchestablishment (MIT) in its Games to Teachproject (along with $12 million input fromMicrosoft) have taken on the ambition ofexplaining the potential of computergames for education.

The main reason for both of theseinitiatives is the fact that on the surface it looks as if computer games are more‘successful’ than schools in attractinginterest and motivation from young people.This is part of a wider crisis aboutcontemporary schooling common to manyWestern societies where it appears as ifcommercial initiatives like the computergame industry are winning the competitionfor the hearts and minds of the young.Computer games are, of course, not asingle form (possibly not even a single

24

learning ispredicated on ahigh degree of

motivation

SECTION 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

medium in terms of platform) and thenature of the games playing differs widely.As the study of the medium and its usehas become developed so literaturedefining and describing game play hasbecome more sophisticated (Wolf 2003).

In broad terms there have been threekinds of approaches to the study of theeducational value of computer games. Thefirst approach has been interested in thenotion of play and cognition. The gamesstudied or made under this umbrella (egwww.ioe.ac.uk/playground) focus ongaming in its raw psychological senserather than attenuated for most computergames culture so prevalent in leisure useof ICTs.

The second approach (exemplified by thestudies above) has attempted to explorehow harnessing the motivational nature ofgame play might transform the curriculumas it is currently constructed (Dawes &Dumbleton 2002; Squire 2002; Fabricatore2000). Issues of role-play, simulation,scenario modelling, intense experienceand motivation are all discussed as waysof re-framing the traditional curriculum.

A particular concern in classic educationalstudies has been the alleged (relative)underachievement of boys and many casestudies have focused on the fact that ICTsoffer a way of supporting success for boys.This argument can cut both ways in thatcomputer games have been blamed forstimulating violent behaviour (in boys: seediscussion in Cassell & Jenkins 1998) orICT use for reinforcing traditional malecontrol of exclusive high statustechnologies (Holloway & Valentine 2003).However, the US-sponsored Games-to-Teach project (Squire 2002), the UK TEEMresearch (www.teem.org.uk/) and the

Becta Computer Games in Educationproject (http://forum.ngfl.gov.uk/WebX?14@@.ee738de) have all identifiedexamples of the motivating use of ICTs forboys both in and out of school. Theargument around the underachievement ofboys is of course more complex thansimply a need to offer more computers toboys in education (Epstein et al 1998).However, all of these studies note howfeatures associated (though notexclusively) with a masculine approach tolearning are prioritised in informal ICT use.These include clear rules and goals(notably in computer games), bounded, de-limited problem solving and anemphasis on practice, repetition, trial anderror, (experimentalism) and systems ofreward. Practical problem solving andinventive solutions also appear to appeal tomale modes of learning. Some studies arereluctant to essentialise male and femalemodels of learning but all the attributeslisted above appear as positive, and attimes unique, features of learning withICTs outside and in contradistinction toformal learning.

However, as Fabricatore (2000) has noted,this attempt to harness the motivationalfeatures of games for traditional learningobjectives is open to the criticism that itmay foster second rate games in thepursuit of educational software. Othercommentators have noted the difficultysimply of incorporating games in educationas though the contexts for play and theconstruction of learning and knowledgewere not in conflict across these domains.Futurelab’s partner publication ‘LiteratureReview in Games and Learning’ (Kirriemuirand McFarlane 2003) deals in more detailswith these debates.

25

it appears as if commercialinitiatives arewinning thecompetition forthe hearts andminds of theyoung

The third approach to the study of gameshas been to explore game playing andgame cultures as an original medium forlearning. This is not to deny therelationships that do exist betweenlearning in computer games and learningin other kinds of education (Sefton-Green2003a), but as an approach it concentrateson exploring how players learn to playgames in informal settings and the natureof that kind of learning. The most fullydeveloped study here is by James Gee(2003) who focuses on games playing as aform of situated learning. He emphasiseshow the game-playing environmentfacilitates active critical learning with aplay on and with identity. He exploresnotions of apprenticeship, practice andgroup membership and how the movementbetween and across semiotic domainssupports a broad-based development ofliteracy. His study continually engages withthe differences between game playing andschools as complementary (competitive?)sites of learning and he pays closeattention to the situated, cultural nature ofthe learning experience.

This is a rich and suggestive study. Itsclose examination of the game-textsenjoyed by young people shows how gameplaying might function as a site forinformal learning. It does not acknowledgethat games are, of course, merely softwareprogrammes and as such the gameplaying is simply a complex way ofinteracting with fixed and variable rules,but it does show how immersion in thealternative ‘world’ of games supports thelearning process. Like Fabricatore's (2000)analysis, it argues for high quality gamesrather than educational software as beingthe most effective ‘educational’ approachto the subject. Gee’s approach to the vexedproblem of content is equally provocative.

Whilst most of the study of games ineducation are concerned with how to usegame playing as a way of ‘teaching’ thetraditional content of education, Gee’sapproach focuses on how games playingworks at a meta level, teaching a kind ofthinking much more in tune with many ofthe demands made in the post-industriallabour market (Cope and Kalantzis 2000).This approach focuses debate very clearlyon how schools, curriculum and thesoftware industry might appropriate anduse our understanding of the learningafforded by game playing in a widerapproach to reconceptualising learning.

Although this rejection of the use ofcomputer games as an educationaltechnology to mediate traditional ‘formal’learning may fly in the face of the kinds ofgovernment sponsored initiativesdiscussed above, Gee’s approach actuallyresonates very strongly with the principlesof learning described in Section 2 above. Inparticular, we can see a high level ofconsonance between the science centremovement and that articulated by Gee.

The science centre movement, exemplifiedby the San Francisco Exploratorium andthe work of its founder FrankOppenheimer (www.exploratorium.edu),made the case that authentic scienceeducation needs to be founded onprinciples of access and engagement. Thenew science museum experience offereddynamic, personally meaningfulengagement with structured ‘discoverylearning’. Inevitably, this movementcreated its own orthodoxy with a world-wide movement in science museumeducation now replicating the originality ofthe San Francisco experience. However,the ideal of offering new environmentswhere learning is self-initiated, self-

26

high qualitygames rather

than educationalsoftware are the

most effective‘educational’

approach

SECTION 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

sustaining and self-motivating could beoffered (more economically) in computergames. Gee (2003), for example, exploresthe similarity between the ‘projectiveidentity’ games players adopt in certaintypes of games and the idea of learninghow to behave like a scientist in terms oftaking risks, using appropriate discourseand adopting the role of a scientist in theirwork as opposed to doing what they weretold. Similarly, the attention in museumand science education exhibits (Bradburne2001) to the need to support dialogue andthe group or collaborative learning isclearly facilitated as a kind of learningbehaviour in computer games play. Thefinal point of convergence between thesemodels of science learning in alternativesites and computer games relates to oneof the key aims of science learning asarticulated by Frank Oppenheimer –namely how to facilitate public debateabout the social and political purposes oftechnology. Gee argues that the capacity inmany computer games to offer a ‘moral’engagement with high-end science fictionscenarios actually offers a much moreinformed form of ethics education (offeringchoice and simulation) than is usuallysupposed. He provocatively argues thatgames have "an unmet potential to createcomplexity by letting people experience theworld from different perspectives" (Gee2003, 151). This approach is absolutely atodds with the popular views that gameplaying encourages a simple form ofidentification within the fiction of thegames, producing anti-social behaviour(Provenzo 1991) as best exemplified indebate around the Grand Theft Auto games(see www.gameonweb.co.uk).

Contemporary study of games and games playing suggests that:

• the ‘culture’ of games playing (thecontexts, peers and surrounding texts)creates a productive backgroundallowing for complex intellectualengagements

• games themselves provide a unique anddemanding environment for learning

• the study of games further develops ourunderstanding of how new literaciesreally function in practice and pointtowards the changing nature ofcommunication modes

• the kinds of learning ‘achieved’especially by boys through gamesplaying, needs some kind of‘reconciliation’ with the formalcurriculum.

4.3 PRODUCTION AND DESIGN

This section describes both a new practice(the capacity to use digital media to makeand design a range of new mediaproducts) and the issues around thelearning involved in this new kind ofproduction. Clearly, ICTs offer the abilityfor users to make and build a range ofproducts. These range from writing andimage manipulation to audio, video andweb-based production (Sefton-Green andBuckingham 1998). Furthermore, as hasbeen pointed out by a host ofcommentators (eg Abbott 1998), the weboffers the possibility of publishing anddistributing these products which in aprior era would be private – or at leastonly available to local audiences.Additionally, it is now possible for youngpeople to make other ‘non-expressive’products including programming orparticipate in businesses. Whereas thepreceding sections have exploredcommercially driven ‘new’ leisure

27

products (eg games, chat rooms) ourinterest here is in the use of computers toallow young people to make, communicateand disseminate their own views andcreative expressions - including those withinnovative design, intellectual or economicpossibility. The focus here then is verymuch on the relationship, or affordancesbetween user and software. Much of theinterest in ICT use outside of formaleducation actually focuses on this area ofuse as is evident from the surveys andquantitative studies about ICT use, above;however the details of what young peopleare actually doing is remarkably under-researched.

Kress (2000) and Gee (2003) use the term‘Design’ from New Literacy Studies as away of conceptualising the social andcognitive processes involved in the makingof new media. They (and others, eg Fiske1987) note how the boundaries betweenproducer and consumer (traditionallyembodied in the model of an author ofprint of mass media texts and the readerof those products) is significantly differentwhen playing with or using interactivetexts. In these new kinds of texts (Snyder1997) the reader or user needs to make or ‘perform’ the text as a kind of ‘co-operation’ with the writer. Gee (2003)suggests how the nature of game playingsupports the sort of design skills wenormally associate with game makers andhow eliding the world of games playingwith education may well develop learningthrough the design process (see alsowww.wac/sharedspaces). The argumenthere is that the closed rule-bound natureof games stimulates an understanding ofstructure and function and that beingrequired to strategise transforms passiveor spontaneous understanding (to useVygotskian terms) into more formal

‘scientific knowledge’. Projects like thosedescribed by Beavis (2001) or Willet andSefton-Green (2003) explore how we needto think of playing computer games as akind of writing and thereby acknowledgethe design process that is involved in gameplaying. These design processes can befurther developed in digital production.

Before we welcome this as evidence ofnew approaches to learning, however, it isclear that this research agenda needsmore empirical research into designprocesses in action (eg Burn 2000) andindeed into how users cycle through thedesign, making and playing circuits to fullyexplore the design processes in learning.However, the attention to design as a key‘multiliteracy’ and as one integrallysupported through leisure uses of ICT, is akey feature of contemporary curriculumdebate (for a model of these theories putinto practice outside the UK system seethe Australian ‘New Basics’ initiative:www.education.qld.gov.au).

To an extent however, the use of design (inthis sense) in education has remainedrather conservative or at the least‘academic’ and has not actually resulted inmuch practice or curriculum development:it has not fully exploited the productionpotential of ICTs. The websites, film andespecially music (Green 2001; www.vjs.net)made by young people in their ‘digitalbedrooms’ or with peers, on the otherhand, may offer exciting opportunities forsome more privileged young people, butthis is precisely the area in which we cansee informal learning failing to re-connectwith the formal curriculum(www.wac.co.uk/sharedspaces). Theresearch that does exist has looked atdigital production broadly as a communityof practice (see Tobin 1998; Buckingham

28

SECTION 4

CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMAL LEARNING

Harvey and Sefton-Green 1999) andemphasised how these activities relate tosocial networks. Studies of young webdesigners (O’Hear and Sefton-Green 2003)have also recognised the key role thataccess to software plays in addition toaccess to knowledge and knowledgenetworks. This particular study examinedhow students’ work in HTML web design,object-oriented HTML constructionsoftware and early work in Flashinfluences the formal models and, moresurprisingly, the content of studentauthored writing online. This attention toproduction technologies is of courseinseparable from other factors influencingthe writing process – in particular thegenre young web writers choose to workin. However, these kinds of studies showhow our understanding of what youngpeople might make, and how they mightexpress themselves, is intricately related tothe potential and possibilities of socialcontext and production technology.

Sefton-Green and Parker (2000) haveexamined commercially availableanimation software aimed at the youngermarket. This study explored how youngchildren (5 to 9) used commerciallyproduced animation software - aimed atthe home market – in a casual schoolsproject aimed to introduce students to theexperience of editing. They concluded thatsuch activities might develop movingimage literacies but that the digital‘edutainment’ software used in the studyconstrained what was possible. Thisfinding was extended into the conclusionthat better quality, accessible editingsoftware is needed for these age groups(see also www.dvineducation.org). Sefton-Green (1999) suggests that because accessto software is such a fraught political issue(because it entirely relates to questions of

equity), the value of different kinds ofproduction software or indeed howsoftware plays a role in developingchildren’s ICT competence out of schoolare, to an extent, speculative. There arestudies of how, for example, spreadsheetscan be used in education or how the Lego-Logo matrix of programs might developprogramming skills and mathematicalunderstanding (see studies in Scrimshaw1993 or McFarlane 1997), but we do nothave studies of how children of differentsocial worlds may use or have access todifferent software experiences. In thisrespect studies of gaming are moreadvanced as the texts under discussion aremore commonly shared.

In general, there has been remarkablylittle study or research into productionsoftware. Whilst there has beenconsiderable interest in developingeducational software, the educational useof production software in general has beenneglected. Studies of developed forms ofyouth culture (cf the current vogue forFlash, Manovich 2002) need to be setalongside the commercially structuredpossibilities for creative production (cfLego club (http://club.lego.com/) orKahootz (www.kahootz.com.au/)). At thesame time studies of hackers and hackerculture (Himanen 2001; Raymond 2001;Katz 2000) show how an ethnographicapproach to computer culture might beproductive for studies of education andlearning.

This area of study is, to date, lessdeveloped than the previous two sectionsbut shows how:

• the conceptual models of design andproduction developed in new literaciesstudy help us understand how children

29

the educationaluse of productionsoftware ingeneral has been neglected

and young people work as authors in thenew media

• the range of software and progressionthrough software currently available forchildren and young people is limited andlimiting

• we need informed and detailedunderstanding of how of young peopleinteract with a wide range of softwareoutside of the formal, ‘taught’environment.

4.4 CAVEATS

Of course, even if we were to aggregate all the case studies in the literature, wewould have the problem that they may beun-representative of wider computer use.On one level, it is probably impossible tofind out how all children and young peoplemight be learning with ICTs out of schoolbut these case studies do suggest rich or‘indicative’ insights and it is these insightswhich guide our understanding about thenature of the learning that might be goingon when children are using computers inthe home.

Of course, finding out about low or non-users of ICT is methodologicallydifficult and although it sounds almostperverse to ask the question, trying todescribe conventional or non-innovativelearning of ICT-related interactions isimportant because as policy extrapolatesfrom the kind of case studies I havealready described, it may ignoreunsuccessful or non ‘educational’ learning.Facer et al (2003) and Tobin (2003a) havestudied non-motivated users of technologyand, like Hellawell’s (2001) analysis on why low income communities don’t access the web even when the technical

limitations were overcome, show how apre-condition for use of ICTs is interest and access to social networks within whichICT is valued (Facer 2002).

5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

This section will try to extrapolate keyfindings from the report for targetedaudiences.

5.1 RE-DEFINING LEARNING IN THE WIDER CULTURE

A common thread seems to repeat itself aswe proceed through this survey. This wouldstate that there is a considerable body ofresearch which shows that young people’suse and interaction with ICTs outside offormal education is a complex‘educational’ experience. The kinds oflearning demonstrated both complementsand supplements learning going on inschools and this has two implications:

• that teachers, parents and othereducators need to find a way beyond‘narrow’ or simplistic definitions oflearning and education to value andbuild upon the learning described in this study to enrich and support thecurriculum

• that the kinds of knowledge and themodes of learning exemplified in out-of-school informal learning is very relevantto learning how to become a modernkind of worker and that the formaleducation system needs to find ways tointersect with this kind of learning as avalid curriculum aim.

30

it is probablyimpossible to

find out how allchildren and

young peoplemight be

learning withICTs out of

school

SECTION 5

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

5.2 RESEARCHING LEARNING

Our second conclusion relates to what wedon’t know. It has proven challenging tofind qualitative studies of learning andlearners in alternative sites of learning.Digital TV, museums and galleries havedata describing the volume and timing ofusage but we can find out little beyond that.As a result this report has been slightlyskewed towards the home and leisure usesof ICT. Clearly there has been an incredibleinterest in education in the last decade butmost of this has been quite narrow andfocused on the kinds of learning andknowledge we already recognise and value.However, without data, understanding or aconceptualisation of what might go on inthese other sites, our sense of how theseother experiences can support, develop orcomplement the curriculum will be a littlehaphazard. As a number of the initiativesdescribed are state funded, it is a realproblem if research and evaluation in theseareas cannot take place without theperspectives of ‘alternative learning’described above. At this stage there is aclear need to understand how, for example,young people might use Planet Science orDARE (www.dareonline.org) (curriculumresource websites) outside of school. Thereis also very strong contiguity between BBC-produced supplementary material (both asdigital TV and online like www.bbc.co.uk/science/cavemen) and the curriculum, andof course there is the ‘digital curriculum’produced by the BBC exploiting broadcastresources for education. Not only do weneed to know how digital TV as a mediumsupports learning by being availableimmediately and in ‘context’, but we needto know how learners transfer knowledgeand other kinds of understanding learnt inthese domains to other educationalexperiences.

One really key absence from the researchliterature describes any connectionsacross domains. Scholars have been keento explore say computer games (or othermedia) or learning in the home (or otherspecific sites) but have not traced howconnections, patterns, links and learningmight criss-cross across and betweendomains. There is a need for researchwhich explores the holistic ecology oflearning – if we can allow such a phrase –in the way that, say, Tizard and Hughes(2002) can offer in respect of very youngchildren. Because there is considerablepolitical mistrust and at times antipathy ineducational circles to the wideningarguments we have encountered, it hasbeen difficult to really understand howyoung people function as learners ‘in thewhole of their lives’ at school and not atschool, on computers and in museumsand so on. Most of the studies describedabove may shed light in small areas ofyoung peoples’ learning but they do notlook across domains and acrossexperiences to show how society ingeneral can support and sustain learners.

5.3 LEARNING IN THE HOME

For parents the implications of this reportmight seem more confusing. On the onehand much of the theory and datasuggests that left to themselves childrencan get a lot from experiences like gamesor chat rooms which periodically get slatedin the press for their demonic and un-educational properties. The evidencecollected does suggest that some of thepublic anxieties are misplaced but this isnot to suggest that questions of balance or‘diet’ can be left to the marketplace. Whilstmany parents pursue software and otherrespected ‘educational’ uses of ICT in the

31

we need to knowhow learnerstransfer know-ledge learnt inthese domains to othereducationalexperiences

home in their child’s leisure experiences,and feel anxious and competitive in respectof investing in their child’s lifeopportunities, the kind of researchdescribed may seem only more irritatingand confusing. There are a few examplesof studies of parents (Buckingham 1996;Messenger Davies 1993) who haveembraced Media Culture in ways whichallow for support, intervention in and, mostimportantly, validation of their child’slearning and experiences. More‘confidence building’ of this sort is neededto balance the debate here.

5.4 SCHOOLS AND THE CURRICULUM

Nothing is going to replace the importanceof schools in educating the young in oursociety, nor is any other system likely to beable to play a role in overcoming socialinequalities, but the formal educationsystem is both under attack and indevelopment from a number of directionsand from a number of perspectives. Thereseem to be two main implications forschools and curriculum here. First,teachers and other educators just simplyneed to know a lot more about children’sexperiences and be confident to interpretand use the learning that goes on outsideof the classroom. Especially for teachersof young children, we need an educationalculture that can draw on a wider model oflearning that that allowed for at present.Secondly, we need to work within variouscurriculum locations to develop links without-of-school learning experiences onoffer. We have to find a way also ofovercoming the fact that not all childrenhave equal access to all experiences butacknowledge the real diversities inchildren’s lives to support productivecurriculum development.

5.5 ICT DEVELOPMENTS AND DEVELOPERS

Those with a commercial interest inproviding hardware and software foreducation will find this report ambiguous.It goes without saying that any high qualityproducts will always be useful but one keytheme from the literature is that productsdo not need to be ‘educational’ to supportlearning in practice. Indeed, despite thecurrent interest in educational software, itwould seem as if other kinds of productmight develop learning in round-aboutways. Part of the issue here is that themarket for educational software is definedby the very strict limits of in-schooleducation whereas this report hassuggested a range of ways which mightseek to soften such definitions in reachingthe same goals. The second area wherecommercial developers might find thiswork useful relates to the need to produceaccessible and varied production software.Here the interest isn’t so much oncustomised curriculum resources but onoffering viable alternative ways to takeadvantage of the host of productionpossibilities offered by new technologies.

The third area for future work would needto examine both what and how youngpeople actually do when using digitaltechnology for making, sharing andcommunicating. I know of only a very fewstudies of software and learning outside ofthe curriculum (Tony Wheeler from TAGDevelopments has shared with the authoran interesting attempt to create ataxonomy of production software; orSefton-Green 1999) where attempts toexplore the learning affordances supportedby different software might shed light onthe interrelationship between informallearning and software use. This kind of

32

children can get a lot from

experiences like games or

chat rooms

SECTION 5

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

work points to the way learning is‘translated’ across software experiencesbut it also shows how the politics of‘Wintel’ circumscribe and delimit creativepossibilities in the ways that the new waveof software produced say for OSX (on theApple Mac) for a limited period and at aparticular moment in time, may offer otheralternatives – albeit to a select few. Thereview of the literature exploring digitalproduction in education (Burn in press)points to a limited study of digital videoediting software, but this is only a fractionof possible software used by young peopleand only highlights the need for morestudy in this area. In particular, the wholeissue of age related and/or ‘stepped’software is a crucial area for furtherresearch and development.

5.6 FINAL CHALLENGES

The central argument of this report hasbeen to make the case that new anddifferent kinds of informal learning areoccurring outside of the formal educationsystem and that there needs to be culture-shift to accommodate insights fromresearch in this area. Advocates of the‘new times’ facing contemporary societiesare particularly keen to support the kind ofknowledge or network learning identifiedin this report. However the key tounderstanding informal learning is to fullyacknowledge the necessary dialecticalmovement across, between and throughthe sites and kinds of learning available tochildren and young people today. Thisreport has made the case that in theirleisure, at play and in the home with theirfriends, young people can find in ICTspowerful, challenging and different ways oflearning. The emphasis is on sharing,working together, and using a wide range

of cultural references and knowledge. Thismode of being emphasises the capacity tomake, to author and to communicate. It iscompletely dependent on the interest ofthe marketplace. At times this visionclearly scares schools and the formaleducation system, but unless educationpolicy makers can find ways to synthesislearning across formal and informaldomains, our education system willbecome the loser in the long run.

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young people can find in ICTspowerful,challenging anddifferent ways of learning

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WEBSITES

Reviews available from Futurelab:

Report 1: Languages, Technology and Learning Report 2: Thinking Skills, Technology and Learning Report 3: Citizenship, Technology and Learning Report 4: Creativity, Technology and Learning Report 5: Science 1: Primary Science and ICT Report 6: Science 2: Science Education and the Role of ICT:

Promise, Problems and Future Directions Report 7: Informal Learning with Technology Outside School Report 8: Games and Learning Report 9: Learning with Digital Technologies in Museums,

Science Centres and Galleries Report 10: Assessment and Digital Technologies Report 11: Learning with Mobile Technologies Report 12: Learning with Tangible Technologies Report 13: 14-19 and Digital Technologies: A review of

research and projects

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