Minor Urbanism and Mobilities

MSc Reading Notes

Based on:

Shepard, M. (2013). Minor urbanism: everyday entanglements of technology and urban life. Continuum, (ahead-of-print), 1-12.

Shepard points out that we think of the entanglement of life with ‘a range of mobile, embedded, networked and distributed media, communications and information technologies’ in terms of an overlay of data onto material fabric. This sees a duality, between information and physical fabric - or online and offline.

This leads us to view the technology in terms of the interface between the two, rather than the entanglement as a whole. The result is an ontology that retains the maintenance of the dichotomy. It presents a good argument against digital dualism.

I think that this has relevance for the mobilities paradigm of mobile and e-learning outlined by Enriquez. In her view there is a breakdown of defined spaces, the lines become blurred, they are created and interact with the people who use and inhabit them. There is a breakdown of the duality of spatial and social activity.

The Cloud and UbiComp as ‘messy’

‘The Cloud’ has become the dominant metaphor for describing the infrastructure that allows ubiquitous computing. The impression given is of a seamless interaction. The truth is that it is much more messy, with a ‘heterogeneous assembly of technologies’. This idea of seamlessness ignores the many social and cultural, political and economic forces at play. The ‘real world’ is composed of human and nonhuman actors, and has situations that are recursively performed and enacted. Again, there is a link here with the mobilities paradigm, as well as the obvious reference to ANT.

Minor Urbanism and its relevance to e-learning

Shepard uses the example of parkour - a form of movement through an urban space using athleticism and gymnastics. They move through the city using paths that are outside of those designated by urban planners. In doing so they disrupt the patterns of movement within an urban space. Shepard points out that these types of movements - seen metaphorically as well as physically via parkour - reside ‘beneath and between the smooth and seamless landscapes of the neoliberal city’. If we substitute ‘city’ for ‘space’ we can see how such an approach to learning can undermine the neoliberal discourse prevalent in education. Acts that slip beneath the surface, and between the gaps and can shape a different collective experience of learning. They could reconfigure, recircuit and redirect normative systems and infrastructures ‘and open them up to alternate social and political dynamics’.

What type of learning are we looking at though? What types of activity? I think that an educational/technological version of ‘minor urbanism’ would be a useful way of envisioning an alternative to the pervasive discourses around education at the moment.

This type of minor urbanism can move us towards an alternate ontology than that ‘posited by the cloud for describing the relations between people, technology and space’. It puts actors - human and nonhuman into the foreground of the production of space and data. Again, another link with the mobilities paradigm and the creation of spaces.

Final point - futurology

Shepard, talking about ‘design fiction’, says that ‘designing implications involves imagining not just new products but also the social and cultural contexts within which they are situated.’ While this enables us to look at things (or technology) in terms of how it interacts social and cultural conditions, it also makes the point that futurology needs to be able to look at future social and economic conditions when making predictions about technology, if it is to be a useful practice. Otherwise it is simply the description of ‘cool stuff’ that might exist in the future.

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What mobilities means for mobile and e-learning

 MSc Reading Notes

From:

Enriquez, J. G. (2011). Tug‐o‐where: situating mobilities of learning (t) here. Learning, Media and Technology, 36(1), 39-53.

Would a focus on bodies change how you currently think about e-learning? Why or why not?

How do I currently think about e-learning? I think of it as learning traditional topics/courses/content etc but mediated by technology. So the technology allows different ways to interact with the material, and with each other. It allows the use of different modalities to present material. The tech allows the building of communities outside of the formal community of the classroom/course.

I think that e-learning, as an online activity shifts the sense of identity and self (even if unknowingly). It disembodies the self, and enables it to shift around different places and spaces, and allows the forging new new aspects of the self.

So, I have thought about e-learning in the traditional sense of minds meeting minds - in the sense of an ‘encounter of intellects mediated by tools’.

The focus on bodies as inhabiting created spaces changes that view. The use of mobile tech to access learning materials also means that the space of learning changes depending on the place the learner is at physically - this space may have to be negotiated with others, differently to the negotiation of space that takes place in a traditional lecture theatre or classroom. There isn’t the segregation of space and social interaction, but the lines are blurred, and the space can be reinterpreted or recreated - the flow of information is altered in online spaces.

‘Learning is not just an encounter of intellects mediated by tools, but is a bumping into of bodies in spaces as part of ways of knowing in motion.’

This enables a more ontological relationship with technology, rather than one that considers learning from an epistemological point of view. Learning becomes intrinsically linked with the space of learning, the mobile device that is being used, or the computer that is being used. The sense of self and identity of the learner is therefore re-written contextually - their identity is one of a learner in a particular space or set of spaces, interacting with other learners, and course content.

‘The self is made mobile as a series of traces in mediated spaces.’

In this sense the standpoint of mobilities is a phenomenological one - it considers learning and the relationships of learners from the point of view of how they see and interact with the world, their emotions and feelings. This phenomenology is different to that of the student in the classroom or the lecture theatre. It is a different type of relationship to learning.

Looking at the body rather than just the technology, or the outputs of technology forces us to consider people as placed in a culture and society - they have their own history and narratives, and memory, and bring that to their learning. It is a more holistic approach, and less deterministic. They are not simply led by technology, or applications or software, or content, but form a part of the learning experience - they become signified by the technology, as well as having their activity mediated by it.

Currently when we talk about mobile learning, what we talk about is devices - it is very device-centric. There is discussion of mobile pedagogy, and of design for mobile learning, but even then it is in terms of the devices and how they work, and where they can be used. They are still thought of in terms of ‘the encounter of intellects mediated by tools’ rather than bodies in spaces.

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Futurology is really 'presentology'

The Bigum Chapter looks at the issue of computers in schools using ANT. It also has some insight into futurology, and predictions about technology.

Bigum, C. (2012). Edges, Exponentials and Education: Disenthralling the Digital. In L. Rowan & C. Bigum (Eds.), Transformative Approaches to New Technologies and Student Diversity in Futures Oriented Classrooms: Future Proofing Education. London: Springer

The idea behind ANT is that everything is treated as a continuously generated effect of the webs of relations in which they are located. Nothing has reality or form outside of the enactment of those relations.

So the use of computers in schools is based upon the network built up over time of computers/software/teachers etc, and their practices. John Law describes this as resulting from a ‘hinterland’, which comprises the persistent patterns of relations performed – the routine realities and the statements about those realities.

For computers to be ‘real’ in schools they need to draw upon an appropriate hinterland. This means fitting in with the patterns of school practices – classrooms, timetables, curricula etc. So the impact of past ways of doing things influences the way we image what can be done. In other words thinking about the future is really thinking about the present – using our present narratives, and the ‘hinterland’ we inhabit or draw upon to make predictions about what could or should happen in the future. We need to look to an alternative hinterland to make alternative futures.

The problem with trying to look to an alternative hinterland, or to predict a future dominant discourse is that it's very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Most futurology uses contemporary dominant discourses, so it is really describing an alternative present rather than a future. In the same way that science fiction isn't really about the future - it's about contemporary morals, politics, and economics transposed onto an alternative world where ideas can be extrapolated and developed as 'what if...' scenarios. Because futurologists are using contemporary discourses, rather than predicting what discourses might exist, then it is very easy to say things like 'in the future all exams will be marked by computers'. 

If the dominant narrative is of commodification, competition, efficiencies etc – i.e. the narrative of neoliberalism, then that is how new technology will be embedded in the school/university.

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Some thoughts about academic publishing

Some thoughts on the future of academic writing - written in March as part of an assignment for my MSc in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh.

I am writing this in Vienna - doing a bit of culture for a few days. So, in my attempt to create a multi-modal artefect for IDEL I am about to get all pretentious and arty-farty on your ass. As with a lot of my thinking and writing about stuff, I’m making this up as I go along, so if it doesn’t hang together as coherent then feel free to say so - after all, this is a networked digital artefact - recursive and open-ended - process not product (Fitzpatrick 2011).

One of the exhibitions I went to see was Austrian artist Franz West at the Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK).





As with a lot of modern conceptual art I spent a bit of time wondering what I was doing wasting my time looking at this stuff. However, one idea that West had - his ‘Adaptives’ produced a bit of clarity and understanding. Adaptives are abstract objects, made from plaster and metal.



The idea is that you pick these items up and play with them.



The video at the start of this blog is of Hungarian performance artist Ivo Dimchev using some of West’s Adaptives. Note that one of the ‘uses’ to which Dimchev puts his Adaptive is ‘Not Safe For Work’. If you’ve already found this out to your cost - sorry!

In the traditional view of art, the artist was central, authoritative.



The artist would engage in discrete projects that would result in an end product - the painting, or sculpture, before moving on to the next discrete project.



What West wanted to show was that art only becomes art when people interact with it. For West a work of art is not an autonomous object - it is a process, not a discrete project with a start and end point. ‘Art’ in whatever form requires interaction from the viewer, it only exists as art because of our relationship with it. When I read this on one of the ‘idiot boards’ next to the work I immediately ‘got it’ (maybe I’ll have such a moment with Pinterest one day…). I shifted from my original view of West’s work, which was “WTF!" to understanding, and thought that there was a useful metaphor here that I could use in relation to this week’s IDEL task. There is also one other aspect of the display that is important in this metaphor - but I’ll save that until the end.

So, what does this have to do with the future of academic writing? Well, writing too requires interaction - it needs us to give it meaning by reading it, and relating it to what we already know - the notion of intertextuality suggests that all texts are ‘rife with references to other texts and that it is impossible for a reader to approach any given text without reference to everything she has previously read or seen.’ (Fitzpatrick 2011). Fitzpatrick quotes Barthes, who says that any text is a collection of quotes - it is built upon the cultural knowledge and the words of every writer that has gone before it. The general idea is that reading and writing are shared social and cultural experiences, rather than the discrete work of a lone God-Like author who produces a text which most people won’t read, before moving on to the next one.

In current academic practice the writer is central, she produces an academic paper as the result of a discrete project, before moving on to the next.

Networked digital writing disrupts this conception of writing. It allows interaction for example via comments in a blog. The writer moves from the centre to the margin. The writing is given meaning by the people who read it , but they then take part in its development, by commenting. The writing is in a constant state of development, its meaning changes with each comment. Just as West’s Adaptives change with each use.

A sting in the tail



In the Mumok gallery we weren’t allowed to use West’s Adaptives. They were displayed as in any other gallery with notices not to touch ‘due to reasons of conservation’- despite descriptions of each piece telling us how they were meant to be touched in order to have any meaning as art! Maybe West would have appreciated the irony. The old way of presenting art had taken over - back to the the art as autonomous object and artist as God-like creator. The whole point of West’s art reduced to a one-way object-to-person relationship.

My view at the moment is that the old ways of academic writing will remain, because they are more easily quantifiable, and measurable. In the neo-liberal marketised university the shareholders will need to know what they’re getting for their money, and it’s more difficult to monetise a process than a discernible product.

Traditional Assessment vs Authentic Assessment

Based on an article by John Mueller.

Authentic Assessment is defined as

"a form of assessment in which students are asked to perform real-world tasks that demonstrate meaningful application of essential knowledge and skills"

Traditional Assessment (TA) includes things such as multiple-choice tests, true-false, matching and so forth. The idea behind this is that students must possess a certain body of knowledge and skills, courses must teach this body of knowledge and skills, students must then be tested to see if the course is successful. So, the curriculum drives assessment - the body of knowledge comes first, that becomes the curriculum, and the tests see if students acquired the curriculum.

Authentic Assessment (AA) is built on the assumption that students should be able to perform tasks in the real world, courses must help students become proficient in those tasks. So, to determine the success of the course students perform meaningful tasks that replicate real world challenges. In this case assessment drives the curriculum - first determine what the tasks are that need to be performed, then develop a curriculum that enables students to perform the task well including the acquisition of essential skills and knowledge.

How does this work in subjects that are not practical, or do not require performance? For example how do we use AA in History, or Sociology for example? We ask students to perform tasks that replicate the challenges faced by people doing history, or conducting social research. In sociology the rubric may make reference to, for example, Sociological knowledge, Sociological thinking, and Sociological research skills.

It seems that TA is more useful for formative assessment, while AA is used for summative assessment. Students should be able to perform well in both types of test - TA provides a good complement to authentic assessment.

What are the attributes of TA and AA?

Traditional --------------------------------------------- Authentic

Selecting a Response ------------------------------------Performing a Task

Contrived -------------------------------------------------Real-life

Recall/Recognition ------------------------------- ------Construction/Application

Teacher-structured --------------------------------------Student-structured

Indirect Evidence ----------------------------------------Direct Evidence

AA will use verbs that are towards the top of Bloom's taxonomy - students will be asked to 'analyse', 'synthesise' and apply their learning. AA allows students more choice in what to focus on and what to present as evidence of their learning. TA is more prescriptive. There are often multiple routes to a good answer.

I'm not sure I like the term 'Authentic Assessment'. It suggests that TA is not authentic, which is wrong. TA has its uses in formative assessment. I'd prefer to use one of the alternative titles suggested at the bottom of the article - Alternative Assessment, or Performance Assessment.

Writing Effective Online Discussion Questions

This is based on the CREST+ model outlined by Lynn Akin and Diane Neal.

The ability to participate in group tasks is an important variable in the success of an online course. It encourages a sense of community and is more likely to improve engagement. Discussion forums provide a good way to encourage participation, but it requires skill in asking the right sort of questions. Akin and Neal argue that the CREST+ model provides a framework for creating effective questions which lead to greater participation and a higher level processing of the course material.

The CREST+ model looks at the Cognitive nature of question, the Reading basis, the Experiential possibilities and the Style and Type of question.

Cognitive Nature

There are a range of learning theories and models on which to base questions, such as Constructivism, Androgogy, Bloom's taxonomy. With a a Constructivist approach the students builds meaning based upon the course content. Questions can be structured to reflect increasing complexity. Gilly Salmon's Five Stage model of online learning uses this approach, increasing the student's interactivity and collaboration via carefully constructed questions at the different stages to facilitate the process. Knowles's Androgogy looks at how adults learn and proposes that they want to know why they are learning, need self-direction and want to be responsible for their own decisions, and they bring their life experiences to the course with them. Questions should be constructed that address these needs and help them to learn what will help them in their lives. Bloom's taxonomy, updated by Anderson, ranks enquiry types into a hierarchy. Each level builds upon the other and the student moves to complex understanding and knowledge. The types of question that could be asked would be based on the different levels and where the student was at on the hierarchy. The hierarchy is shown below, with its updated version.



Each level has a set of terms that can be used to build questions, which are available from a wide range of sources online.

In summary the first step in building questions is for the tutor to decide the best type of question based upon the cognitive needs of the students and the desired learning outcomes. The aim is to encourage participation and engagement from the outset. Higher participation and engagement leads to increased cognitive presence, which enables students to construct meaning through sustained communication, and to engage in critical reflective thinking.

Reading

Many courses will have a text book which is a shared resource for the students. Initial questioning can be based upon the shared textbook. It is important to scaffold the questions so that student, online at least, can arrive at more complex understanding together. So for example the forums would be separated, first would be one which concentrates on more basic understanding, before moving on to another forum which requires more complex thinking and critical reflection. Students can learn from each other about how they came to their conclusions, and can learn why others might not be arriving at the same answer.

Questions can also be based on a wider reading of relevant literature. Students would be instructed to find alternative viewpoints and arguments, to share their findings, and resources and citations. It also encourages participation and collaboration, and engages students in finding our about current ideas and research in their field of study.

You should also try to incorporate questions that do not rely on a text. Use videos or podcasts and sound recordings, graphics and images, webquest, scenarios provided by the tutor.

Experiential Element

This is based on Knowles's Androgogy, and constructivist views. Adult students bring a lifetime of experience with them (well, all students do, naturally, but this refers to more mature and varied experience that is often not there in younger students). The tutor should tap into this by providing discussion forums which are based upon the experiences of students and where they can share those experiences, and ask each other questions. They will create their own meanings based upon their prior experiences and peer generated questions can help to build new knowledge. It also increases the sense of community, and builds the students' social presence.

Style and Type of Question

In this case the 'style' of question refers to the students answering questions in pairs or groups. Then changing pairs or groups to discuss the question further. One advantage of this is that it reduces the number of posts in a forum. It also involves collaboration which again will enhance the feeling of community.

Different types of question could include: Metacognitive questions, in which students question their own knowledge, make connections between former and current problems, and reflect on the process of solving problems. Follow-up questions in which students consider different perspectives, provide clarification of thoughts, identify outcomes and answer the 'so what' question within the discussion. Student-created questions can provide thought provoking questions, and puts the student in charge of their own learning. Evaluation and Reflection questions allow students to reflect on the course so far, or any section of the course. For example the 'one-minute' assessment in which students write something they learned form the session and one thing they struggled with. This can then form the basis of a discussion. The tutor may want to allow anonymous contributions.

Finally

The discussion forum should be structured. Students need to know when the discussion is open and when it closes. They should know etiquette and protocols expected in an online discussion.  In summary, the tutor should decide the cognitive value of the question, then whether it should be literature based or not. Once this is established, decide whether it should be an experience-based question, then design the style and type of the question, before deciding the parameters for the structure of the question within the discussion forum.

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Lecture Capture

There are moves here at Leicester Uni to use lecture capture. A blog post by Mark Smithers suggests why this might be a bad idea. First, a couple of plus points for lecture capture:
The capture can be broken down into smaller chunks, so that it's not just simply a re-run of the lecture. It can also have subtitles added, and questions can be provided to engage the student in some active participation rather than simply passively watching.

It is useful for recording guest lecturers and visiting subject matter experts.

So, on to the bad points made by Smithers in his blog. Lecture capture perpetuates a passive and outdated mode of teaching. It is using 21st century technology to present 1000 year old pedagogy.

Lectures are a certain length often to suit the timetabling requirements of a particular building, rather than for any pedagogical reason - is there any need for example for lectures to be 1 or 2 hours long? Furthermore no meaningful learning can occur in a lecture.

What's the alternative? Use video technology to record short desktop pieces that are about 10 minutes long, and which develop a particular point. Or any sort of content that gets across information and ideas efficiently. This fits with the attention span of students, and enables them to study in their own time. Research at Bath University, where they have used lecture capture, suggests that the students spend around 10 minutes looking at the capture. This suggests they are skimming for particular content, and it ties in with evidence for people's attention span when learning. However, Bath uses the Panopto software which has good searching and note taking facilities.

Overall - I suppose it's like any technology in education, it can be used badly, and it can be used well. Perhaps money could be better spent on staff development that encourages different methods of delivery, and more engaging ways to deliver lectures.

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