Design for networked learning: framing relations between participants’ activities

and the physical setting

Peter Goodyear, Lucila Carvalho,Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo)

University of Sydney, lucila.carvalho@sydney.edu.au, peter.goodyear@sydney.edu.au

Nina Bonderup DohnInstitute of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark,

nina@sdu.dk

Context & Credits

Learning, technology and design: architectures for productive networked learningAustralian Research Council Laureate Fellowship

Peter Goodyear, David Ashe, Lucila Carvalho, Martin Parisio, Paul Parker, Roberto Martinez-Maldonado, Ana Pinto, Kate Thompson, Dewa Wardak, Pippa Yeoman

Nina Bonderup Dohn, Yannis Dimitriadis, Peter Sloep, Begoña Gros – visiting scholars

Context & Credits

Learning, technology and design: architectures for productive networked learningAustralian Research Council Laureate Fellowship

Extracting reusable design ideas(eg analysing learning networks)

Supporting design processes(eg empirical studies of designers)

Networked learning & learning networks

• NL as learning with/through others; (much) interaction through (digital) communications media

• Learning network as a stable instance of NL (stable enough to warrant/allow analysis)

• Personal LNs are a subclass of LNs: but not our focus

• Not just the people but also the tools & other artefacts, practices, tasks-activities, roles, divisions of labour etc: heterogeneous

• Designed and emergent: alive

The physical: artefacts, tools, places etc

Physical: material and digital and hybrids

The materialist turn isn’t yet very good at the digital, or even at materials per se

Artefacts, tasks, users & practices co-evolve

Analysis needs to be able to deal with single artefacts and complex assemblages (ecologies of things; meshworks etc)

Analytical Framework

(Emergent) Activity Tasks

Artifacts, tools, texts, etc

Dyads, groups, teams; roles; divisions of labor

Physically Situated

Socially Situated

Outcomes

(Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014, p. 59)

Analytical Framework

(Emergent) Activity Tasks

Artifacts, tools, texts, etc

Dyads, groups, teams; roles; divisions of labor

Physically Situated

Socially Situated

Outcomes

(Goodyear & Carvalho, 2014, p. 59)

Goal-directed action (intentions formed in the mind precede and direct selection of tools, actions etc)

Embodied cognition, extended mind, intermingling of mind-body-world (tool-using action brings forth intention)

Analytical Framework

Metaphors for learning

Learning to participate involves understanding the properties of tools (etc); incorporating them into your activities (instrumental genesis); using them to create new tools

NL comes naturally

“Human-machine symbiosis, I believe, is simply what comes naturally. It lies on a direct continuum with clothes, cooking (‘external, artificial digestion’), bricklaying and writing. The capacity to creatively distribute labour across biology and the designed environment is the very signature of our species, and it implies no real loss of control on our part. For who we are is in large part a function of the webs of surrounding structure in which the conscious mind exercises at best a kind of gentle, indirect control. ”

(Andy Clark, 2003, p174, emphasis added)

#1: Affordance, scaffolds and cognitive load

Affordance – what the environment offers the animalDirectly perceived; not dependent on mental processing

“the terms ‘afford’ and ‘affordance’ are lazy terms … these terms merely paper over deep cracks in our understanding … of why, given the extraordinary interpretive capabilities of humans, anything affords any one interpretation better than any other … something hidden and mysterious is going on whenever the terms ‘afford’ and ‘affordance’ make their appearance”

Harry Collins (2010, 36) Tacit and explicit knowledge.

Crafting of affordances

Design for interpretive work

Primary, ‘fast’, system 1 X

Secondary, ‘slow’, system 2 X

#2: Affordance as relational

Case: Leading Curriculum Change (Ch6)

Title Title Title Title

Title Title Title Title

Title Title Title Title

Home page for module selection

#3 Materiality of boundary objects

Case: Leading Curriculum Change (Ch6)

HT

Online course/project site (professional learning site)

School site (workplace/application site)

#4 Scale: the LN as city not classroom

Ana Pinto, AlphaPlus

Imagining design for learning at the scale of

a museum, gallery, campusrather than

a virtual classroom or course module or collaboration tool or

single screen

Insights from geography, urban studies, environmental psychology

Key pointsLearning networks as objects of inquiry; analysis for design: looking for reusable design ideas; architectural arrangements not standalone pieces

Activity-centric analysis: distinguishing between designable and emergent elements (activity as emergent & key; design as indirect)

Connecting constructs: what constructs can be used to provide the design logic linking physical entities to activity? Affordance? Plus what?

Consider the way we are framing both learning activity and the physical ‘stuff’

Take-away: most of what we care about in NL involves entanglements of brains, bodies & things and we can’t understand this very well if we ignore the peculiar qualities of things and of people:

materials (not just materiality & abstraction) brain science, grounded cognition (not just minds & introspection)

Further reading: connecting physical setting to human activity

Overdijk, M., Diggelen, W., Kirschner, P. & Baker, M. (2012) Connecting agents and artifacts in CSCL: Towards a rationale of mutual shaping. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 193-210.

AffordancesStructurationInstrumental genesis

Lonchamp, J. (2012) An instrumental perspective on CSCL systems. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 211-237.

Ritella, G. & Hakkarainen, K. (2012) Instrumental genesis in technology-mediated learning: From double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 7, 239-258.

special issue of iJCSCL

Further reading: connecting physical setting to human activity

Malafouris, L. & Renfrew, C. (Eds.) (2010) The cognitive life of things: Recasting the boundaries of the mind, Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge.

Malafouris, L. (2013) How things shape the mind: A theory of material engagement, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Ingold, T. (2011) Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description, Abingdon, Routledge.

Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the mind: Embodiment, action, and cognitive extension, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Clark, A. (2003) Natural-born cyborgs: Minds, technologies, and the future of human intelligence, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Sterelny, K. (2012) The evolved apprentice: How evolution made humans unique, Cambridge MA, MIT Press.

Sterelny, K. (2003) Thought in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition, Oxford, Blackwell.

Kirsh, D. (2013) Embodied cognition and the magical future of interaction design. ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. 20, 1-30.

Thanks & Contacts

Peter Goodyear, Lucila Carvalho,Centre for Research on Computer Supported Learning and Cognition (CoCo)University of Sydney, Australiapeter.goodyear@sydney.edu.au lucila.carvalho@sydney.edu.au

Nina Bonderup DohnInstitute of Design and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, nina@sdu.dk

Next book: Place-based spaces for networked learningIf interested, talk to Lucila or Peter