User Generated Contexts: Use of mobile technologies by primary school children in five schools in North

East Lincolnshire  

John Cook

Learning Technology Research Institute London Metropolitan University

BETT 2012http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/6058

Structure

• The talk will first provide an introduction to – the theory behind the Socio-Cultural Ecology (Pachler, Bachmair

and Cook, 2010) – the notion of User-generated contexts (Cook, Pachler and

Bachmair, 2011)

• Look at case study: 5 schools NE England

Jargon Buster

• MOBILE LEARNING. “Mobile learning – as we understand it – is not about delivering content to mobile devices but, instead, about the processes of coming to know and being able to operate successfully in, and across, new and ever changing contexts and learning spaces. And, it is about understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces. Therefore, in case it needs to be stated explicitly, for us mobile learning is not primarily about technology.” (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010, p. 6)

Framework : “Socio-Cultural Ecology” (Pachler, Bachmair and Cook, 2010)

• Grounds readers by offering – theoretical and conceptual models – analytical framework for understanding the issues

• Recommendations for specialised resources • Practical examples of mobile learning

– in formal (school) as well as informal educational settings

• Particularly with at-risk students

Macro framework: Socio-Cultural Ecology

• Structures (digital tools and media) – structural properties are instantiated in practice (so links to cultural practices)– educational institutions no longer define alone what learning and knowledge are

and they are certainly no longer the only, even the main location where learning and knowledge can be accessed and takes place

– From push to pull, change of mass communication and media convergence– individualised mobile mass communication and social fragmentation into different

milieus• Agency (capacity to act on the world)

– formation of identity and subjectivity– environment a potential resource for learning– different habitus of learning and media attitudes; a new habitus of learning is one

of the characteristics of at risk-learners• Cultural practices (routines in stable situations)

– Institutional settings, be they school, university, the work place etc.– Media practices in everyday life (includes informal/non-formal)

Micro framework: User-Generated Contexts

• Cook, Pachler and Bachmair (2011) suggest we should be looking at the student- or user-generated contexts

• The nature of learning is being ‘augmented’– Citizens/users are now actively engaged in

generating their own content and contexts for learning

– Calling this User Generated Contexts (UGC)• For me UGC is a micro view of ‘context’

User-Generated Contexts (Cook, Pachler and Bachmair (2011)

• Users of mobile digital devices are being ‘afforded’ synergies of knowledge distributed across local, augmented and virtual:– people – communities – location– time (life-course)– social contexts and sites of practice (like socio-

cultural milieus)– systems, structures and media

User-Generated Contexts

• mobile digital devices are mediating access to external representations of knowledge in a manner that provides access to cultural resources.

• This dynamic digital tool mediation of meaning-making allows users to negotiate and construct internal conceptualisations of knowledge and to make social uses of knowledge in and across specific sites or contexts of learning.

Case study: 5 Schools NE England

• In June 2011 gave talk in the Faculty of Education, University of Hull

• Made various visits to Schools in the North East of England to discuss a planned project.

• Kevin Burden (coordinating project) from University of Hull has subsequently been collaborating with me

• Project investigate the use of mobile technologies by primary school children

• Five schools in North East Lincolnshire (September, 2011 onwards),

• see: http://handheldlearningproject.wikispaces.com/

http://handheldlearningproject.wikispaces.com/East+Ravendale+Primary+School

http://handheldlearningproject.wikispaces.com/Sinehills+Primary+School

Kevin Burden

• Just completed an initial parental survey• Interviewed each head in December to get

a feel for early progress• Some themes

– increased parental engagement, – greater creativity in the curriculum – new forms of literacies are beginning to

emerge.

Kevin Burden

• There are now over 700 personal devices across the alliance

• This is also emerging as a significant factor – pupils have 24/7 access to the device)

Kevin Burden

• “I have run the socio-cultural framework past the teachers involved and will be using it again on 12th Dec when we have our next project meeting. I think they find it hard to understand or articulate in its present form but I suspect that most of the constructs behind the model are actually present, they just don't have the same vocabulary”

Kevin Burden

• “In future work, a key approach will be the use of action research champions to help explore how the socio-cultural ecology can be used to used help teachers move away from technological determinism and articulate or conceptualise there practice in a wider frame.”

Conclusions

• User Generated Contexts seen as effective way of viewing what is going on,

• How many different user generated contexts?– Parents– Teachers– Heads– Children– Researchers

Conclusions

• Home-school links enhancement of learning

• Outside in, inside out …

ReferencesCook, J., Pachler, N. and Bachmair, B. (2011). Ubiquitous

Mobility with Mobile Phones: A Cultural Ecology for Mobile Learning. E-Learning and Digital Media. Special Issue on Media: Digital, Ecological and Epistemological.

Pachler, N., Bachmair, B. and Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning: Structures, Agency, Practices. New York: Springer.