Sustainability for mobile learning under

the societal and cultural condition of delimitation

A conceptual framework with a proposal of practical tools

Ben Bachmair

Institute of Education University of London

Universität Kassel

Bristol Ideas in Mobile Learning March 6th, 2014

Part 1

Basic assumption: Delimitation and sustainability

Part 2

Tools in the arbitrary dispositif (Foucault) of conversation and discourse on m-learning

Part 3 Tools within a conversational, discursive framework

Content

Part 1: Basic assumption Delimitation and sustainability

The actual cultural transformation or de-traditionalization appears in the mode of delimitation (Entgrenzung).

Mobile devices for learning are a result and a contribution to blurring regulations and blurring boundaries in mass communication, everyday life, learning and teaching.

Under the condition of delimitation it is helpful to define media and its mobile or internet descendants as cultural resources within flexible contexts.

Multiple perspectives on the running cultural transformation

Socio-cultural view

Delimitation as actual version of detraditionalization in the Second Modernity (Ulrich Beck/ Christoph Lau, )

Semiotic view

Provisionality (Gunther Kress)

Educational view

Learning as meaning making in provisional, generated contexts in the life course

Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (1994, p. vi), protagonists of a theory of "reflexive modernity", discuss the detraditionalization which appears as migration

"To speak of detraditionalization in the present day at first seems odd, particularly given the emphasis of some forms of postmodern thinking upon the revival of tradition.

To speak of detraditionalization, however, is not to talk of a society without traditions - far from it. Rather, the concept refers to a social order in which tradition changes its status.

In a context of global cosmopolitism, traditions are today called upon to defend themselves: they are routinely subject to interrogation. Particularly important in this respect, the 'hidden substratum' of modernity, involving traditions affecting gender, the family, local communities and other aspects of day-to-day social life, becomes exposed to view and subject to public debate. The implications are both profound and worldwide in scope."

 

A feature of delimitation:Provisional cultural resources

Gunther Kress (2010):

“ Stability – even though that had only ever been relative - has given way to instability;

homogeneity has given way to often radical diversity; permanence has given way to provisionality,

a condition in which crucial characteristics of the environments of communication may vary from one moment to the next.”

Provisionality, the semiotic version of delimitation

A dominant societal and cultural feature of delimitation is provisionality, which characterises also emerging new forms of learning and teaching to which mobile learning belongs.

Provisionality urges also to understand sustainability not as a static definition with objectified procedures and tools. Sustainability is a relational category.

Sustainability is a process which can't repair the provisionality of learning and representation but deals systemically with it.

Transformation of Learning in the maelstrom of de-traditionalization / delimitation

Meanwhile accepted (?) innovative trends in learning:

- Learning as communication in and over contexts: collaborative knowledge building; situated learning; Personal Learning Environments; context aware learning (?); informal learning (?)

- Learning as personal development: scaffolding; learning as social risk = NEETS; individualized expertise (?), life long learning

- The tablet as mini-computer in the tradition of the text book and the work book

Learning to deal with provisionality:

Sustainability as relational category

about Sustainability

Email: March3, 2014, HBMeU@icwe.info, HBMSU News Service - March Edition

“The 2014 Congress “Leading Transformation to Sustainable Excellence”, organised by Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University, starts today. Consisting of three conferences – Healthcare, E-Learning and Quality – the Congress will present novel ideas and concepts, illustrate best practices and stimulate scientific interaction via round tables, plenary and scientific sessions or workshops.”

Actual example, an email on my PC about sustainable knowledge production and dissemination in a competitive system of higher education

 … “sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony,

but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs.

We do not pretend that the process is easy or straightforward. Painful choices have to be made. Thus, in the final analysis, sustainable development must rest on political will.” (p. 17)

Definition of Brundtlandt commission / Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future. accessible at: www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm, accessed 28. December 2013

Mobile devices as well as learning or teaching are / can be interpreted as cultural resources.

Under the condition of delimitation it is helpful to define media and its mobile or internet descendants as cultural resources within flexible contexts

In this line of argumentation I use a cultural ecology as framework for mobile learning of the London Mobile Learning Group. (Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning: Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer)

Excursus: Ecology Why does it make sense to refer to the history of ecology?

The proposal of Scott (2002) and Wan, Nicholas (2012):

to specify and realise sustainability of innovative mobile learning by and within discursive, conversational* procedures. *Laurillard, Pask

My intention is to contribute to sustainability in discourses, conversations by offering a set of tools.

The contradiction between

sustainability as a relational category and

sustainability as maintenance of stability, to make innovative procedures operational, and to generalise implementation procedures.

“The literature, however, shows a clear distinction in meanings with sustainability as a goal and sustainable development as a process.” Scott 2002, p. 3

“Multiple perspectives; differing prognoses

Examines the way different groups view and use ideas about sustainability in order to focus on widely different learning and/or on social goals, and explores different ideas about whether social and ecological unsustainability can be cured by contemporary society, or rectified by means of appropriate learning.” Scott 2002, p.6

“A view from cultural theory

Argues that human knowledge of the natural environment and of our interactions with it is both imperfect and characterised by risk, and that social actors, in the face of this uncertainty, construct their environmental reality within archetypal interpretations.” Scott 2002, p. 8

Scott, William (2002). Sustainability and learning: what role for the curriculum? Council for Environmental Education. Reading. The text of the lecture is also available online at www.bath.ac.uk/cree

Conversational argumentation Ng & Nicholas (2013) designed as complex ‘person-centred sustainable model for mobile learning’

Diana Laurillard (2007, p. 171) Learning as conversation inside and outside of the school

Inside the schoolOutside the school

Yishay Mor (2013, p. 2): The design experiment cycle (Source: http://oro.open.ac.uk/33861/1/SNaP-ORO.pdf)

The relational definition of sustainability leads to conversational, discursive procedures,

which is liked by a pedagogy in line with Habermas’ democratic mode of discourse.

But the structure field of power (dispositif) in media, education, public and private, formal and informal, everyday life and formal learning in teacher guided institution is manifold.

A conversational approach inherits unclear power structures.

Example:

Teachers’ argument in respect to didactic innovations is: “We are in a period of exam”.

Part 2Tools in the arbitrary dispositif (Foucault) of conversation and discourses on m-learning

At one level, the concept and practice of sustainability in mobile learning is aimed at the ability to maintain innovative processes over time and to embed them in the mainstream which requires stability and continuity.

Sustainability is a further aim by seeking to develop mechanisms for scaling implementation from some to many.

One strategy for achieving sustainability in mobile learning, currently pursued by the London Mobile Learning Group (LMLG), is the development, collection and implementation of mobile scenarios.

The LMLG is in the process of organizing a Network for Mobile Learning Scenarios with the aim of generalizing the development of scenarios as well as taxonomies with which to systematise the discussion about mobile learning scenarios.

Again and nevertheless: The necessity of objectivity and continuity

Lary Cuban (2001) analyzed the steps of integrating computers into schools as ‘levels of technology integration’ with reference to earlier work by Ringstaff et al. (1997, pp. 4-5; Lomicka, 2003, p. 43)

 • Entry: Teachers are beginner users of computers.• Adoption: Teachers tend to take more traditional approaches to

instruction but do provide some explanation on how to use computers.

• Adaptation: Traditional approaches to instruction prevail but some class time is allowed for students to use computers for homework and daily class work.

• Appropriation: Teachers integrate technology regularly into the curriculum.

• Invention: Teachers find new ways to connect students and use project-based and interdisciplinary approaches to instruction.

The variety of tools, some examples

 

Ruben Puentedura, Sweden, (2013) developed the so-called SAMR model of Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition http://hippasus.com/rrpweblog/)

 (1) Headline and date

 (2) Keywords

 (3) Author/s, copyright holder, facilitators (e.g. ‘teacher’), participating institutions (school, university, company etc)

 (4) Time and place of realisation

 (5) Leading education ideas and plot of scenario

 (6) Learning aims and objectives achieved

 (7) Target group and its views regarding the scenario

 (8) Institution of learning and curricular context

 (9) Mobile devices or other technology deployed

 (10) Cost and men/ women power, steps and necessary time for realisation

 (11) Main results of realisation with main positives and negatives

 (12) Available report and artefacts (photos, videos, texts, images)

 Template form to describe m-scenarios Ben Bachmair, Howard Scott 8 December 2013

Part 3 Tools within a conversational, discursive framework

The triangular structuration model,which refers to Giddens’ structuration model

+Describing a dispositif (Michel Foucault)

structures

that govern users’ being in the world:

convergence, fragmentation, provisionality, discontinuity, user-generated content and contexts, detraditionalisation of learning, milieus

agency

the user’s capacity to act on the world:

appropriation, meaning-making, habitus of learning (self-representation, play, target orientation), naïve native expertise

cultural practices

the routines users engage in:

normalization, self-expression, communication, traditional and flexible modes, learning in informal contexts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actual structures in the foreground of mobile learning

(a) Feature element of structure : Detraditionalization and fragmentation

 Detraditionalization through globalisation and an increase of individualisation through mobility and convergence; the risk of decision making and dealing with risk taking is transferred to individuals.

Fragmentation of society in respect of lifestyle according to the variables of socio-economic status and orientation towards modernization.

Analysis of sustainability with reference to the mobile complex through conversational, discursive processes

- Diversification of mobile devices;

- Apps for connecting mobile devices to institutions, services, resources, repositories and activities;

- From linear media production and media use to user-generated content and contexts.

(b) Feature element of structure: Mobility

Dourish's model describes four feature elements of user-generated contexts (Dourish, 2004).

“contextuality is a relational property that holds between objects or activities"

"the scope of contextual features is defined dynamically".

"context is particular to each occasion of activity or action. Context is an occasioned property"

"context and content" are not two "separable entities". (p. 5)

Proposed tool in respect of the feature element within structures: contexts

 

- Detraditionalisation and increased flexibility of contexts and frames of activity leading to fragmented meaning making;

- The school loses the power to define teaching and learning;

- Neo-liberal models of teaching and learning lead to de-schooling (see as example http://www.sbw.edu/index.php/idea-home/)

- The school as a knowledge production organization at the expense of other functions and tasks such as social integration.

(c) Feature element of structure: Learning

"McDonaldization“• Efficiency: the optimal way to go from being hungry to

being satisfied;• Calculability: to transform food, production and

consumers into being measured: e.g. making food units;• Predictability: management of offer and consumption of

units of food; • Control: working people and consumers are subdued to

these processes e.g. by pre-organised choice, going through channels.

• “The irrationality of rationality” (pp. 121ff).

Ritzer’s cultural analysis (1993) of the neoliberal transformation: The commodification of education and learning within the logic of a neoliberal market economy.

(a) Feature element of agency : Mobility

user-generated content and context

(b) Feature element of agency: Learning

- learning as an individualized social risk, at-risk learners (NEETs);

- learning in informal contexts and lifelong learning;

- provisionality of meaning making as a basic feature of learning;

- new modes of habitus and habitus of learning linked to social milieus and attendant lifestyles.

Agency

• Making learners mobile so that they are able to expand their horizons;

• Engaging learners on their own ground and addressing them as people who are learners already and as knowledge makers;

• According them full recognition in their position and achievements in their lives; as well as of their position as learners and makers of knowledge. (p. 32)

Proposed tool: pedagogy of inclusion Margit Böck (2010) summarizes the discussion about at-risk learners and mobile learning under the heading of inclusion as follows:

(a) Feature element of cultural practices: Mobility

Ubiquitous integration of mobiles and their applications into everyday life.

Cultural practices

(b) Feature element of cultural practices: LearningTrend to designing learning and teaching as individualized, flexible

learning options which correlate with the affordances of mobile devices but support also learning as part of development within the life course.

Informal learning strategies which are enhanced by formal learning institutions. Essential for informal learning is the media environment of everyday life, which – for children and young people – tends to be based on mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets as interfaces for the internet with its social network(ing) sites, repositories and (online) games.

Situated learning which re-frames the role of a teacher (Lave and Wenger, 1991).

Collaborative knowledge building (Scardamelia and Bereiter, 1999).

Context aware learning (Yang, Okamoto and Tseng, 2008).

Learning as conversation (Laurillard, 2002; 2007) which focuses on personal meaning making of the world.

• To integrate informal learning by means of the mobile;• To set up episodes of situated learning by means of the mobile;• To generate learning and media contexts by means of the mobile;• To set up conversational bridges by means of the mobile;• To support students as experts of their everyday life within the

school by means of the mobile; • To set up responsive contexts of development and learning by

means of the mobile.

Tool: Pedagogical focal points for designing mobile learning

The pedagogical focal points react to these innovative trends and represent the educational and didactic options within the breadth of available mobile applications. They are tested in a German school project for mobile learning (Bachmair, 2011; Bachmair, Pachler and Cook, 2011)

Yishay Mor (2013, p. 2): The design experiment cycle (Source: http://oro.open.ac.uk/33861/1/SNaP-ORO.pdf)

John Hattie, Australian educationalist at the University of Melbourne, carried out a “synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement” (Hattie, 2003; 2008) He found the following “major sources of variance in students’ achievement” (Hattie, 2003, pp. 1 - 3):

 • Students: “about 50% of variance”. “High correlation between ability and

achievement”;• Home: 5 - 10 % of the variance. The “major effects of the home are

already accounted for by the attributes of the students”.• Schools: 5 - 10 % of the variance;• Principals: “are mainly accounted for the variance attributed to schools”. • Peer effect: 5 - 10 % of the variance.• Teachers: “who account for about 30% of the variance”.

Proposed tool: Hattie’s evaluative summary of the variables of students’ achievement within the established learning practices in schools

 • orientation of the school culture to the school’s cultural and social 

environment (Ausrichtung der „Schulkultur“ auf den „Schulstandort“). • professional standards of teachers („Professionalität der Lehrenden“). • participation in teaching and learning („partizipative Moment von 

Unterricht“). • feedback to students about their attainment as reflexive element of 

learning („Rückmeldeverfahren zum Lern- und Leistungsstandard der Lernenden“ als „reflexives Moment von Lernen“). 

• dealing with diversity („Heterogenität und Diversität“). • political participation („politische Teilhabe in der Demokratie“). (p. 51)

Proposed tool: a critical cultural theory of learning environmentsIn the context of the OECD-project “innovative learning environments” Schrittesser et al. (2012) summarized the main features as being: