bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
MEDIUL DE SECURITATE CONTEMPORAN – O ANALIZĂ PRIN „LENTILA” RESURSELOR
Authors: NICOARĂ Gabriela-Florina
Published: October 2024

Abstract: In light of the current security context and the economic and population health challenges of recent years, it is imperative to reassess our understanding of resources. Whether we consider the role of resources from a personal perspective or examine it from the perspective of the resource management approach of the organisation in which we work, it is evident that resources play a pivotal role. The consequences of risks and threats to international security are manifold and include, for example, the emergence of problems that lack real solutions, the pressure of a limiting context on the security of individuals and states, and the lack of effective responses to these problems. In this context, where the premises for the emergence of regional challenges such as the restriction and increase in the price of maritime trade, the transition from a free movement of goods to one delimited by formal borders, the threats to food security or the blockage of Black Sea ports, the present approach proposes to identify and analytically address the main issues in the contemporary security environment that could take the form of additional resource pressures, with a focus on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Keywords: resources, resource management, security, war, security environment, power pole, international relations.
Rezumat: Actualul context de securitate, alături de provocările la adresa economiei și sănătății populației întâmpinate în ultimii ani, impune o reevaluare a modului în care înțelegem resursele. Fie că privim dintr-o perspectivă personală sau avem în atenție abordarea, în materie de management al resurselor, organizației în care activăm profesional, rolul jucat de resurse este esențial. Consecințe cu un puternic impact limitativ, probleme rămase fără soluții real aplicabile sau presiunea unor contexte limită pentru siguranța indivizilor sau în raport cu securitatea statelor sunt doar câteva dintre efectele ce se resimt în prezent, ca urmare a riscurilor și amenințărilor la adresa securității internaționale. În acest context în care premisele apariției unor provocări regionale, precum restrângerea și scumpirea comerțului maritim, tranziția de la o circulație liberă a bunurilor spre una delimitată de granițe formale, amenințări cu privire la securitatea alimentației sau blocarea porturilor de la Marea Neagră, prezentul demers propune identificarea și abordarea analitică a principalelor aspecte din mediul de securitate contemporan ce ar putea îmbrăca forma unor presiuni suplimentare în materie de resurse, cu accent pe pandemia de Covid-19.
Pre-factibilidad del cultivo de cacao (Theobroma cacao L.), en la zona agrícola del cantón Paján, provincia de Manabí
Authors: Cercado Malavé Liliana Irene , Macías García Cristhian Neptalí , Ramos Mosquera Iván Edmundo
Published: October 2024

Contexto: Debido a la problemática que afronta el subsector cacaotero ecuatoriano en comercialización y manejo técnico-económico de las plantaciones, el presente trabajo tuvo como objetivo general: realizar un estudio de prefactibilidad del cultivo de cacao en la zona agrícola del cantón Paján-Manabí para contribuir a mejorar la economía del productor promedio. Método: La metodología de investigación empleada fue descriptiva y explicativa, con recolección primaria y secundaria de datos e información a través de encuestas, además, estadísticas sobre los componentes de las fuerzas de mercado nacional e internacional del rubro, procesadas con el uso de estadística descriptiva e inferencial. Resultados: La falta de apoyo estatal al productor en las diferentes etapas del manejo de su empresa agrícola, originan reducción de ingresos en una zona agraria que presenta factores edafoclimáticos óptimos para el cultivo. Conclusiones: En cacao CCN-51, el VAN es positivo y la TIR 32%, indicadores que revelan factibilidad del proyecto agrosocioeconómico.
Artificial Intelligence Powered Pedagogy: Unveiling Higher Educators Acceptance with Extended TAM
Authors: Kavitha K , Joshith V P
Published: October 2024

There is a growing prevalence of AI tools in the arena of higher education. The willingness and intentions of higher educators play a significant role in successfully incorporating these tools. This investigation extends the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to explore the multifaceted interplay among determinants shaping higher educators' intentions for employing AI tools in their professional and pedagogical domains. The data was gathered from 400 respondents, comprising educators holding positions ranging from assistant professors to professors within Indian HEIs. The investigation validated the TAM model's applicability using covariance-based systematic equation modeling (CB-SEM) and supported nine of the fifteen proposed hypotheses. Further, the investigation underscores the significance of fostering higher educators' competency and confidence in AI tools through focused training and support services. Additionally, it highlights the role of their inherent openness to be proficient in such novel technological advancements. This investigation advances the prevailing AI-strengthened pedagogical sphere of education.
Exploration of Sino-German Cooperative Education Model in Universities: Taking the “UCDB” as an Example
Authors: XU Jingwei , JIN Suning , PAN Tao
Published: October 2024

Please refer to the URL that includes this article for the abstract.
SPECTRUM OF BACTERIAL CULTURE AND ANTIBIOGRAM IN PCNL PUNCTURE URINE SAMPLE
Authors: NAZIR M , SALEEM Y , ULLAH S , RAZIQ S , MURTAZA RS
Published: October 2024

Percutaneous nephrolithotripsy (PCNL) is the standard treatment for high-volume renal stones, stones resistant to extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL), and multiple and inferior calyx renal stones. Objective: The study's main objective is to find bacterial culture and antibiogram spectrum in PCNL puncture urine samples. Methods: This retrospective observational study was conducted at CMH, Lahore, from April 2024 to July 2024. Data were collected from 185 patients. Urine samples were collected directly from the renal pelvis through the PCNL puncture site during the surgical procedure. This method ensures that the samples accurately represent the microbial environment of the kidney. Results: Data were collected from 185 patients according to the study's criteria. The gender distribution comprised 110 males (59.5%) and 75 females (40.5%). The age of the patients ranged from 25 to 70 years, with a mean age of 48.23±3.54 years. Among the positive cultures, Escherichia coli was the most prevalent species, found in 46.2% of cases, followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (23.1%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (15.4%), Enterococcus faecalis (7.7%), and Proteus mirabilis (3.8%). Additionally, 3.8% of the samples included other bacteria, including mixed infections. Conclusion: It is concluded that the bacterial spectrum in PCNL urine samples is diverse, with significant antibiotic resistance patterns observed among isolated pathogens.
Reclaiming distributed cognition in networked learning
Authors: Parchoma Gale
Published: October 2024

On the tenth anniversary of the networked learning conference I am looking back at developments in identifying the sites of learning in networked learning design and praxis. Beginning with McConnell’s (1998) premise that collaboration is central to the development of democratic ‘learning communities’ and Jones’ (2000) relational perspective on the role of technologies in connecting learners, tutors, and learning resources, I examine early critiques of community and the implications of those critiques for design, tutoring, and assessment practices. I then turn to a discussion of interrelated human and technological agencies and a historical trajectory of design foci at the resource, task, and activity levels. Tensions between research orientations that focus on individual learning and those that focus on collective learning are traced to associated theoretical perspectives and methodological choices. The construct of the individual mind and the notion of connectivism are critiqued. The agencies of socially constructed technologies to distribute learning capacities across networks are examined for insights into and implications of differing approaches to collective coordination of social-material practices. In concluding this retrospective, I return to the critical and humanistic roots of networked learning and introduce Hodgson, de Laat, McConnell, and Ryberg’s (2014) call to “transcend the dualism between abstract mind and concrete material social practice” (p. 3).
I use discourse analysis to critique contemporary cognitivist, computational conceptualizations of the individual mind and the resultant focus on instructionalist underpinnings in broader educational technology approaches to design. I argue that this perspective on cognition is reductive: focused on teacher-designer-researcher control, hierarchical perceptions of learning contexts, and suggest the quest for designed orchestrations of learning processes has led to an assumption that the efficaciousness of learning can simply reside in resources. The computational, cognitivist perspective on design is contrasted with Conole’s (2006) rejection of resource-level foci on design and with Goodyear, Carvalo, and Dohn’s (2014) distinctions among designable tasks and emergent activities; situated conceptualizations of affordances and mutually constitutive perspectives on the relationships among material social practices and learning. The “reclaiming” section of the paper examines three pre-computational conceptualizations of distributed cognition as embodied, integrated with socio-material artifacts, and enacted through practices. I conclude with looking forward to a time where pre-computational conceptualizations of distributed cognition provide links to networked learning theory, a route to transcending dualisms, and opens new examinations and problematizations.
Why 'one size fits all' concept and policies of inclusive education is insufficient to achieve ‘true’ inclusivity in a national context
Authors: Tarek Syed Ali
Published: October 2024

In today’s world, education is a basic human right and it is desired that every human being regardless of his or her personal and societal circumstances should get a fair chance to get access to education. ‘Inclusive education’ as a concept exists since the mid 19th century which was later translated into various international policy frameworks. Often these international policies had a push impact towards national policy agendas. Majority of the nations that adopted those international policies were hardly successful in achieving ‘inclusive’ learning practices, as because, ‘inclusivity’ has various wider (local) aspects which needs to be considered. A chronological review of relevant international policies and Bangladesh government’s policies is presented in the early segments and then shortfalls of current notions of inclusivity is explored in this paper. A brief overview is given based on the author’s experience of running a tablet based disaster preparedness training in Bangladesh over three years’ period, that used networked learning concepts to promote ‘inclusivity’. This paper also explores, how the training programme needed to broaden its perspectives to accommodate inclusivity. It was found during the training that the current notion and understanding of the term relates to only a fragment of the people to which inclusivity should be aimed. Adult learners are in a disadvantageous position as the national policies hardly mention their needs. Within a group of policies aimed to serve (special) children in education, practitioners are ill informed to support adult learners’ in formal, informal and non-formal education sector. Reports on outcome of the alternate education systems consisting of private education and NGO led training in Bangladesh noted that there is a high level of drop outs those who attend any form of training. Majority of the participants lack awareness and urges to learn about something new. Due to monotonous delivery standards the participants are disengaged quickly with the feeling that they have no voice in their learning experience. The participants crave for a system which would acknowledge and value their experience and bridge those experiences to construct something more useful. The disaster preparedness training thus had to adapt to these less explored inclusivity issues to ensure, there is a true wider ‘inclusive’ participation. This paper reinforces that, there is a need to understand the varied needs of the adult learners to ensure they are well integrated in any format of the education system, especially where cooperative learning takes place.
OOPS! Or, Designing an Intercultural Online Participatory Seminar in the Spirit of Highlander Folk School
Authors: Alexander Ilene D. , Fink Alexander
Published: October 2024

Seeking to build a relational, reflexive, dialogical, and praxis-oriented open, online learning space to engage intercultural teaching and learning, an experienced educator of future teachers and a graduate student in youth leadership developed an online seminar that embodied its content (intercultural, inclusive learning and teaching) in praxis. This paper outlines the process of designing the seminar, briefly examines how it functioned, and closes with ideas for exploration with NCL participants.
Resisting the Final Word
Authors: Hayes Sarah , Jandri´c Petar
Published: October 2024

This article explores powerful, constraining representations of encounters between digital technologies and the bodies of students and teachers, using corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It discusses examples from a corpus of UK Higher Education (HE) policy documents, and considers how confronting such documents may strengthen arguments from educators against narrow representations of an automatically enhanced learning. Examples reveal that a promise of enhanced ‘student experience' through information and communication technologies internalizes the ideological constructs of technology and policy makers, to reinforce a primary logic of exchange value. The identified dominant discursive patterns are closely linked to the Californian ideology. By exposing these texts, they provide a form of ‘linguistic resistance' for educators to disrupt powerful processes that serve the interests of a neoliberal social imaginary. To mine this current crisis of education, the authors introduce productive links between a Networked Learning approach and a posthumanist perspective. The Networked Learning approach emphasises conscious choices between political alternatives, which in turn could help us reconsider ways we write about digital technologies in policy. Then, based on the works of Haraway, Hayles, and Wark, a posthumanist perspective places human digital learning encounters at the juncture of non-humans and politics. Connections between the Networked Learning approach and the posthumanist perspective are necessary in order to replace a discourse of (mis)representations with a more performative view towards the digital human body, which then becomes situated at the centre of teaching and learning. In practice, however, establishing these connections is much more complex than resorting to the typically straightforward common sense discourse encountered in the Critical Discourse Analysis, and this may yet limit practical applications of this research in policy making.
Affording Opportunities to Learn in Homework Online
Authors: Dohn Nina Bonderup , Lund Kirsten , Lindhardt Pernille Holm , Skipper Degnebolig Hanne
Published: October 2024

In this paper we report our research into the learning opportunities created (and obstructed) for students in upper secondary education in Denmark through connecting with voluntary homework tutors on the online platform Homework Online (HO). The platform offers an integrated array of synchronic communication tools, comprising chat, video, audio, whiteboard and access to websites, including Google Docs shared between student and tutor. We utilize Harré and van Langenhove's positioning theory and Greeno's learning theoretical development thereof to analyse the interaction between tutors and students. Our research questions are 1) How are students positioned in particular interactions on HO and how does this contribute to the opening and closing of their opportunities to learn (OTL)? 2) How do the different affordances of HO's communication tools affect the positioning process? We identify the primary communication channels as chat and audio, respectively. We find an overall tendency for tutors and students in collaboration to position themselves within a storyline of teacher-student-interaction, but this storyline of teacher-student-interaction plays out in different ways, as 'teacher-explaining-to-student', positioning the student as recipient, and as 'student-prompted-by-teacher-to-think', positioning the student with agency. The latter opens OTL for the student in the form of engaging in the conceptual and disciplinary practices of the curricular subject, i.e. of developing active conceptual understanding as well as necessary disciplinary skills. The former at most opens OTL in the form of 'legitimate peripheral observation' of such practices, but closes the OTL of active participation in them and thereby also the chance (in this situation) of developing active curricular understanding and skills. Our data show that the different affordances of audio and chat do not lead to fundamental differences in basic positioning patterns and evolving storylines, but that audio affords positioning to conceptual agency better than chat. Similarly, the auditory channel affords active dialogue and supports interpretation of interaction much better than chat does. Still our data show that more important than the difference between chat and audio for the positioning of the student as accountable versus as to-be-explained-to is the use made of the whiteboard, especially the question whether the student, the tutor, or both in interaction are in charge of writing on it.
A paradigm shift rhetoric and theory-practice gap in online higher education
Authors: Lee Kyungmee
Published: October 2024

In this paper, I critically examine a theory-practice gap existing in online higher education (HE) with a particular focus on the significant discrepancies between social constructivist learning theories and actual instructional design (ID) practices in an open university context. I perceive theory not as universal or scientific truth but as a historical and discursive product (Foucault, 1970). In this perspective, the theory-practice gap is both the result and the evidence of the disjunction between the common understandings (or discourses) about online HE and the actual state (or realities) of it. This is, therefore, a much more complex social and educational phenomenon than simply a pedagogical issue of how to apply the legitimate learning theories to appropriate ID practices. To better grasp the complexity, I first describe the evolution of instructional technologies and theories of distance education (DE), a predecessor of online education. Second, I analyze one wide-spread academic discourse that has propagated online education as a new learning paradigm in HE and suggested social constructivist theories-informed instructional practices as a better way of doing online HE. This analysis is followed by a qualitative case study of the actual ID practices and circumstances in an open university in North America. By examining the gap between instructional theories and practices in this particular HE context, this study provides insights about how the gap has come into being and some valuable lessons for future research. At this moment, we are witnessing how the rhetoric of the learning paradigm shift in HE has become the doctrine we pursue to further produce the imperative of providing online education across all HE institutions including residential universities. Unless we challenge the social press of this rhetoric and deconstruct our current perspectives on online education, we can neither slow down this seemingly inexorable shift to online education nor fully grasp the actual state of online HE in which the theory-practice gap may continue to increase. Thus, this study ultimately aims to question our current taken-for-granted assumptions about legitimate online HE practices largely influenced by the rhetorical and come up with a more helpful lens to approach the theory-practice gap.
Triggering dialogic activities across networks
Authors: Sinclair Christine , Macleod Hamish
Published: October 2024

Our study originates in exploratory interventions aimed at engaging students with relevant practices to support  learning both in and about digital environments. Our students come from a wide range of professional contexts all over the world. Most are involved in teaching or supporting teaching. What they learn on our programme is carried into their practice - and vice versa. Their introductory course explores a range of environments along with critical literature, with a strong theoretical emphasis. The authors both have an interest in dialogic approaches to education, and we share findings on activities designed and tutored by each of us. A webquest and an online text augmentation exercise were both found to promote student creativity, dialogue and learning.  While we had respectable pedagogical reasons for these activities, our subsequent reflections and conversations about them suggested that they were worthy of further theoretical analysis.  Our students demonstrated considerable use of existing networks while at the same time apparently generating new networks that would sustain them throughout a programme of study and beyond. Drawing on Wegerif's (2013) notion of dialogic and its Bakhtinian influences, we attempt to distinguish and name features of networks likely to trigger dialogic exchanges that foster learning. We have isolated examples from each practice of particularly ‘interanimating' sections of dialogue and created a thick description of them, including their antecedents and consequences. Our examples illustrate that both practices raised questions about purpose, offered opportunities for showcasing knowledge and connections, led to sharing and making practices visible, and were taken forward to new contexts. The findings are not all positive; we have also identified concerns about exclusion or inadequacy from those who feel unable to participate fully, but even then there is potential to turn around difficult situations. This study might have practical application for learning designers but should also be of theoretical interest for research into newer forms of academic literacy.
Visualising structure and agency in a MOOC using the Footprints of Emergence framework
Authors: Mackness Jenny , Pauschenwein Jutta
Published: October 2024

Reviews of research into MOOCs have identified two areas needing further research; the individual learner experience and the role of the teacher/facilitator. In this paper we examine the teacher/facilitator’s role as MOOC designer in achieving an appropriate balance between structure and agency in the design of a specific MOOC, and consider whether this balance was achieved by analysing the learners' experience of this MOOC. To do this we used a tool known as Footprints of Emergence, which enables designers, teachers, learners and researchers to visualise the course design and their learning experience in any course. Drawing Footprints of Emergence requires deep reflection on 25 factors which influence learning in complex learning environments, such as MOOCs.
The context for this research was the Competences for Global Collaboration MOOC (cope15) offered by FH Joanneum, in Graz, Austria, in Spring 2015. Through negotiation and taking advantage of a diversity of competences and experiences, the team designed a hybrid learning space with a multitude of resources and learning paths. They used an approach which combined Salmon's model for moderating small groups of learners with the principles of connectivism and the structuring of xMOOCs. In using this approach the teachers needed to adopt unfamiliar roles as open practitioners and relinquish control over their students. The visualisation offered by the design footprint of cope15 helped to frame their discussion and planning.
The MOOC design required learners to assume responsibility for their own learning, deal with uncertainty and be open to a holistic learning experience. At the end of the MOOC they were asked to draw a Footprint to reflect on their learning experience and provide a written reflection. 30 participants agreed to their Footprints and written reflections being analysed for this research. The Footprints show that a balance between structure and agency was achieved for these learners. They experienced neither too much prescription nor too much chaos in the MOOC design and learning processes. These preliminary findings suggest that attention to structure and agency using the Footprints of Emergence visualisation tool enables the design of a MOOC to meet learners’ needs, and supports end of course reflection and evaluation.
Image-sharing in Twitter-based professional conversations
Authors: Wilson Anna N.
Published: October 2024

This paper reports on ongoing research into the image-sharing practices of two informal professional networks, one dedicated to midwives and the other dedicated to teachers, on Twitter. Each network is brought together through regular, loosely synchronous Twitter conversations, created through the use of an identifying hashtag. In both cases, the conversations have been initiated by practitioners with the explicit intention of creating a space for sharing ideas, practice, experience and opinions. Community members are relied on to provide facilitation, to promote the conversations and, in one case, to suggest conversations themes. These kinds of informal professional conversation may thus serve as somewhat hidden, but potentially influential, sites of professional learning.
As with most social media and mobile communications, Twitter has become increasingly saturated with images. Indeed this may be a particularly strong trend on Twitter because images can be used to convey a great deal more than might easily be said in the 140 characters users are limited to in each tweet. Professional conversations are no exception to this, with images accompanying tweets with increasing frequency. Images, then, may provide a rich alternative to research focusing on the text of tweets.
This paper describes research using such images as foci for the study of the flow of information, opinion and affect amongst the two professional groups described above. Starting with a period of extended observation of both conversations, the research proceeded to in-depth interviews with a small number of practitioners who were also active participants, in which images previously published during the Twitter conversations were used as prompts. Methods developed to visualise and make sense of the relations between images and users during the conversations, and ultimately to identify candidate interviewees and prompt images are described.
The research makes use of philosopher Gilles Deleuze's concepts of lines of articulation, lines of flight and knots to draw out some of the factors affecting flows through the conversation-spaces. It appears that there are at least three broad factors - the technical affordances for communication provided by Twitter, individuals' notions of online professionalism, and individuals' sense of the purpose of the conversation-space - that create lines of articulation and flight, constraints and uncertainties that accelerate, amplify or impede these flows. These lines twist and knot, resulting in a socio-technical disciplining that conditions the conversations and both reveals and hides aspects of professional life.
The Interrelations of ICT and Professional Identity
Authors: Horn Line Helverskov
Published: October 2024

The currents of post-modernist thought during the late 20th century spurred an interest in identity as an object of scholarly exploration, as the massive social changes in this period revealed the instable nature of identity. Thus, the study of professional identity has been a recurrent theme in educational science through the last couple of decades, exploring the characteristics and development of professional identity. Simultaneously, the technological development in society has massively affected how we live and our work practices, increasing the intensity of Information and Communication Technology adoption and application of professionals. Educational practices of higher education are equally affected. New educational programmes emerge and course titles, pedagogies, and curricula are adapted to reflect technological changes. Thus, ICT has become a significant aspect of the content and practices of professions and disciplines, and consequently higher education. There is a lack of knowledge with regards to how professional identity are affected by developments and adoption of ICTs in society in general and higher education specifically. The author of this paper suggest Actor-Network Theory as an approach in understanding how Information and Communication Technologies contribute to the characteristics of professional identity in higher education. In the study of how actors are given an identity, the nature of groups is perceived as an on-going process made up of ties. Based on this approach, the study of professional identity must focus on the tracing of associations between heterogeneous actors and their practices. The nature or identity of the group is described through the mapping of spokespersons, anti-groups, boundaries and the inclusion of other professionals such as social scientists and statistics. When studying professional identity in the context of higher education, actors include but is not limited to students, educators, graduates, experienced professionals, but equally tools (including ICTs), curricula, professional legislation and employment statistics. The number or nature of the actors included in the mapping of ties cannot be defined from the outset. The approach will allow the voices of the actors to be heard in characterizing the social context of professional identity, revealing a multitude of perspectives. The author suggests future studies that will engage in higher education practices empirically, developing the theoretical contribution and thus elaborating our understanding of the interrelations of ICT and professional identity as well as serving as a contribution to the body of ANT literature.
Teaching-led research? Exploring the digital agencies of software in qualitative research
Authors: Wright Steve , Bhatt Ibrar
Published: October 2024

This work-in-progress paper explores the intersection of technologies and software with the practices, of qualitative research and qualitative data analysis. Computer aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) packages such as ATLAS.ti, NVivo and HyperRESEARCH are the focus of competing claims and critiques. We explore the positioning, continuities and disjunctures between manufacturers promoting their software, positioning in teaching and training materials and a range of views in the literature from critical to laudatory, as well as their prevalence in research on networked learning. The pre-eminence and influence of expository writing and paucity of empirical research underscore the relevance and potential contribution of this project, We argue that part of that contribution comes from drawing on insights from science and technology studies (STS) which offer a well-developed vocabulary and set of approaches for exploring the agencies and mediation of technologies in the practices of research.The initial stages of the research project are outlined including online participant recruitment via facebook, methods of screen-share remote interviewing to generate rich data exploring software use, and incorporating accounts of researchers’ practices. Their transformation and mediation to become “data” through different software packages are briefly explored.Drawing on Latour’s model of the two-faced Janus of science with which contrasts “science in the making" with “ready made science” we turn to consider ways in which this project can invert the usual trope of University education as research led, asking instead how a research project could become teaching-led. We briefly explore some of the initial approaches and opportunities this has created for opening up the black-box of research practices and shifting software training methods to engage learners in a process of discovery as “learning in the making” rather than being tasked with stepping through fixed frames of “ready made teaching”.
Discursive psychology as a methodology to explore how multiculturalism affects use of learning technologies
Authors: Raistrick Claire
Published: October 2024

Networked learning remains a new field and many methodological, theoretical and other perspectives are used to learn more about it. Moreover, there is encouragement for the field's interdisciplinary researchers to take alternative methodological approaches. This paper provides valuable insights into a methodological approach which is little used in networked learning research. It reports an exploratory study to establish the value of a discursive psychology lens to understand uses of technology by international learners, and specifically how the language students’ use conveys their practices. The study was prompted when I questioned how multiculturalism might affect an institution’s virtual presence and whether students from alternative cultures had varying online learning needs. Discursive psychology was selected as the methodological approach as it has the potential to show how the social world is enacted in a more insightful and sophisticated way than happens when qualitative data are accepted at face value. The study involved secondary analysis of an ESRC-funded dataset and this paper illustrates analysis of talk by four undergraduate learners from Africa and Asia. The paper shows how participants constructed their identities and gave meaning to their talk. It also exemplifies the dynamics of talk and the work undertaken via the expression of thoughts, and how these supplement the descriptive meaning of words. Aspects of what is emotional about participants' talk are highlighted, including their sense of struggle. A gap is found between students’ uses of technology for learning purposes and what would be required in a networked learning environment. There is also evidence of threshold moments within learners' positioning. It is clear that educational experiences could be enhanced by educators recognising that students' needs vary, evolving over time. An argument to place the learner at the centre and to design from learners' perspectives to be better able to lead them forward from where they are regarding use of technologies to where learning can take place is made. Given this paper's focus on talk from international students it is particularly relevant that those in global online learning contexts appreciate the extent of meaning suggested by this paper's findings. A lack of such awareness carries with it a risk of not sufficiently appreciating what learners are thinking and this gap will leave educators ill-prepared to provide optimal learner-centric support structures.
The role of human actors in legitimising informal networked learning of academic digital practice
Authors: Johnson Mike
Published: October 2024

Ideas from phenomenography inform this study to investigate variation in staff experiences of a decision to introduce digitally shared academic supervision record keeping in a university-based School of Healthcare Sciences in the United Kingdom. At the time, the school's assessment and feedback strategy entitled students to individual formative supervision feedback on all draft essays before submitting them for summative assessment. Prior to the move to a shared digital record, records of supervisory events were stored in individual email inboxes or networked file-store, as well as on paper that was sometimes held in more than one location for the same student. A blogging platform within the university's virtual learning environment was used because, while it allowed students to only view their own records, the whole academic marking team could access any of the students' records.Lave and Wenger's ‘Legitimate Peripheral Participation' provides a theoretical lens for analysis of data collected in interviews with four staff who were selected to represent variations between and within the 'old-timers' and 'new-comers'. The phenomenographic 'outcome space' table is eschewed in favour of a narrative presentation of data that seeks to provide a 'direct encounter' with the phenomena of interest. As such, it represents a case study of informal networked learning, by those on the journey of 'newcomers' from the periphery to full participation and those who guide them. This analysis is challenged by the data, given the varied ways in which staff approached the change to digitally shared supervision record keeping and how the shared records were or were not taken up as a resource to help new staff learn the practice of academic supervision. Staff who had recently moved into academic roles from senior positions in clinical practice experienced dissonance when adjusting to a more permissive information security regime. The study offers insights into the cultural conceptual 'baggage' that can inhibit productive networked learning and the importance of human actors to encourage it and overcome these barriers. The role of students in challenging recalcitrant 'old-timers' into adopting the new digital practice is noted. These actors are held to speak back to theories within networked learning, actor-network theory and Lave and Wenger's communities of practice.The work was undertaken in part fulfilment of a doctorate in e-Research and Technology-Enhanced Learning at Lancaster University.
Symposium 2: Critical TEL: The importance of theory and theorisation
Authors: Sclater Madeleine , Lally Vic
Published: October 2024

This paper explores the role of theory in Technology Enhanced Learning, and the research community. We consider Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as an example, but we strongly feel that our argument has broader application to the use of theory as part of the intellectual ‘self-defence toolkit’ that researchers and practitioners in the critical TEL community need to consider if they are to ‘resist’ the crises arising from educational globalisation. Theory can offer us the language, history, scope, and power that we need to be reflexively aware of both our own interests and those of others who are actors in the settings in which we are working.
Designs for Networked Learning
Authors: Duin Ann Hill
Published: October 2024

Participants will explore the use of a Personal Learning Network (PLN) for building intercultural competence. A PLN is a collection of people, information resources, organizations, and other connections that a networked individual values because the connections support and contribute to learning interests. Throughout our exploration and development of PLNs, participants will identify how these might be used to make “visible” our culturally based assumptions about identity, knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and the knowledge most worth having. Workshop emphasis will be on both pedagogy and research and stems from recent literature on connectivism and networked learning.
Facilitating the Professional Growth of Teachers in Networked Learning Communities (NLC)
Authors: Goh Sao-Ee , Tan Irene
Published: October 2024

Networked learning among teachers is a powerful form of professional learning as such learning informs and helps them understand their work, their influence, and their effects on themselves, their peers and their students (Lieberman & Wood, 2003). In Singapore, one of our key professional development programmes is engaging teachers in networked learning communities or NLCs. We define NLCs as networks of teachers across schools learning from one another, with one another, and on behalf of others. Networked learning is the process where individuals from different schools come together in a network to engage in purposeful and sustained developmental activities, informed by the public knowledge base, utilising their own know-how and co-constructing knowledge together (Jackson & Temperley, 2007).One of our greatest challenges in championing NLCs is facilitating and ensuring the growth of the teachers involved. While there are numerous studies which recognise the values and purpose of NLC (e.g., Cousin & Deepwell, 2005; Day, Hadfield, & Kellow, 2002; Jopling, 2006; Katz & Earl, 2007; Lieberman, 2000), as well as studies suggesting principles and features to foster successful NLCs (e.g., Jackson & Temperley, 2007; Katz & Earl, 2010), there is a surprising lack of literature on models that operationalise networked learning. Our solution is to develop a networked learning model that guides facilitators of networked learning communities in the learning and growth of their members. In developing this model, we are informed by existing literature as well as our own research on factors of successful NLCs. We call our research-informed model SPAR© which is short for Seeding, Planning, Applying, Reviewing, Celebrating. Embedded within the SPAR© model are several established protocols and tools to guide NLC facilitators in facilitating purposeful and deep networked learning. While the model is designed and intended for teachers and teacher-educators, we believe the underlying processes will also be relevant to other non-teacher related networked learning communities. We hope to share our research-informed model with participants at NLC 2016.Participant OutcomesParticipants will:• understand the various principles of networked learning in the education context;• learn about a networked learning model developed and used by the Academy of Singapore Teachers in facilitating the growth of NLCs;• experience some tools and protocols embedded within the networked learning model; and• have meaningful conversations with professional learning leaders from the Academy of Singapore Teachers in facilitating NLCs.
Toward theorizing spatial-cultural ‘othering’ in networked learning and teaching practices
Authors: Nelson Dorothea , Parchoma Gale
Published: October 2024

In response to networked learning community members’ calls for theorizing the underpinning causes of “othering,” this paper examines the concepts of transculturalism, boundary crossing, and third spaces to provide insights into cultural issues that can occur within networked learning environments. Suggestions are made for working from a transcultural perspective, working within and across boundaries, and teaching and learning in Third Space. We begin by examining challenges posed by increasing cultural diversities among learners in universities and then focus on how these challenges play out for both learners and tutors. In particular, we focus on issues that impact international learners who remain in their home contexts, but engage in university learning via networked learning opportunities. In the introduction, we discuss the complexities learners face when they are simultaneously “land-locked” within their own cultural and educational settings and being acculturated into new learning opportunities in a foreign university. We then draw upon transcultural scholarship to examine instances of encountering vulnerability and instability and possibilities for shifting conversations within teaching and learning contexts first to celebrating difference and then to negotiating potential academic consequences of acknowledgements of differences. We move on to discuss tensions that arise from boundary crossings that evoke discontinuities. In particular, we examine points of exclusion and inclusion where decisions are made about whose voice is heard and whose knowledge is deemed valid and relevant. Within our discussion of the complexities and tensions of boundary crossings, we draw upon the concepts of identification, coordination, reflection, and transformation. At this point, we introduce Third Space theory as a meeting point for recognizing tensions, but also problematize provision of a restrictive definition of a Third Space with a view to maintaining an open approach to theorizing spatiality that retains sufficient flexibility to propose practices that can lead to overcoming otherness. Within this context, we examine dialogical collaborative spaces where individuals share values, meanings and priorities, but also acknowledge Third Spaces as spaces as potential sites for encountering antagonism, conflict and incommensurability: tension-filled messy sites of seemingly insurmountable cultural difference and competing powers. We conclude with implications for theorizing otherness in networked learning practices.
Learning how kinds matter
Authors: O'Shea Clara
Published: October 2024

What does it mean to learn in a network? What does it mean to be a particular kind of learner? To develop and work towards a particular kind of being? Does every instantiation of a network lead to a different form of being? If networks are, as Jones (2016: 486) says “interactive processes that co-constructively shape persons”, then how contingent are these? How much does the social and material elements of the network contribute to the learner’s understanding of their own personhood?This paper is an exploration of Ian Hacking’s work on ‘making up people’ (e.g. Hacking 1986, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2004, 2006a, 2006b). Hacking posits that the possibilities for people are bounded, determined by what is imaginable and articulable, what is named and described. This naming of people, or classification, is part of an iterative, dynamic process in which the names and the named emerge simultaneously and in interaction with each other, changing the “space of possibilities for personhood”. In this paper, I link that concept to notions of ‘becoming’ in networked learning and suggest Hacking provides a useful frame to think about how learners come to know about and enact particular ways of being. I start by briefly summarising Hacking’s key concepts of kinds, dynamic nominalism and the looping effect, and outline Hacking’s framework. I argue that Hacking is offering a useful onto-epistemology for thinking about 'becoming' as part of a sociocultural network of humans, institutions and social processes. I then briefly describe posthumanism and explore how a posthuman and sociomaterial approach can help round out the important missing element in Hacking’s theory – the materials and technologies that are crucial in understanding any learning assemblage. In bringing together these approaches, seemingly inoperable binaries collapse and ‘becoming’ becomes a matter of constant process and persistent re-workings.  This offers productive ways to think about learning as an emergent entanglement of social, the material and the technological processes that are constantly re-working and re-creating what it means to be ‘made up’.