Ubiquitous Learning

6th in the Leverhulme Trust series on Learning Networks

Caroline Haythornthwaite

Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, Institute of Education, University of London

Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at

Urbana Champaign

Thanks … Leverhulme Trust Institute of Education Professor Richard Andrews London Knowledge Lab Graduate School of Library and Information

Science, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Participants throughout the series

Lecture SeriesDec. 1, 2009 Learning in the age of Web 2.0

Feb. 4, 2010 Learning and scholarly communication in the age of the Internet

Feb. 23, 2010

New theories and perspectives on learning in the digital age

Mar. 11, 2010

Social networks and learning

Mar. 30, 2010

Social informatics: E-learning as a socio-technical intervention

May 10, 2010

Ubiquitous learning

Ubiquitous Learning Emerging from ideas of

ubiquitous computing Context aware computing,

Awareness technologies, Pervasive computing

Embedded

invisible, seamless, natural

Ubiquitous

everywhere, anytime, anyone

Infrastructural

expected, taken-for-granted

Universal

available, accessible, capable

Ubiquitous Learning Transformation in Learning

Practices Online

Through computer-mediated communication

Networked Crowds and communities Strangers and friends

Collaborative, yet Self-Directed Community re-envisioned

Online Local to student Local to instructor

Technology mediated Design, metadata, structures

Personal Personal : self-directed,

owner-operated, personalized

Event-driven : on demand, and just in time

Mobile : phones, laptops, GPS

Self-contained : information on laptop, cell phones, etc.

Portable : multi-device compatible (XML), data deposit/capture separate from retrieval, on demand access (wired and wireless)

Extended personal : computing as extension of the personal (Kurzweil) – senses, memory, reach across distance

Networked : to people, resources; self-directed social networks; user-generated contexts (Luckin)

Steve Mann, wearable computers

Personal meets Educational

“A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction…

‘This is like putting on every student's desk, when you walk into class, five different magazines, several television shows, some shopping opportunities and a phone, and saying, ‘Look, if your mind wanders, feel free to pick any of these up and go with it,’ ’ Cole said.”

Washington Post, March 9, 2010.

Mobile Managing entry and exit, involvement and attention in

multiple spaces and places Affinity spaces (Gee; Jenkins); Social worlds (Strauss)

Negotiating the sense of self in each social world Roles: Community star, member, lurker; ‘information tourist’,

surfer Position: Expert, novice; wizard, newbie Identity: One’s own path, depth of involvement, and level of

conformity within the world

Negotiating boundaries Building boundaries between worlds for separated

identities Recognizing synergies between worlds for single sense

of self

Personal but Shared Shared : with a self-directing

community Non-profit, for profit, hybrid Informational, hobby, serious

leisure sharing Creative commons : forward,

modify, reuse

Altruistic : addressing personal needs and those of others E.g., Sites that aggregate

resources

Proxy : learning for others, using ubiquitous resources for others E.g., Use at work is tied to use at

home and for others at home

Social : conversation, social and informational support, contribution

Personal but Shared Presence : being there with

others, and with avatars

Karahalios, 2009, ChitChatClub

What will the teacher avatar look like? What should it look like?

Novel, Playful Novel : imaginitive, inventive

Playful : games, games-based, game-skills based, serendipitous

World of Warcraft

Immersive

The Cave, NCSA

Data Intensive Data intensive: collection,

visualization, interpretation

Parallel : simultaneous, multiple observation, collection, processing

Contributory : intentional or unintentional, crowd-based or community based

Visualization of an F3 Tornado Within a Simulated Supercell Thunderstorm (NCSA: Patterson & Cox)

Visualization of journal connections based on “clickstream” data.Bollen et al (2009). http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803

Contributory “A participatory culture is a

culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created).” (Jenkins, 2006, p.3)

In the World and Of the World

Wired, wireless, distributed, and cloud computing

Wired Cities / Digital Cities / Cybercities /Rural infrastructures City feedback systems : CCTV, real-

time bus schedules, Traffic monitoring

Supporting community networking Wi-fi clouds for rural and urban

areas

Government forms and documents online

Online shopping

Online universities, degree programs, courses, certifications

GPS locators and GPS enabled information

Community networking initiatives / Community informatics Affordable access,

instruction in use Access to IT skills based

jobs Indigenous knowledge, local

culture

Draws on ideas about community education, e.g., Paulo Freire, John Dewey

Ubiquitous Learning Un* : Uncontained, unrestrained, unstructured,

unconscious, unobserved Emergent : perpetual beta Pervasive : pervasive, natural, ever present, ever acted

on. Always on Designed : seamless, invisible in use Mashed : taken, used, combined and projected Shared : created, contributed, commented, rated, played

with, used, re-used, modified and forwarded Networked : observed, responded to, transmitted,

transformed, interpersonal, communal

Wrapping up the Learning

Networks SeriesE-learning as Ubiquitous Learning

Learning Networks Learning Networks as a theoretical underpinning for

addressing emerging learning paradigms ICT and Internet-supported, yet theoretically independent of the

specific delivery mechanism Predicated on the notion of an individual connected to others Accessible and researchable through

Individual action in relation to learning technologies and resources, including other people

Networks of interrelated actors, technologies and/or resources

Addressing the research and practice associated with initiatives and ideas subsumed under names such as: E-learning, Networked learning, online learning, technology-

enhanced learning

E-Learning / Networked

Learning

A complex, sociotechnical intervention As a continuously emergent practice based on the co-

evolution of technology and practice, situated within larger organizational and societal contexts

A practice of equivocality (Perrow) – where neither the questions nor the answers are known – rather than of uncertainty – where the questions are known, but not the answers

A practice of expansive learning (Engestrom) and identity formation (Wenger) where outcomes and desired identity are not defined

E-Learning / Networked Learning

Part of a social revolution accompanying the e-* paradigm shift resulting from the emergent effects of IT, ICT, Internet and computer networks Data and metadata intensive

data mining and linguistic analysis; data curation, metadata, informatics; e-research/cyberinfrastructure

Ubiquitous e-* in everyday life: e-commerce, e-government, e-democracy,

e-learning Contributory and participatory

Citizen journalists, bloggers, scientists Open

Open source, open access, open courseware New literacies

Emergent, participatory, sociotechnical

Interpersonal

Caveat: Neither complete nor ‘wedged’ as shown

Five Slices from the Learning

Networks Pie

Knowledge ‘Problems’ for a Networked Age

Knowledge acquisition in an age of rapid transformation. Requires continuous learning self- and/or group-directed

learning learning under equivocality learning to be nimble and agile learning to be something not

yet defined

New knowledge practices Mutability of tools,

technologies, authorities and means of production

Fixed Form, Known Outcome Know-what; Tacit and

Explicit Formal, closed

Emergent Form, Unknown Outcome Know-how, know-who,

knowledgeability Expansive learning

(Engestrom) Identity learning (Wenger) Informal, open, perpetual

beta Knowledge-building

communities (Scardamalia & Bereiter)

Personal and Communal Personal

Individual Self-directed (heutagogy) Learners: child, young

adult, adult, expert Context : Learning for

home, sport games and ‘serious leisure’ (Stebbins) Individually and

informally situated and ‘accredited’

Communal Group knowledge

structures Social capital

Collaborative learning Networked learning Knowledge-building

communities Context : Formal, school,

workplace, course based Organizationally

situated and accredited

Personal View Personalized, self-chosen, self-directed learning for work or

pleasure, individually or group based, personalized information space (Luckin)

Creation and maintenance of identity (Wenger), identity within a community of practice Formation of identity under conditions of uncertainty and/or

equivocality

Presentation of self Home pages, blogs, tweets; handles, user names, ids, photos Contributions to crowdsourced sites and to community sites

Egocentric views of individual learning spaces Managing as an individual learner among competing social

worlds

Communal View Learning as a relation that connects people

A student learns from a teacher; students learn together from a teacher; novices learn from each other

Learning as production as well as consumption An individual contributes content to a discussion, wiki, collaborative

artwork

Learning as an outcome of relations A community holds a knowledge of its history, and information

resources for dealing with new situations

Learning spaces Affinity spaces (Gee), third places (Oldenburg), geo-community spaces

(libraries, community centers, churches), online learning communities Crowd and community spaces Online and face-to-face spaces

Mediation: People and Technology

Mediating artefacts Technologies : as focus for flows (Latour), or as an object in a

system (Activity theory, Engestrom) Practices : as ways of working, of learning Affordances : of technologies, and of educational systems as

a whole Internet infrastructures, computer software and hardware Buildings and boundaries (in-school vs outside school)

Mediators Teachers, experts, master practitioners, designers Librarians, collection developers Institutions Texts, writing, literacy

Complexity and Multiplexity

Multiple interacting influences Technologies : From buildings

to mobiles; complete and partial infrastructures, digital spectrum of access and use

Authorities Books/journals/newspapers

‘vs’ blogs, wikis, web sites Technical ‘vs’ content

leaders Learner-leaders Local and remote

Organizations : Institutional actors, structures, constraints

Methods for addressing multiple influences, for research and practice include: Socio-technical, actor-

networks, social networks

Theories of science, technology, networks, learning, pedagogy, organizations, society

Levels of analysis : psychological/individual, social psychology/dyadic, small group, sociological/large group, society

Learning Networks Learning is a network relation, currently facilitated and

radically altered by new technologies and new open learning practices

Learning is also a network outcome, one that serves to support or limit the social capital within a community

Technology is a mediator for network relations including the vital relation of learning

Contributory, open and participatory practices supported through open access technologies are making significant social changes in where, when and from whom we learn

Following and harnessing these trends is the exciting emergent work for teachers, learners, educators and researchers

Questions, Suggestions

Caroline Haythornthwaitehaythorn@illinois.edu

Look for our forthcoming book

Caroline Haythornthwaite & Richard AndrewsE-Learning Theory and Practice

Sage, 2011

For papers and slides associated with the Leverhulme series on Learning Networks, see

http://newdoctorates.blogspot.com/2009/10/leverhulme-trust-public-lectures.html

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http://haythorn.wordpress.com/recent-activities

References/Further Reading

Cope, B & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.) (2009). Ubiquitous Learning. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Andrews, R. & Haythornthwaite, C. (Eds.) (2007). Handbook of E-Learning Research. London: Sage.

Haythornthwaite, C. (2009). Participatory transformations. In W. Cope & M. Kalantzis (Eds.), Ubiquitous Learning (pp. 31-48). Champaign, IL: U. of Illinois Press. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/14200

Haythornthwaite, C. & Hagar, C. (2004). The social worlds of the web. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 39, 311-346.

Kazmer, M. M. (2007). Beyond C U L8R: Disengaging from online social worlds. New Media and Society, 9, 111-138.

Kurzweil, R. (2008) The Singularity is Near.

Neff, G. & Stark, D. (2003). Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era, in Philip E.N. Howard and Steve Jones, (Eds.), Society Online: The Internet In Context (pp. 173-188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Urry, J. (2005). The complexity turn. Theory, Culture & Society, 22(5), 1-14.