BERA conference 23-25 September 2014Institute of Education, London

Sara BraggEducation Research CentreUniversity of Brighton

Promoting reflection on the digitalised spaces and cultures of schooling

Responding to the HEA summit themes:

• Access and engagement with scholarly and disciplinary literature and knowledge;

• Questioning accepted ways of doing things;

• Creating space and time for reflection away from the busyness of school;

• The role of HE in supporting the development of new practice in response to the changing world in which we live – AND

• … in enabling emerging professionals to ‘speak back’ to debates?

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We need to talk about digital cultures…

but not just about TEL or utopian possibilities based on minority digital users

… also about the many, varied ways digital cultures, are making themselves felt in schools…

Research perspectives on digital cultures at home and school:

• the increasing centrality of data and software systems to processes of teaching and school improvement (Selwyn 2010, 2013; Grek & Ozga 2008);

• the mundane use of surveillance technologies such as CCTV (Hope 2009, Livingstone 2014);

• how cybernetic metaphors of networks, nodes and so on are permeating how we think and talk about learning (Loveless and Williamson 2013), with implications for teacher and student identities and subjectivities.

• digital childhoods – youth mediatised cultures and moral / affective responses (Hope 2014; boyd 2014; Miller 2011; Face 2 Face: tracing the real and the mediated in children’s cultural worlds, PI Rachel Thomson, ESRC NCRM 2013-14)

Promoting reflection on the ‘digitalised cultures and spaces of schooling’, HEA 2014

Project involved:

• Series of workshops / discussions bringing together researchers, lecturers and student teachers specifically around this under-explored but cross-sector/ subject/ curriculum issue

Outcomes

• Composite vignettes/ materials based on discussions and Face2Face research project – see http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/digitalculturesofschooling/

Student vignette: Coco’s ‘virtual schoolbag’

• Aims to raise awareness about students’ ‘virtual schoolbags’ (Thomson) – here, digital literacies and practices that are often overlooked or not understood by schools: Twitter, youtuber phenomenon, fan writing (wattpad.com), acceptance of surveillance (eg CCTV), the decline of Facebook, celebrity stalking, sexualities …

• … but responses often refer to the ‘risk’ agenda!

• And to ‘front of classroom’ perspectives

Student teacher vignette: Alex, where is the knowledge?

• Possibility here of collective, diverse experiences speaking back to research agendas? Cf Pat Thomson on ‘middle work’ and ‘decentring expertise’

• Eg – explaining unevenness of practices with reference to incompatible formats, lack of training, inadequate storage or printing facilities, student subversion, pressure to get results stifling curriculum development…

• Contradictory pressures: as a parent I don’t want my kid online all day as well as all night!

• The retreat from a personal online digital life as a consequence of fears about ‘professional’ identity

Role of HEIs in ITE?• Space for reflection and ‘playing’ eg ‘Learning in

a Digital Age’ (LIDA) on SKE PGCE:

“It’s a reflective space because of how it’s set up. Each three weeks, we’d have a lecture… the next one some kind of non-contact activity, we’d go away and watch videos, read stuff, and the third week, everyone would discuss everyone’s different experiences and opinions, then we’d all write a 500 word thinkpiece that’s shared on a blog, I’ve got a lot out of it.”

• Cross-disciplinary encounters and support

“Meeting up was great.  I think that is what professionals need - a space where you can talk and laugh and be critical - sharing knowledge of how it is elsewhere is vital...  We need to share this.  We need to get out of the slightly myopic 'my school does it like this' way….”

Role of HEIs in ITE?

• Potential for networking and professional development for the future

“Whenever I see someone who knows how to use something, I take their contact details and ask if I can contact them if I’m stuck. But a lot of students don’t do that. They need to know that they need to build up a network, a black book of people you can go to. It’s professionalism to network like that, it’s how you create professional conduct”.

Role of HEIs in ITE?

• Making similar ‘thinking spaces’ part of our ‘offer’ to NQTs from Sept 2014 (inspired also by P4T)

“In terms of what HE can do, you have the physical spaces, you have the relationship with new and open-minded teachers, and you have a pipeline into research.  Maybe that also puts you into a good position to provide intelligence in this area and drive policy from the ground up.  It is a valuable knowledge base that could be mined”.

• Cf Pat Thomson, again – research middle work and decentring expertise

Sara BraggEducation Research Centre

s.bragg@brighton.ac.uk