This week I am spending time at the SXSWedu conference. It’s described as a conference that “features four days of compelling presentations and informative sessions from education professionals, industry leaders, and policy practitioners committed to engaging all learners.”

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These are not my usual stomping grounds. Indeed, AECT, AERA, E-learn, SITE, EdMedia, ALT-C and all the other conferences I’ve been to feature groups of individuals committed to education and learning as well, but none of them feature the entrepreneurial atmosphere and the “disruption is imminent” aura that this conference is epitomizing.

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I had a great lunch with George Siemens today. I came across George’s work in 2007 and have chatted on and off with him over the past 5 years on various social media platforms but we hadn’t actually ever met face-to-face until today.  I joked that I will be wearing my ethnographic hat during my time at the conference, trying to make sense of a culture different than my own. While my research aims to ultimately make a difference in education and people’s lives, and, a number of edtech startups and I are (seemingly) operating in the same area, I am not so sure I am in the “edtech space” (as it is affectionately called by the numerous entrepreneurs I met at the opening reception). And I don’t fully understand the different rounds of venture capital funding. But, that’s the language that’s dominating the conversations so far. But, I do believe this is something that more education researchers need to know about. After all, when individuals propose solutions for the problems of education, we need to listen. And to question. For more on this you should read this piece from Audrey Watters, (who is also at the conference and we got to spend some time chatting together today).

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Language is a strange thing. It’s strange because the same words might have different meaning to different people. Take the words “democratizing education” for example. What do you think of when you hear those words? I think of Paulo Freire, equity, education as a public good, the freedom from pedagogies of oppression. I wasn’t sure what these words meant when I heard them today. I believe they meant “freeing education from the control that educational institutions exert on it.” And even though it sounded good (who doesn’t want to “democratize education” anyway?!) I’m not sure that progressive educators’ visions of democratic and equitable educational systems align with the visions of democratic educational systems that were discussed today. And that’s another reason why more educators and researchers need to be here, and need to be in these conversations.

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Research was absent. Perhaps I was at the wrong sessions. Even at the sessions that I went to, any mention of evaluation (let alone research) was problematic. For example: “15% of our students told us that they [insert survey response here].” There was no mention of how many individuals were surveyed, what the return rate was, or whether the evaluation questions were created and validated by an independent party. I understand that educational research might not be on the radar of commercial entities and investors. But, it’s important. And, if we are truly dedicated to making change in education, however small or large it is, then we should be investigating whether the tools we create work, how they work, and in what contexts they work.

Back in 2011, my colleague Brendan Calandra and I edited a special issue for Educational Technology magazine focusing on emerging technologies and transformative learning (original post here). Our goal was to encourage conversations towards higher learning outcomes.

I’m happy to report that Larry Lipsitz, the senior editor of Educational Technology magazine, gave me permission to share all the articles from this issue online (download the whole issue as a pdf file here). I’m thankful to Larry for making the whole issue available. Educational Technology magazine is a unique publication as it consistently publishes interesting content, a lot of the content comes from well-known scholars, and a lot of the work published in the magazine is widely cited. Yet, the magazine retains its original character and is only published on paper. However, authors are given permission to immediately share copies of their papers online in an open access manner.

The special issue [51(2)] contains the following papers:

Teaching in an Age of Transformation: Understanding Unique Instructional Technology Choices which Transformative Learning Affords
Kathleen P. King

Transformative Learning Experience: Aim Higher, Gain More
Brent G. Wilson
Patrick Parrish

Learning Experience as Transaction: A Framework for Instructional Design
Patrick Parrish
Brent G. Wilson
Joanna C. Dunlap

The Seven Trans-disciplinary Habits of Mind: Extending the TPACK Framework Towards 21st Century Learning
Punya Mishra
Matthew J. Koehler
Danah Henriksen

Virtual Worlds as a Trigger for Transformative Learning
Steve W. Harmon

Using digital video to promote teachers’ transformative learning
Brendan Calandra
Anton Puvirajah

Opportunities for and Barriers to Powerful and Transformative Learning Experiences in Online Learning Environments
Benjamin B. Bolger,
Gordon Rowland,
Carrie Reuning-Hummel,
Stephen Codner

Designing Opportunities for Transformation with Emerging Technologies
George Veletsianos

Shaping global citizens: Technology enhanced inter-cultural collaboration and transformation
P. Clint Rogers

A Framework for Action: Intervening to Increase Adoption of Transformative Web 2.0 Learning Resources
Joan E. Hughes,
James M. Guion,
Kama A. Bruce,
Lucas R. Horton,
Amy Prescott

It has been suggested that the use of social technologies (e.g., social media, social networking sites) in higher education may be a worthwhile endeavor. Nevertheless, empirical literature examining user experiences, and more specifically instructor experiences, with these tools is limited. My colleagues and I conducted a study recently to address this gap in the literature. Our goal was to  identify, describe, and make sense of initial instructor experiences with a social networking platform (Elgg) used in higher education courses. This follows a prior study in which we examined learner experiences with Elgg.

This study does not purport to describe the experiences of all instructors. Rather, it provides an in-depth examination and rich description of the experiences of five instructors who used a social networking platform in their courses. Readers should examine the context in which this study occurred and decide whether these findings may apply in their own situations.

We found that instructors:

• had expectations of Elgg that stemmed from numerous sources
• used Elgg in heterogeneous ways and for varied purposes
• compartmentalized Elgg and used it in familiar ways, and
• faced frustrations stemming from numerous sources.

Importantly, the ways that Elgg came to be used “on the ground” was contested. These ways contrasted starkly with the narrative of how social software might contribute benefits to educational practice. Furthermore, we found that learning management systems (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Desire2Learn) may frame the ways through which other tools, such as social media and Elgg, are understood, used, and experienced, as instructors in our study continuously discussed their experiences with Elgg in comparison to an LMS, even though Elgg is not a traditional LMS.

Veletsianos, G., Kimmons, R., & French, K. (2013). Instructor experiences with a social networking site in a higher education setting: Expectations, Frustrations, Appropriation, and Compartmentalization (pdf). Educational Technology, Research and Development, 61(2), 255-278

You can download a pdf of the paper from the link above, or visit dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11423-012-9284-z for the published version.

The 2013 AECT Conference proposal system is open. The members and leadership of the Research and Theory division are excited to invite you to submit a proposal to our division! The call for proposals is at http://www.aect.org/events/call/ and proposals close on February 15, 2013 (11:59pm EST).

We look forward to your submissions!