Workshop 'Technology-enhanced learning in the context of technological, societal and

cultural transformations' learning

Operationalisation of

a cultural ecology for mobile learning

in the running German school project “MyMobile: Handy im Unterricht”

Steps of the validation of “4 didactic parameters for analysis and planning”

Ben Bachmair University of Kassel

Maren Risch

The main issues within two strands

To represent the the mobile complex for didactic purposes. From the widened structuration model to the tool of the didactic parameters

Tools and conversational elements of an hermeneutic approach for the development of theory and school learning:*Tools: parameters, guidelines, focal points*Conversational elements: workshops for media educationalists / realisation of instructional units with weekly Skype conferences, assessment of learning outcomes and evaluation by teacher, parents, students / public presentation: website, interviews, conferences, publications

The school project:„MyMobile: Handy im Unterricht“

1. The mobile complex with its visible mobile devices

and the school’s options

The general model for developing educational reactions to socio-cultural changing

Anthony Giddens(1984): Structuration; the relation of social structures and agency

Stuart Hall (1997): Media in the cultural circulation between cultural practices

Structures

The socio-cultural complex of individualisation within the society of individualised risks,

socio-cultural milieus

- Partial failing of the school for socially specific learners (PISA results; at risk learners) and the increasing informal learning outside the school,

- Individualised and mobile mass communication.

The changing structures of mass communication: individualised, mobile

Away from professionally edited and institutionally delivered content

to Web 2.0 and the ubiquitous individualised mobile production of content and contexts by means of the convergent mobile phone

which coins and challenges the agency of the people.

This leads to cultural practices like to use media internet platforms e.g. YouTube for specific application like the video of the mobile.

Agency

- Learning as meaning making in a variety of situations which are not restricted to the school,

- Habitus for individualized learning within divergent socio-cultural milieus, which leads to informal learning,

- Naïve/ native expertise which is individually appropriated on personal definitions of relevance.

- Personal definition of relevant contexts within media induced spaces, e.g. Web 2.0.

Cultural practices of learning

* Increase of informal learning outside the school

* Curricular learning

in traditional modes (driven by a teacher and learning subjects) and

in flexible modes (situated, constructivist, collaborative)

with at-risk learners as a feature of the individualisation of risks.

10

Organisation in Phases & Episodes

„Streets“ with „Places“:Lessons are divided by learning standards

Episodes can be used in each part of the lesson.

E 2) E 4)

Getting to Know Practicing Getting Deeper

Representation of the mobile complex in the students’ perspective

The socio-cultural complex of mobile devices*Brought mobile devices into everyday life within media convergence;*Reinforces individualization by mobility; *Transforms agency: mobile expertise; *Transforms mass communication: mobile, individualized and convergence contexts

Children and young people as students with their agency and their resources within their cultural practices:

*informal learning*mobile expertise*habitus of learning

School’s option: Banning of mobiles orAssimilation of*informal learning*mobile expertise*habitus of learning

By means of *taking up conversational threads of the students;*docking to the students’ generated contexts as ‘zones of proximal development

Didactic parameters for analysing and planning within the mobile space of convergence and learning

The model of the didactic parametersrepresents structures, agency, practices of the mobile complex in the perspective of the school

(A): Learning set Practice of the school ---- practices of mobile media

(B): Relation to the object of learning Mimetic reproduction ---- personal reconstruction

(C): Basis of the institutional support for teaching and learning School curriculum ---- personal expertise

(D): Media and Modes of representation Discrete (linear; mono medial, mono modal) – convergent

2. The tools of an hermeneutic approach for the empirical round through the school’s dominant

practices

2.1 My understand of an hermeneutic approach:

an institutionalized spiral of

objectivations: tools like parameters, guidelines, focal pointsand conversations: workshop, Skype meetings, websites, formal presentation of results, evaluation etc

within the tension of theoretical frames, empirical investigations and the development of practices

A German summary of an hermeneutic approach to theory and empirical investigation in the field of communication studies

by Friedrich Krotz (2005):Neue Theorien entwickeln. Eine Einführung in die Grounded Theory, die Heuristische Sozialforschung und die Ethnographie anhand von Beispielen aus der Kommunikationsforschung. Köln, Herbert von Halem

Krotz 2005, p. 70: 3 types of theories

Type 1: mathematically represented functional interrelations; quantitative methods

Type 2: complexes of statements and discourses, which described in a condensed way the structures and processes of phenomena; qualitative research

Type 3: Meta-theories

Theory of type 2:My access to describe in a condensed way structures and processes

A) Two levels: obvious / veiled

A1) What is obvious and can be taken for granted?

A2) What is veiled under the surface?

B) Two focuses: centre and marginal

B1) What is in the foreground and the centre?

B2) What is at the edge?

The objectified tools within a theory of type 2:

- Didactic parameters for analysing and planning within the mobile space of convergence and learning

- Culture ecological guidelines for mobile learning

- Focal points of a didactic of mobile learning

(1) The condensed model of structures, agency and practices of the mobile complex with special reference to the school and didactic

(A): Learning set Practice of the school ---- practices of mobile media

(B): Relation to the object of learning Mimetic reproduction ---- personal reconstruction

(C): Basis of the institutional support for teaching and learning School curriculum ---- personal expertise

(D): Media and Modes of representation Discrete (linear; mono medial, mono modal) – convergent

At the first phase of planning and realising the the school project “My Mobile” the model of the didactic parameters did not correspond with the theoretical frames of the media educational project group.

Therefore the cultural ecology for mobile learning was condensed to guidelines.

The guidelines represent the development of socio-cultural and mass communicative structures, agency and media related practices in the mode of educational pursuits

Evaluation of the didactic parameters was planned but failed due to the lack of conversational element

Now, one part of the evaluation of the didactic parameters has to be done be the media educational project group. Its main mean is to consider the outcomes of the instructional units for the publication on the website

(2) The Culture ecological guidelines for mobile learning represent the educational

pursuits for the mobile complex

A

Mobile phones and other mobile devices function as global cultural resources within a mobile, individualized and convergent mass communication.

This dramatically new mode of mass communication includes user generated contexts which serve among others as archives for media and knowledge.

B.

Mobile phones and other mobile devices function as resources for formal and informal learning.

An educational task is to use mobile devices for the assimilation of the informal learning of the students, who act in everyday life as native and naïve experts.

C.

The context oriented mobile, individualized and convergent mass communication and society is a challenge for the so called situated learning (Lave, Wenger 1990).

The situated learning is a way to the essentials of learning, which is hidden underneath the stiff, ‘frozen’ practices of school learning. The focus of the concept of situated learning is based on learning as meaning making in a context.

Learning as meaning making that brings into play the life world of the student, in my view, creates a context that contains the powerful option to replace the passive transfer of knowledge, which is still in the foreground of many schools.

(3) The Focal points of a didactic of mobile learning represent the educational and didactic options within the 4 parameter under the heading of the guidelines and combine them with the width of mobile applications

1. Why?Mobile learning is the didactic answer to the already changed culture of media and learning of the children and young people

1.1 The new and dominant media culture of everyday life: individualized, mobile and convergent.

1.2 Increasing relevance of the informal learning and decreasing reach of scholastic learning

2. How?The feature elements of the mobile learning

2. 1 To integrate informal learning by means of the mobile

2.2 To set up episodes of situated learning by means of the mobile

2.3 To generate learning and media contexts by means of the mobile

2.4 To set up conversational bridges by means of the mobile

2.5 To support students as experts of their everyday life within the school by means of the mobile

2.6 To set up responsive contexts of development and learning by means of the mobile

3. By which applications?The mobile’s multimedia variety of applications as a mobile miniaturized computer and interface within media convergence

3.1 Ubiquity and mobile multimedia computer3.2 Personal disposition at any time3.3 Several active media applications for taking videos,

photos, music3.4 Applications for everyday life management like

calendar, alarm, spatial navigation3.5 High capacities as repositories for a variety of

representational modes3.6 Access to a diverse personal communication3.7 Access to the Internet with its specific mode of

communication and with its knowledge and media archives (can be expensive for the moment).

Discursive elements and objectified tools in the time order of appearance in the project

• Didactic parameters for analysing and planning within the mobile space of convergence and learning

• Workshops on the Parameters and the culture ecological approach to mobile learning

• Culture ecological guidelines for mobile learning for the website and for planning the instructional units

• First instructional unit in a school: mobile between globe and Google; evaluation by teacher, students, parents; assessment of the learning results

• Public presentation for media education (paper + PPT)• Second instructional unit in a school: What is Enlightenment?• Website with the report on the first instructional unit • Focal points of a didactic for mobile learning• …• Book publication

2. Strand: Report from a German school project

of mobile learning

„MyMobile: Handy im Unterricht“ (Mobile within school instruction) is run by the public association medien+bildung.com gGmbH

Handy zwischen Kugel und Google Mobile between globe and Googel

Konstruktion und Vermessen von Kreisen und Kugel im lehrergeleiteten Unterricht mit mediengeleiteten Episoden von Schüleraktivitäten

Construction and measuring of circles and globes

in a teacher guided instruction

with media based episodes of students’ activities

Mobile video in Math on the investigation of angles

At home a 12 year old boy investigated angles.

He took pictures of differently obvious and clear angles

and framed it with a soundtrack of a Pokémon song and a poster.

Learner generated contextby means of a video homework

on investigating angles

- At home and in everydayLife ambiguity is normal. Now, the Math teacher can deal with ambiguity.

- The boy frames his investigation of angles with the Pokémon sound track and the poster of a pop song.

Assimilation of learner generated contexts into the school

By means of the mobile homework

the 12 year old boy widens the optional learning context into his fields of entertainment.

Pokémon is also a strategy game with levels, calculable results, comparing success, etc. These issues of the strategy game and the entertainment context are rather close to Math.

Assimilation of the school by

Conversational options (Laurillard 2007, p. 160) = knotting conversational threads

Responsive Contexts = Docking at user generated contexts as zones of proximal development (Vygotsky 1930, 1934)

The curricular task = assimilation by

* prolonging conversational threads* docking at user generated contexts as zone of

proximal development

into / at to the school practice

Context options by combining white board and mobile

The context of the white board is regulated by teacher and inherits the structure of the teacher guided instruction.

The context of the mobile phone incorporates everyday life and entertainment and is the domain of the students.

Both contexts are assimilated into one formal and informal learning context by the teacher + white board and student + mobile phone.