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Excited for #dlrn15

I am really excited for #dLRN15 because the (awesome) group organizing the conference is asking the right set of difficult questions. Various research results that colleagues and I are in the process of reporting reflect the themes of the conference (e.g., increased interdisciplinary activity in digital learning research, significant variation in how education scholars participate online, unequal student activity on digital environments), and I’m excited that space is provided for us to have these conversations. Plus, the organizers are thinking in caring ways about the conference.

The conference themes are the following:

Ethics of Collaboration

Digital networks have the potential to redraw the maps of global educational influence and enable new models of international collaboration. More commonly, however, investment has been directed towards the consolidation of existing relations of prestige and influence, extending the reach of elite institutions into larger and more dispersed markets. In this strand, we are interested in papers that explore the ethical dimension of international digital learning initiatives, and in particular, that consider ways of advancing global learning through models of reciprocity and exchange.

Individualized Learning

In this strand, we are interested in papers that examine the emergence of individualised digital and networked learning as an educational priority. What are the technical and strategic drivers of the shift to adaptive, personalised learning? How are new edu models designing frameworks for student agency? What can learners of the future be expected to manage for themselves over their life course, and what do we assume about the skills, devices and network access they will need to do this?

Systemic Impacts

In this strand, we are interested in papers that will provide insight into how faculty and institutional leaders are responding systemically to the use of digital networks. Examples might include: alternative assessment methods, prior learning assessment, competency based learning, partnerships with external capacity providers, changing forms of scholarship, academic innovation hubs (R&D), and so on. Research that assesses the impact of new systemic structures on student success will be of particular importance.

Innovation and Work

In this strand, we are interested in papers that examine the impact of networked innovation on the experience of working inside and alongside higher education. How has digital learning affected the academic profession, whether for the minority with tenure, or the much larger number working insecurely? What does it feel like to work alongside higher education from within other industries and sectors? In this strand, we particularly encourage papers that address the intersection of digital innovation, academic labour, and the education workforce of the future.

Sociocultural Implications

This strand invites concept and research papers on the relationships between networks, higher education, and sociocultural inequalities both in local and global contexts. While digital and networked higher education initiatives are often framed for the media in emancipatory terms, what effects does the changing landscape of higher education actually have on learners whose identities are marked by race/gender/class and other factors within their societies? Papers exploring societal factors, power structures, and their relationships to networked higher education are encouraged.

Webinar Recording: Building a Research Agenda using Design-Based Research (DBR)

Thank you to everyone who joined the Building a Research Agenda using Design-Based Research (DBR) webinar with Dr. Susan McKenney and Dr. Tom Reeves. We had a wonderful session filled with insightful suggestions and examples. The recording of the session is now available.

Screenshot 2014-07-30 09.21.59

Teacher professionalization in the age of social networking sites

Tensions. The more we study social media and online networks, the more evidence we find that these spaces are replete with tensions.

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Tensions. Image by floridjohn

In our latest published study (citation below) with my colleague Royce Kimmons, we found that expectations of professionalization in online social networks cut deeply into pre-service teachers self-concept. We found that participants generally had difficulty articulating what professionalism in online social networks actually looks like and what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate action online. As participants were exposed to a better understanding of what professionalism means online, participants recognized that they were not completely aware that their behavior might be watched and scrutinized by others, and this realization surprised them. Many pre-service teachers were also surprised at the severity of professional requirements and how the public might scrutinize seemingly innocuous behaviors on social media.

Numerous participants explained that as teachers they will need to be careful to not offend any community members, and the topics of politics and religion featured significantly in these conversations.

Though participants seemed to feel that a plurality of political opinion was a good thing and that they should have a right to political opinions, they nonetheless seemed to feel that teachers should take care in voicing those opinions.

Religion, on the other hand, seemed to be a different issue altogether, as participants seemed to feel that it was appropriate for them to express religious beliefs online even if others might happen to take offense or to disagree with them.

It’s important here to pause and consider the following: Participants’ preference of religion over politics likely reflects sociocultural values of the geographic region where the study took place (i.e. at a University in the South), and may not be generalizable.

These findings suggest that teacher education students might be willing to adjust the way that they participate in some ways to fit in with professional expectations (e.g., political opinions), but that there are some cases where what they feel might be expected of them cuts so acutely into their self-concept that they are afraid of losing their sense of identity (e.g., religious beliefs).

The implications of this study are the following:

First, teachers must consider how participating in SNS or altering their participation in them (e.g., content, connections, etc.) may impact their identity and sense of who they are.

Second, if teachers do not clearly understand how moral turpitude is defined in a given community, then how can they be sure that their behavior (online or offline) is beyond reproach?

The dilemma facing teachers in SNS is the following: As teachers present themselves in SNS in a way that is reflective of their complex and ever-developing identities, they may find it difficult to maintain meaningful social connections in online spaces as they pass through new phases of life and are simultaneously judged in an historical manner.

Kimmons, R., & Veletsianos, G. (2015). Teacher Professionalization in the Age of Social Networking Sites: Identifying Major Tensions and Dilemmas. Learning, Media, and Technology, 40(4), 480-501.

Webinar: Building a Research Agenda using Design-Based Research (DBR)

We (the AECT Research & Theory Division) are hosting another Professional Development Webinar, organized by Enilda Romero-Hall and Min Kyu Kim!

Date/Time:     July 24 at 12:00 pm (EST)

Topic:              Building a Research Agenda using Design-Based Research (DBR)

Panelist: Dr. Susan McKenney and Dr. Thomas Reeves

Registration: https://cc.readytalk.com/cc/s/registrations/new?cid=v0o9j6tm6llu

 Summary

Design-Based Research (DBR), Educational Design Research (EDR) and DBIR (Design-Based Implementation Research) share the dual aims of (1) deriving new knowledge through (2) the design and implementation of solutions to problems in educational practice. This family of research approaches involves intensive, long-term collaboration between researchers and practitioners during the development of viable solutions to practical problems while also conducting empirical investigation on or through the solutions created. While collaboration with practitioners stands to increase the relevance and practicality of work; it also poses challenges to researchers, whose mission requires them to: seek out research-worthy problems; employ rigorous methods; and generate new knowledge that is of value to others (outside the immediate context of investigation). This presentation discusses challenges, pitfalls and recommendations for establishing a research agenda using the DBR, EDR, and DBIR family of approaches.

Presenters

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Dr. Susan McKenney is Associate Professor in the Welten Institute at the Open University in the Netherlands and at Twente University. Her research focuses on understanding and supporting the interplay between curriculum development and teacher professional development, and often emphasizes the supportive role of technology in these processes. Dr. McKenney is committed to exploring how educational research can serve the development of scientific understanding while also developing sustainable solutions to real problems in educational practice. Since educational design research lends itself to these dual aims, she also works on developing and explicating ways to conduct design research. In addition to authoring numerous articles, she co-edited the book, Educational Design Research and, together with Tom Reeves, wrote the book, Conducting Educational Design Research. Dr. McKenney is also current editor of Educational Designer, the journal of the International Society for Design and Development in Education.

RTD Webinar_Reeves.png

Dr. Thomas C. Reeves is Professor Emeritus of Learning, Design, and Technology at The University of Georgia. A former Fulbright Lecturer in Peru, he has been an invited speaker in the USA and more than 30 other countries. His research interests include evaluation of educational technology, socially responsible educational research, public health and medical education, authentic learning tasks, and educational technology applications in developing countries. From 1997-2000, he was the editor of the Journal of Interactive Learning Research. In 2003, he received the AACE Fellowship Award from the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, in 2010 he was made a Fellow of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE), and in 2013 he was awarded the David H. Jonassen Excellence in Research Award by the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. His books include Interactive Learning Systems Evaluation with John Hedberg, A Guide to Authentic E-Learning with Jan Herrington and Ron Oliver (2010 Outstanding Book Award, Division of Design & Development, AECT), and Conducting Educational Design Research with Susan McKenney (2013 Outstanding Book Award, Research and Theory Division, AECT).

Additional Resources

  • Resources about Educational Design Research (also known as Design-Based Research)

http://dbrxroads.coe.uga.edu/

  • Conducting Educational Design Research book site

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415618045/

The Fragmented Educator

We have a new paper available that continues our research on networked participation/learning and networked participatory scholarship. This one arises out of Royce Kimmons’  dissertation, which I had the joy, honor, and good fortune of chairing.

The media is filled with stories pertaining to educators’ and researchers’ participation in online social networks. For example, a debate erupted in Kansas in December 2013 regarding faculty members’ use of social media and teachers have found themselves in trouble for their social media updates. Yet, little research has been done to understand the relationship between educator identity and participation in Social Networking Sites (SNS) or to examine the implications that institutional regulation of such media may have upon educator identity.

In our latest research study, we developed a framework to understand how a group of teacher education students viewed their developing identities within social networking sites as they began the life transition to becoming educators. We found that educator identity consists of a constellation of interconnected acceptable identity fragments (AIF)*. These acceptable identity fragments are  intentional, authentic, transitional, necessarily incomplete, and socially-constructed and socially-responsive.

fragments

Fragments by Maria McMahon. Unchanged. CC -BY 2.0 license.

We arrived at the term “acceptable identity fragment,” because study participants:

  • shaped their participation in social networking sites in a manner that they believed to be “acceptable” to their audiences,
  • viewed this participation to be a direct expression of “identity” or their sense of self, and
  • felt this expression to only represent a small “fragment” of their complete identities.

The AIF suggests that participants in a given social context may limit their participation or expression of identity in a way that is appropriate to that specific context or is acceptable to the specific relationships they have with others in that context. The existence of the AIF means that educator identities within SNS are contextual and intentionally limited and structured. Participants believe that, when participating in SNS, they are expressing their identities in a limited, though authentic, manner. In their view, such expression represents a genuine fragment of their identities.

This view of educator identity contrasts sharply with previous views of identity by highlighting the complicated, negotiated, and recursive relationship that exists between educator participation in SNS and educator identity.

First, existing literature assumes that individuals have an authentic identity and suggests that they attempt to express these identities in varying degrees via social media. Our research finds that human beings may not ever find themselves in social contexts wherein they will choose to (or are even able to) express their full authentic identities and, instead, express a different AIF depending upon the situation.

Second, in Goffman’s view (1959), identity is adaptable and constantly emergent as we “act” in contexts. In the AIF view, there is no “acting” occurring, but rather we see a guarded revelation of fragments of the self. Thus, identity was not an emergent phenomenon of the scene; it was controlled and revealed partially.

Finally, Turkle (1995) suggests that the online self lacks coherence and is fluid. However, participants in our study were operating from what they believed to be a coherent sense of self and judged their SNS participation based upon alignment with that sense. Participation did not lack coherence  – it was merely a partial manifestation.

What does this mean for educators, educational administrators, and educational researchers?

First, if the AIF is intentional and authentic, then it seems important for educators to retain control of their SNS participation. If institutions seek to prescribe appropriate and inappropriate uses of the medium, then it seems that this will prevent educators from being able to make meaningful choices regarding authentic self-expression and self-representation

Second, if the AIF is transitional, social media technologies must accommodate individuals’ transition into new life phases. At present, social media spaces do not support this (e.g., Facebook’s Timeline and the difficulty of deleting participation history en masse). If technologies doe not support the transition into new life phases, they risk being abandoned.

Third, educators should seek to recognize the assumptions that SNS platform developers are making about human nature, meaningful social participation, relationships, and so forth and consider the impact that such assumptions may have on their participation and identity.

Fourth, judgments made about educators based upon their participation in SNS should consider life transitions, time-based contexts (e.g., behavior as a college freshman vs. behavior as a student teacher), and the embedded values of the media.

Finally, if the AIF is a necessarily incomplete component of a larger identity constellation, any judgments of educators based on SNS participation must recognize that the relationship of the AIF to overall identity is subject to interpretation and may not reflect an individual’s perception of how the AIF represents authentic identity. Fragmentation of identity, then, should be seen as a valuable response to complex social situations. SNS platforms should account for this, and as we make judgments about others based upon their fragmented identities, we should be cognizant of the complex relationship existing between the AIF and one’s larger identity and dispel the myth of a simple authentic vs. inauthentic binary.

You can download a pre-print copy of the study from the link below:

Kimmons, R., & Veletsianos, G. (2014). The Fragmented Educator 2.0: Social Networking Sites. Acceptable Identity Fragments, and the Identity Constellation. Computers & Education, 72, 292-301. Journal link.

* The usual grounded theory and interpretive research caveats apply.

AECT RTD Professional Development Webinar on Learning Analytics

Enilda Romero-Hall and Min Kyu Kim have organized the second AECT Research and Theory division Professional Development Webinar session.  Join us!

Presenter:
Dr. Ryan Baker (http://www.columbia.edu/~rsb2162/)

Topic:
Learning Analytics – Potential and Principles
Date/Time:
February 6, 2014 at 1:30 P.M. (EDT)

Registration Link:
https://cc.readytalk.com/r/etkw2e7nu48y&eom

Abstract:
Increasingly,  students’  educational  experiences  occur  in  the  context  of educational technology, creating opportunities to log student behavior in a fashion that is both longitudinal and very fine-grained. These data are now available to the broad education research community through large public data repositories such as the Pittsburgh  Science of Learning Center (cf. Koedinger  et  al,  2008).

In this talk, I will discuss how the emerging Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining communities are combining these data sources with data mining methods in order to scalably use this data to make basic discoveries about learners and learning. In this talk, I will both discuss learning analytics methods in general, and some of their key applications in studying and supporting learners.

2013 posts

42 blog posts later, and the lights on 2013 are about to go out. Collecting my 2013 posts in one location was a good way to think back to this year and reflect on it Because, these are days for reflecting, pausing, sharing, embracing, and remembering. Because these are days for doing what we should be doing more often.

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Image by christmasstockimage licensed under a Creative Commons BY.

2013 Posts

What aspects of a MOOC changed each time it was taught?

Journal of academic freedom CFP

Emerging Technologies in Distance Education book downloads: Three years later

Udacity, MOOCs, hammers, and the problems of education

Archived talk: Academics’ and Educators’ practices and experiences with social media/networks

November 13 CIDER Presentation: What Do Academics and Educators Do on Social Media and Networks?

My visit to the Open University of Catalonia and the eLearn Center

COHERE 2013. Small is beautiful and MOOCs as symptoms

Visiting Educause 2013. And encountering two innovations

The road to SXSWedu 2014

Invitation to the first AECT RTD Professional Development Webinar

Learner experiences with open online learning and MOOCs e-book

Interested in a post-doc studying emerging forms of online participation?

Forthcoming ebook and twitter chat on MOOC and open learning experiences

A synthesis of the pedagogical agent literature

Startups should talk with researchers & educators

Talking to machines: What do learners and robots talk about? 

Sample Preliminary Written Exam Questions 

The MOOC stories we are told, and the ones that remain untold 

University of New Hampshire keynote talk 

The research that MOOCs need 

Binaries 

Dim sum Courses – aka MOOCs 

Thank you for supporting our work! 

Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning journal 

Social Media in Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship: 6 Tales of Practice 

Vote for our #MOOC production fellowship application? 

I have some news to share 

AERA 2013 reflections 

Course Trailer for our dual credit CS course 

#et4online notes, thoughts, reflections 

Keynote at the University of New Hampshire (Faculty Instructional Technology Summer Institute) 

Critical perspectives on educational technology literature 

Upcoming research. In search of collaborators 

SXSWedu day 2 

SXSWedu day 1 

Emerging Technologies and Transformative Learning Special Issue 

What is the experience of instructors who use a social networking site in their teaching? 

AECT 2013: Research & Theory Division Call for Proposals 

Plenary talk at Emerging Technologies for Online Learning conference 

“Sharing” as a valued and desirable educational practice 

 

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